Vintage Parker Pencils

Many of my pencils need to get out more. They are far too solitary, spending their time hidden away deep down in some dark cupboard, so recently I bought two cheap plastic display stands and am going to start having my mechanical pencils out more, slowly working my way through the collection.

First out of the cupboard then, five old Parkers. Vintage I suppose, but exactly how old you have to be, to be vintage, is somewhat vague. I guess I'm one of those who thinks 25years for mechanical pencils.

Top to bottom, models

17

Victory

Unknown (now identified as 51 Writefine from aeromatic 1948-57 series)

Classic - in sterling silver Cisele pattern

Jotter

If you happen to know what model "unknown" is, then please do enlighten me.

The tip and visible clutch jaws are the most distinguishing feature.

Parker Insignia

Parker Insignia

The Insignia was one of Parkers top of the line writing instruments, and was produced from 1991 to 2008. Here today for your viewing pleasure I am showing four of them – two ballpoints and two mechanical pencils. Insignia’s carry production date letters so I can say the items shown here span virtually the entire period of production.

Parker Insignia - a superior choice for the office

The Insignia is a fairly long slim pen and the decoration is all about the long lean stripes running down its length.

Some only have the stripes on the top half.

The classic black and gold combination.

The Black Sticks are very happy to have just won gold

Insignia - gone but not forgotten. 
Farewell sad and stripy.

Parker Esprit Mechanical Pencil Review

Parker Esprit Mechanical Pencil Review

So here I am, back again nearly four years on from my last review, and I am effectively picking up where I left off because back when I gave up on this blog, the Parker Esprit was next in line for review.

Parker launched the Esprit back in 2008, and some sites suggest the target market was businesswomen looking for a small relatively minimalistic but colourful writing instrument. 

First thing out of the box, a very nice protective carry case for your Esprit. That certainly does strike me as something suited to a ladies handbag.

Open up and we have the mechanical pencil, or pen. It certainly is a bright colourful object in metallic blue and chrome trim.

The Esprit is a telescoping design, so you carry it retracted and then you extend it to write. Officially to me it is a mini-pencil. The Esprit is though fully functional when retracted, so if you just have to scribble a quick note or you are happy with a short pencil then the lead advances whilst retracted and you can write away.

Retracted

To extend the pencil you simply pull the front section out of the main body. It has a rather satisfying suction sort of feel as you pull the front section out and a definite stop at the end. You then twist the two sections through about a quarter turn to lock them in position.

Extended

I really like the little graphic printed on the barrel showing the lead size and indicating the direction of turn to lock the extension in place.

To retract you simply reverse the process, but that worries me a little. My Esprit mechanical pencil has a rather metal on metal sort of feel and sound during the retraction process and I wonder over time if somehow the barrel is going to get scuffed. I must stress there’s not actual physical sign of that; it’s just a suggestion from the feel and sound of it. If you are a bit heavy handed then when the barrel hits the retracting end stop you can accidently activate the lead advance.

The lead advance mechanism is a standard push top ratchet. 10 clicks will get you 7mm of lead. As usual there is a small eraser under the top cap, and you remove it to access the lead refill chamber. The pocket clip is quite strong.

In the hand the Esprit feels quite light. The grip section does not feel particularly positive and the ringed grooves are certainly a necessary feature.

Well, I am not a businesswoman, and might not be the target market, but I liked the Esprit well enough. It is a lightweight colourful attractive interesting mechanical pencil for carrying around in a purse or bag. Apart from the carry case it’s certainly as unisex as most other mechanical pencils out there. I suspect though that Parker have decided the Esprit is on its way out so availability will decline.

•    Best Points – Interesting telescoping design
•    Not So Good Points – Not pocket safe without the carry case.
•    Price Range – Mid
•    Does this pencil make it into the Top 5? – No

Dimensions – Length 124mm extended and 106mm retracted, diameter 10mm across the grip section. Balance point about 70mm up from the tip when extended.

Three New Mechanical Pencils

If anyone out there is still holding their breath waiting for a new blog post… well here you are.

Whilst I haven’t been blogging for ages, and haven’t made a lot of additions to the collection, I have still been pencilling away, in one form or another. Three mechanical pencils were recently added to the collection, and here’s a little something about them. All three were a gift from a long time pencil friend. They were from the estate of a relative, and he thought I might get some enjoyment from them, which I certainly have. So here we have them.

Pelikan, Parker and Montblanc

Parker Vacumatic Mechanical Pencil

The one that initially attracted my attention was the oldest of them, the Parker Vacumatic pencil. Definitely old school, from the good old days.

