[Music]
thank you [Music]
hello there welcome to my channel my name is Doug and I'm back with another Penn Resurrection Sunday
video and today's Resurrection is this 1964. Parker 45 flighter the Parker 45 is the longest
produced model of Parker Pen in its history they made them for an astounding 46 years this one
was made in England and when I bought it at an antique dealer it looked like it had been in a
junk drawer since the 1970s see how I made this flighter fly again right now [Music] [Applause]
today's fountain pen Resurrection is a 1964 Parker 45 flighter and what I'd like to do
today is look at some of the history of this pen show some before restoration photos talk about the
restoration process show some size comparisons of some measurements and then provide a writing
sample here is what the pen looked like when I found it at a local antique shop we had a lot of
Parkers from this store and this is another Parker 45 and it looks like a similar to a flighter model
but that looks like a gold nib and it has no cartridge with it a little black Tassie made
in England this one so we'll see how that cleans up and whether it writes or not that is a Parker
45 and you can see the pen was looking pretty grimy and beat up when I first got it this is an
interesting version of the Parker 45. it was not only made in England but this particular version
was also the first upscale 45 Parker made and I've got it in a period appropriate case and I'm using
my white gloves because this is also a fingerprint magnet in 1958 Parker Pen designer Don Doman who
also designed the Parker 61 VP 75 T1 and liquid lead developed the pen after the company bought
the ever sharp Pen Company and used the eversharp 10 000 cartridge pen as the model for the Parker
45. Parker wanted a new pen model that would tap the student pen market and compete with Schaefer
for the low end utility fountain pens the new model was named 45 in direct reference to the
colt 45 Peacemaker revolver that was a staple of the late 50s and early 60s popular culture
with such TV shows as Have Gun Will Travel gun smoke and Bonanza the pen used the new
ink cartridge technology obtained from eversharp where an ink cartridge can be dropped into the pen
as easily as loading your gun the pen also had an available piston converter so customers could use
bottled ink and that filling system developed by Parker in the late 50s continues to be the most
popular fountain pen filling system used today the Innovations didn't stop with the filling
system either the semi-hooded nib was Simplicity itself just unscrew the nib unit and replace
it with one of your choice and they have lots of choices 39 in fact from A Fine oblique italic left
foot 30 degree to a fine reverse oblique italic right foot and everything in between Parker soon
realized they had a hit on their hands and added more upscale finishes to the Parker 45 line and
that's where this 1964 flighter model comes in the website pen collect has this marvelous timeline
chart of the development of the Parker 45 flighter series over the years I can't find any information
to cite the website properly but I'll include the link in the description it's really worth a look
according to the Chart this stainless steel flyer with the black Tassie arrived in 1964 and then is
followed the next year by this Parker 45 Insignia gold-filled model with the black Tassie towards
the late 70s and early 80s Parker added numerous metal finishes in patterns called harlequin
Parker continued making the Parker 45 until 2006 when production stopped an incredible 46-year run
so there are literally thousands and thousands of Parker 45s floating around out there this
makes them affordable and collectible but not necessarily an investment the great thing
about the 45 is they're so well balanced and such beautiful writers they actually compete
and surpass some Modern fountain pens occurs to research of eBay just now yielded this Parker 45
brushed stainless steel pen for around six bucks U.S and I now have four of them this one from the
1970s with a gold filled cap and a gray body a Parker 45 classic with a black body and luster
Loy steel cap and of course this 1967 gold filled Insignia and now this 1964 Parker flighter here
are some photos of what the pen looked like before restoration compared with what it looks like now
the 45 is easy to disassemble and clean the most taxing part of this restoration was getting the
very dull and scuffed stainless steel cap and body shining like new again I used a lot of this
Auto saw metal polished liquid which is a product equivalent to semichrome the nib unit the nib and
feed came off very easily and I polished the 14 karat gold nib with my Jeweler's cloth and soaked
the section feed and nib collar in pen flush in my Ultrasonic Cleaner overall the 45 is a
slender pen that tapers at both ends from the top we see a concave top Tassie that holds the Parker
Aero clip in place the clip is very springy and usable and is one of the most recognizable
pen Clips in the world the stainless steel cap tapers up to the almost seamless transition to
the barrel at the end of the cap there are two Engravings Parker on the front and the Parker
logo and made in England on the back there are no date codes the barrel tapers down its length
to the black plastic capacity at the end which has a matching concave divot the barrel unscrews
and the pen will take Parker cartridges long or short or a Parker converter in this case
I've got a pen BBS converter in it because it uses the exact same bore size as the Parker
and you can see that Barrel is engraved with HH and S limited some kind of a company name
the cap slips off to reveal the long tapering section of black plastic and the semi-hooded 14
karat gold nib and black plastic feed all the information on these gold nibs is stamped into
the nib which is hidden by the black plastic Hood so here's a photo of the stamping on this
nib it says Parker 14k 585 for the gold content and made in England the back part of the collar
