Parker
Pens and Ephemera

It is difficult to think of Parker Jotter pens as vintage. Oh, sure. They came out in the mid-1950s, but they are still in production today. These 4 pens are a little bit vintage and a little bit modern. The olive colored Jotter has brass threads and a button that has a domed top. The off-white Jotter has brass threads and a stamped inset on the button. The blue and burgundy Jotters have plastic threads and stamped inset button tops. All the stamps are identical with the arrow through a hoop Parker logo. All of the pens seem to work well with new blue or black refills. All of the pens show some wear, with the blue pen showing the most wear. Only the off-white pen's clicker is a little finicky.

Brushed stainless steel Parker pens have been designated "Flighter" models since the 1950s. This modern Parker Sonnet Flighter was made much more recently than that. Yet, this preowned pen maintains classic Parker styling and is a good dependable daily writer. Minimal wear, if any. It has a golden alloy nib that you will find to write a very smooth medium line. This pen uses only Parker converters or cartridges and comes with neither. Click the headline for close-ups. 13.2cm capped.

Parker advanced the efficiency and ease of using fountain pens when it created the Lucky Curve inkfeed. This is an early Parker Lucky Curve button filler from the very early 20th century. Click the headline for close-ups of the pen and nib. Notice the pen still has a slip cap and significant chocolate hazing of the black hard rubber (ebonite). We have not attempted to restore this pen. Notice how the threads of the blind cap by the button are missing. We feel that this rare older pen is likely too fragile to properly disassemble and put back together. Its 14k gold nib is a beautiful number 2 size that writes a very smooth medium line with a little flex. It also appears to have an early inkfeed. The pocket clip is an aftermarket clip made by the Rexall pharmacies. Slender and 14.1cm capped.

Almost perfect but not quite. Check out the beautiful pearl-and-black celluloid on this Canadian Parker Duofold Jr. set. You can see some traces of the brown discoloration that got started in this vintage pen, but it isn't nearly as bad as most of these pens that I've seen. The inside of this cap is so clean, we're not sure the pen was ever used. It has been restored with a new ink sac. No cracks, major blemishes or brassing. Light wear if any. Click the headline to see a close-up of the original 14k gold nib. You can barely see it in the photo but there is a hairline crack just to the right or top of the "B" in the photo and it works its way up to the top bar of the "E" in "Pen." You will write a smooth medium line. Its matching pencil has perfect color but much more wear, and it doesn't work.

Parker Vacumatic pencils sold far less than their fountain pen counterparts, which Parker chalked up to the Great Depression. Nevertheless, Parker didn't stop innovating the Parker Vacumatic line. In 1939 it released the Parker Non-Stop pencil to pair with Vacumatic fountain pens. Unique to the Non-Stop was that it was a cap-activated click pencil! This was not a common feature in that era. Plus, the .9mm leads now fed directly from the spare lead reservoir. As such, these pencils held much more lead and required way less effort to keep writing. Our vintage pencil has a couple of deep scratches, which you can see in the tail cap in the photo. Especially unique is the wide stacked-coins cap band, which has a blank initials' plate. A hardened eraser and spare red leads are included. 13.1mm.

Do you wish your vintage grail pen came with a Japanese extra-fine nib? This 1939 Parker Vacumatic Maxima gets pretty close to Japanese extra-fine with the right paper. It is a beautiful silver pearl design with tolerable barrel clarity with ambering. No cracks, no scratches, no significant wear. It comes with a fresh diaphragm and a clean imprint and top and bottom silver pearl design jewels. There's monotone 14k gold nib. Click the headline for close-ups. Great aluminum speedline filler. Its only flaw seems to be the darkened metal trim around the blind-cap jewel. 13.6cm capped.

Senior-sized Parker Duofolds with a wide cap band, such as this one, don't come along every day. In fact, they might only come along once or twice a lifetime, if you're lucky. We have one such beauty right here, and it has no cracks under the cap band. It is gorgeous with a deep Lucky Curve imprint, too! Fully restored with a new ink sac, its only flaw appears to be a thin sliver of brassing on the cap band. Click the headline for a close-up. This is a permanite model not the red hard rubber. Still, it is a great treat. There's a "Christmas tree" inkfeed and a 14k gold nib. You'll write a very nice medium line. Fairly crisp milling on the end caps, too! 13.9cm capped.

Parker VP meant Very Personal. The revolutionary developments for this pen included an ergonomic grip for the fountain pen and a nib and feed that could be rotated to better accommodate for the grip and getting the nib to write from any angle. These are rarer pens, as they only made VPs for a couple years. It led to the monumental success of the Parker 75. This teal colored vintage pen has a major problem in its barrel. Click the headline for a close-up to see the 1.5cm crack in the barrel where it threads into the section. Basically, the crack is bad and makes the pen unstable to write with...without making the crack worse. This is a shame, as the aerometric filler unit is in great condition. In most VPs, this is the rare part that is whole. Its 14k gold nib writes a very smooth broad line. 13.8cm capped.