The barrel imprint reads “PARKER VACUMATIC REG” and “MADE IN CANADA T.M.” I am no expert on Parkers but a quick bit of internet searching indicates Vacumatics were made from 1933 – 1948, although I believe that is USA production. Presumably Canadian manufacturing would have been similar dates. The exact details of the arrow clip and the central body band can be used to date it more precisely and it seems mine is post 1942. My pencil-friend has a family photo from 1949 showing this pencil. If anyone can date it more precisely then please yell out. The colour is apparently called Silver Pearl, one of the mainstay colours of this classic. I quite like the colour scheme; the pearl sections reflect light and give the pencil an ever changing appearance depending on the angle of view. Lead diameter is 0.9mm and lead advance is a screw mechanism. All exactly as expected for this period.


Trying out the B&W setting on Picasa photo editor. Note the detailing on the arrow pocket clip and the barrel band.

Pull the barrel apart to reveal the eraser, which has seen better days.

The Vacumatic is a nice pencil to write with, although I would prefer a 0.7mm lead version.

Pelikan Celebry Mechanical Pencil

Next we have the Pelikan Celebry.

This thing weighs a ton! It should be the Pelikan Clubby or Pelikan Basher, not Celebry. Some sort of cross between a mechanical pencil and a length of lead piping... handy in a dark-back alley brawl. Despite the colour, to me the weight makes it a "mans" pencil. (Sorry ladies, please don't take offence). One for the man cave downstairs.

Some more internet searching tells me mine is a Pelikan Celebry D565 Mechanical Pencil, Poppy Red with Black Chrome Trims (PEL 906487). Celebry was produced between 1995 and 2007.

0.7mm lead, twist advance mechanism. The top half of the barrel pulls off to reveal eraser and access to the lead storage magazine. The only wording on the pencil is CELEBRY just above the middle band.

Pelikan logo on end cap

A fine mechanical pencil, classic German quality, built to last.

Montblanc Meisterstück Mechanical Pencil

It's finally happened. Dave has a Montblanc. A Montblanc Meisterstück, the timeless classic.

At a current retail of US $415 (USA Montblanc website) this is not something I would ever buy myself, but I am very happy to have received this near new one as a gift.

For the past week I have been Montblancing it, or perhaps Ich Montblance? My trusty Lamy 2000 has been left in the drawer, and my new Meisterstück has been my daily use mechanical pencil.

To start with I have always considered the price of Montblanc to just be ridiculous. I am no stranger to paying one or even two hundred for a luxury brand mechanical pencil, but four hundred? When you are buying high end writing implements you are really buying jewellery, jewellery that just happens to also write, but even jewellery has price limits. The Meisterstück is just a plain black resin body with gold plated trims. Sure, it's a superior quality body, trims and mechanism, but to me there's just no way the price can be justified. If the body was made of exotic materials or uncommon design features then that's some justification for pricing, but the Meisterstück is not. The price simply cannot be justified. Still, Montblanc have been around a very long time and are still going strong, so clearly a lot of people disagree with me.

Having said all of that, a week of Montblancing has tempered my indignation to a degree. Its plain classic styling really is classic. Using it really did begin to give me delusions of grandeur.

The engraved centre band.

You will have to excuse my photography. I just couldn't get the engraving to show clearly.

The famous snow capped mountain.

My Meisterstück is a 0.5mm lead twist advance ratchet mechanism which my friend believes dates from sometime around the 1980's. The Montblanc website has its current description and code as Meisterstück Classique Mechanical Pencil, Ident. Nr. 12746. There is also a 0.7mm version available.

You pull the cap off to use the eraser or refill the lead chamber.

So, there we have it. Three new pencils. I started out placing them in the order Parker, Pelikan, Montblanc but finished up the reverse - Montblanc, Pelikan, Parker.

Once again, thanks to my friend for this most generous gift.

Parker Itala Mechanical Pencil

The Magnificent Seven - Part 6

Parker Itala Mechanical Pencil

by Pencil Paul

The Parker Itala - a wasted opportunity.
The pencil and matching pens were designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro for Parker in 1983, as prototypes. There was an absolute meltdown by Mr Parker Sr himself when he discovered that the pens were designed to be disposable, a disposable Parker... Blasphemy! So the president of the writing instruments group who was developing these items was fired, and the pen versions never went into production, and the pencil is quite a rare item. If you find one for sale buy it. The pencil shown here is by far the lightest in all my pencil reviews, at around 7g in weight. It consists of a very simple set of 4 plastic castings - nose/body, top/clip, plug with eraser, and a cap with a hole in to show the top of eraser, all in textured easy-grip with polished highlights. There is also a tiny metal lead sleeve so its technically a drafting pencil. This must have been a very cheap item to manufacture and assemble, yet it possesses all the grace of its Italian lineage and is a superb shape in the hand. Coupled with the extreme light weight this makes for perfectly tireless writing/drawing. Sporting 0.5mm leads filled from the plug opening and push button lead advance this has to be rated as a superb first design for Giorgetto Giugiaro. Apart from the Parker Itala molded branding on the pencil there is also the very clever graphic device printed in white referencing the original Parker fountain pen arrow clip design. On seeing this one immediately thinks Parker. To sum up, a great design for a whole writing set, ballpoint pen, felt tip, and pencil range abandoned by backward thinking on the part of senior management. This is a design as fresh and strong now as it was in the 1980's. Warranting re-introduction this time around with proper support and encouragement.


