There are very few pens that do not meet with my approval. It must be said that there has been the odd exception and only a few weeks ago I hurled a cheap Chinese pen into the waste-basket in a fit of frustration. That said almost every pen can be made to function well with some TLC, and there is a special satisfaction in making an old Platignum or Queensway a reliable and pleasant writer.
But there are times that I want quality and ease of repair. That means the big-name manufacturers – Onoto, Swan, Wahl-Eversharp, Waterman, Sheaffer and, above all in this respect, Parker. I bought a Parker Duofold Streamline Junior the other day. That’s a pen approaching 90 years old. I popped a new sac in, admiring Parker’s hanging pressure bar in the process, gave it a rub with a lint-free cloth and there it was – a 90-year-old brand new pen. No nib adjustment was needed. I filled it with Parker black Quink and it wrote perfectly immediately.
The nib is a European fine, I would say, and I like it very much. I like writing with any of the Duofolds, American, Canadian or British. This Junior fits my small hand very well and I like its chunkiness.
From an aesthetic viewpoint, the Duofold’s shape and size, whether Standard, Senior or Junior seems just right and the Streamline’s gentle taper and flat ends work perfectly for me. You can recognise a Duofold across a room. The cap bands stand slightly proud but have retained their plating. There is a very slight loss on the ball end of the clip. Not bad for an old pen!
(Excuse photos. Low light!)
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What a lovely little pen. I’ve yet to meet a Parker (or Waterman) nib I didn’t like.
Very satisfying nibs!
that’s a nice looking vintage pen Deborah – showing my ignorance here, but what is the relevance of that long number on the nib?
Oldish f.p. nibs can be a tad hit and miss as to writing abilities – some I acquire from ebay are worse than useless , others are good – Parker nibs in general are fairly good, perhaps they used a bigger blob of iridium or whatever. Have to say that my experience of older Waterman nibs is not so glowing, though having said that I bought a 0554 (smooth g.f. from late 1920s) from an antiques market early one morning, and the nib is quite luxurious and smooth – but people’s experiences in everything differs. Suspect modern Watermans are much better.
Perhaps someone will come in and tell us what that big number is about. Afraid I don’t know. I think Parker nibs, like the bigger Mentmores, have quite thick gold in the nibs and are less likely to be knocked about. Of course many old pens need nib work. It’s what takes most time in a repair, I find, but very satisfying when you get it right.
I couldn’t really comment on modern Waterman nibs – they rarely come my way.
I’ve now looked in the ‘Duofold’ book at the several pages devoted to nibs, and have to say I’m not really any the wiser, though nibs stamped with such numbers look to have been a feature of the ’30s, and occurred prior to the factory date stamping nibs. It’s just possible that such numbers indicated various design changes in the Duofold range of pens, and may in fact not refer to any aspect of the nib itself.
Let’s see if Peter has the answer 🙂