is stamped with an X if you can see it there there's quite a bit of scratching but there's
an X stamped into the back of the nib which is the nib grade using Parker's 39 different codes
if there's no marking on it it is a fine nib this one is marked with an X so it's an extra fine the
inside of the cap shows the clutch mechanism as well as a cap liner the cap posts deeply and
securely and makes for one of the most balanced and comfortable writing experiences I've ever
had the Parker 45 is simply perfection in pen design look how perfectly that cap posts the
non-flighter version of the 45 is slightly shorter and better balanced unposted the pen is still very
nicely balanced in the hand and that long section allows for multiple grips this particular section
has some shrinkage to it you can just see some variation in it like my steel version
these sections tended to shrink over time and the stainless steel flater is even more of a
fingerprint magnet than the gold filled Insignia now let's look at some size comparisons and here
is the 1964 Parker 45 flighter with a 1970s Parker 45 the gold filled cap in 1943 Parker 51
vacuumatic in 1965 Parker 61 and a new jinhao 85 the jinhao 85 is a clone of the new Parker 51 and
in my opinion both the pens are failures now let's look at them posted and here they are posted and
all of The Parkers Show how brilliantly they post I don't know why this is so difficult for other
pen companies but even Parker here represented by the almost identical jinhao 85 even Parker
doesn't seem to be able to recreate the excellent posting they themselves perfected and before you
complain that jinhao is copying Parker jinhao actually makes the steel knit version of this
new Parker 51 for Parker now let's look at them unposted and here they are unposted and yes the a
section on the jinhao 85 is distorted you can just see the Distortion there is because I boiled it
I was trying to get that hood off of there to change that nib but jinhao in an unusual
move actually epoxied that hood on there so it's impossible to remove doesn't matter if
the pen is awful anyway now let's look at the measurements I'll be back with a writing sample
[Music]
and we're back with the writing portion
of the review this is Claire Fontaine 90 GSM paper and this
you notice I ditched the gloves you can't hold on to this pen with white gloves on this is the 19
64
Parker
45 .
and it has a an extra fine 14 karat gold nib
and let's check the wetness it's nicely wet and surprisingly smooth for an extra fine
nib and on camera this is the first time I've had ink in this pen and written with the nib
so I'm delighted with how it came out otherwise you wouldn't have seen this video as I would have
worked on the nib for a while and see if I can get it writing but it's writing nicely right now and
sorry writing is a right brain process you can't talk while writing and I'm very surprised
at how much I like this extra fine nib I'm not an extra fine fan by any stretch but those of
you that like extra fine nibs will love this one unfortunately you can't have it because it's mine
oh she's mine what's that basil and the ink
is pen BBs
number 392
black bread
it's a nice charcoaly kind of dark gray and here's this pen BBS ink on some tomoe River paper
it is a very flat no Sheen dark gray and for some line variation
well there's a little to be had here and that nib is fairly bouncy
it's got a little bit of flex to it this is very pleasant I'm very surprised when I saw that x on
the back I thought oh dear it's an extra fine I'm not going to like it I even thought about how am
I going to replace that nib with something broader but this is very nice and the lime this that makes
according to my Richard Bender chart
is between yeah it's around a point
four millimeter line which lines up with it being a western
extra fine as advertised or a Japanese
fine and for our quote
and for some reverse writing
well that's working too it's a lot scratchier of course
a lot drier but very very fine that goes down to a triple x f and some people ask why do you
do the reverse writing Sketchers like to be able to have some variety you are right with
this line and then you turn it over and you get a much thinner line to do cross hatching with or
detail work with and also because it makes the pen much drier if the nib will reverse right you can
flip it over and write on cheaper copy or paper without it Feathering and for some quick writing
foreign
so my thoughts on this 1964 Parker 45 flighter and the restoration of the pen
it didn't require much restoration and these Parker 45s even the least expensive Parker 45s
are really really easy to disassemble you just unscrew the nib unit just like that
pull the little collar back and the nib comes off it's really really easy to do
and so you get to clean all those parts out rinse out the section and screw the whole thing back
together again just like that really very very simple to do and they're inexpensive uncomplicated
they take Parker cartridges Parker converters and Pen BBS converters
so if you want writable collectible pens you can buy these in bunches
very inexpensively and they are everyday writers and what's really pleased me about this particular
pen is that the nib ended up being so wonderful a writer even at the very very needlepoint kind of
size it's the first extra fine nib that I've ever written with that I've actually enjoyed
of course the pen is a bit of a fingerprint magnet and for people with OCD OCD like me
I'm obsessive compulsive one two three four one two three four that can be a bit of a
Bugaboo but just carry a Polish cloth with you and you'll be fine [Laughter]
what the hell is wrong with you so all in all a very enjoyable pen resurrection and there you
have it if you like this video please like And subscribe and don't forget to ring that Bell to
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for watching [Music] and that's all she wrote
[Music] [Applause]