Parker Itala Mechanical Pencil

Parker v Turner

With the recent purchase of my Parker Duofold Centennial, I now have two Duofold mechanical pencils. Both of them cost an awful lot of money. Over the past six to twelve months I have bought a few items from a pen turner and I became aware that many of the pen kits available are rather similar to the pen designs of some well known international brands.

The Penn State Industries Executive pencil kit will look rather familiar to anyone who has a Duofold pencil. Having spent a small fortune on a Duofold, I decided that I would check out a PSI Executive mechanical pencil and see how it stacked up against a Duofold, so I contacted my friendly pen-turner and ordered one.

Firstly of course with a custom made item like the Executive you get to choose your pen body material from the hundreds and hundreds of wood and plastic pen blanks available. You also have several choices of finish for the metal trims. I decided to play it safe and chose the classic 24K gold trim with Lava Bright Classic 2 ‘black with white thread’ acrylic body.

Secondly you must talk price with your pen turner. Now Duofold pencils are well into the stratospheric price range, and pen turners charge widely varying amounts, but in my part of the world an Executive is 10 – 20% of the price of a Duofold.

So then without further ado, I present the PSI Executive pencil, black with white thread colour. (All photos are clickable for hi-res)
And along side the Parker Duofold Centennial pencil, lapis blue colour.
You can't see it in the photos, but if you inspect the acrylic bodies closely you will see the Duofold is finished to a much finer level of polishing than my Executive was, but that will vary from turner to turner.

Pencil tips.The Executive is actually a 0.7mm screw mechanism compared to the Duofold being 0.9mm. The refill procedure for the Executive is…well lets just say it’s on the complicated side of town.

The Executive has some annoying play in its mechanism. The lead is free to move in or out a millimetre or so, thus when you first press the lead to the paper it will retract a fraction back up inside the tip. Now personally I find this rather annoying when I’m concentrating on it, but you don’t really notice it in general use. Certainly the folk in my office who have used my Executive or since bought one of their own don’t have any problem with the lead play.

Pocket clips and end caps.Lets take a look under the hood.
Beauty versus something a little more utilitarianSome residue left on the Executive. I don’t imagine Parker would leave that on a Duofold.Different tops on the end caps, with the Duofold having a black resin insert.Back in one of the first photos you will have noticed the little paperclip thingy. The pen turner tossed this paperclip in as a little surprise freebie ‘thank you’ with my pencil. The half-sphere end-piece is from material left over from my pencil body. Apparently with these clips he sometimes drills a hole in the centre of the end-piece and inserts a little something colourful - in my case instead of a semi-precious stone or some colourful glass, he felt a piece of 2mm pencil lead would be an appropriate jewel.

A Parker Duofold pencil is clearly outside of the price range that most people would consider paying for a writing instrument, but for 10-20% of that price a PSI Executive seems to offer a large percentage of the looks. Sure, pencil folk like me will start looking closely and find all sorts of things we think need improving, but the general public don’t give two-hoots about most of that stuff. From across the other side of the desk, a PSI Executive is a mighty fine looking object and most people would be very happy to own it, as am I.

Parker Duofold Centennial Mechanical Pencil

Back in 1988 Parker released their first Duofold since production previously stopped back in the 1940’s. It was released as part of their 100th anniversary, called the Centennial model, and is made in England by Parker UK.

(All photos are clickable for hi-res)

I don’t have a vintage Duofold, but from pictures and other sources it appears the modern Duofold pencil is visually a very close match for the original Parkers.

The barrel is acrylic, and mine is Lapis Blue (or Blue Mosaic or Blue Marble) colour. It is a very nice colour and the acrylic is very bright and shiny, but somehow it doesn’t have the depth of colour or intensity that I expected. I am a little disappointed to say that in my personal opinion old Conway Stewart Nippy pencils and their ilk have a depth and intensity of colour that outshines the Centennial. Now don’t get me wrong, the Centennial is a beautiful thing, it’s just I expected a little more in the colour department.
The presentation case is nice, with velvet flock covering, and notes Parker’s Royal Warrant.


The gold trims are very classy.The mechanism is 0.9mm screw action - the lead is advanced or retracted by winding the gold top round.The eraser and its gold mounting ring are truly a sight to behold.A very beautiful pencil, but you certainly pay a pretty price to own one!