Product Description
Type Fountain pen with unique filling system
Product Name Parker 61, Mark II
Manufacturer and Year Parker -- USA -- 1959-62
Length 5-3/8"
Filling System The fountain pen has the capillary filling system which is unique to this model. See further details below.
Color Brushed stainless steel cap. The body is grey. Pearlescent jewels on the cap and the end of the barrel. The grey color has discolored to just a little more brown where the sun can touch it (where the cap does not cover).
Nib MEDIUM, 14k nib is in great condition with good tipping material. It's quite smooth. These Parker 61 mediums are really smooth, but maybe closer to medium-fine when compared to modern nibs.
Condition Excellent condition. No dings or dents on the cap, just very light wear. (The smudge you see on the cap band in the photos was a bit of left-over pen polish.) The teflon cell has some small scratches on it. One thing you have to check carefully for is cracks in these Parker 61s, and we could find none. The spring-loaded valve in the end of the barrel is nice and spring-y. The arrow inset in the section is perfect. We cleaned and tested the filling system, and got good ink flow. You'll need to be patient when you fill it the first time, as it takes a few minutes for the capillary system to draw in enough ink to get started the first time.
A word or two about the Parker 61 Capillary Filling System. If you are not familiar with this unique design, you should read this.
Here is how you fill a Parker 61, and an insight into how the pen actually works. Unscrew the barrel and stick the back end of the pen (aka the capillary cell) into a bottle of ink. Wait a few minutes (probably more like a half hour when you first start one of these older used ones), and let the ink wick up into the capillary cell. The cell contains a sheet of perforated plastic that has been given a 3-D pattern resembling tire tread, and rolled up. The perforations allow ink to seep between the rolled-up layers, and the tread pattern maintains space between the layers. In the middle of this tube, which runs the entire length of the capillary cell, is the feed. To keep things clean, the capillary cell has on a coating of teflonon the outside that is intended to shed ink as the user withdraws the pen from the ink bottle, leaving very little ink to be wiped off. The end of the barrel contains a spring-loaded thingey which covers the open end of the capillary tube, but still allows it to vent.
