Pens on this page are part of my personal collection and are not for sale. If there is a magnifying-glass symbol () next to a pen, click the magnifying glass to view a zoomed version for more detail.

Birth of the Ergonomic Pen

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The year 1929 saw the stock market crash, and it also saw the introduction of Sheaffer’s famous Balance fountain pen. The modern, streamlined Balance was light, with the weight concentrated toward the nib to make the pen smoother and easier to handle. Initially produced with the Lifetime guarantee and White Dot trademark, the design spread throughout Sheaffer’s model range — and, very quickly, through the ranks of cheap imitators.

My oldest Balance isn’t the one I acquired first, and it’s something of a sport — it’s a J 5-30P combo from about 1930. That makes it more than a little longer than the average bear Balance, at 6¹/16" capped and 6³/16" posted. Its nib is a nice medium/fine stub that’s also remarkably smooth. It also has remarkably good color.

In 1930, Sheaffer introduced a new color, Marine Green, as seen here on my superb 1932-34 full-length standard-girth Balance, which has a serial-numbered two-tone medium nib. This pen, a Lifetime model, is 5³/8" capped and 6¹/8" posted.

This is an uncommon Blue 3-25 model made in 1932, the only year for this color. This pen is the thinner “standard” size, and its fine 3-25 nib is very firm. The pen is 5⁷/16" capped and 6³/32" posted.

Sheaffer adoped a more streamlined (“radius”) clip late in 1935 or early in 1936, as you can see on this 5-30 from about 1936. Rose Glow is perhaps the loveliest color Sheaffer used for pens, shot through with silvery streaks that play enchantingly off the variations of the rose hue. At 5⁷/16" capped and 6³/16" posted, this pen is lovely in the hand. Its extra-fine nib is a smooth and very typical Sheaffer firm.

5⁵/8" capped and 6¹⁵/32" posted. Nothing more is needed to tell you that this 1935 Lifetime Balance is a Premier, more commonly known as Oversize. The Jade color isn’t perfect, but it’s very nice, and the firm medium nib is about as good as it gets.

At 5¹/2" capped and 6⁵/16" posted, my second Oversize Balance is actually a little older, from 1932 to 1934. This pen has a very smooth firm fine nib. I don’t collect oversize pens, but a client presented this one to me as a gift and refused compensation of any sort, even a discount on repairs; so, having been handed a lemon (as the saying goes), I decided to make some very sweet lemonade. It’s big, but it ain’t goin’ anywhere any time soon!

Here is another combo, this one a black 5P version from 1935 or 1936. This one is 6³/16" capped and 6½" posted, and its fine Nº 5 Feathertouch nib is lovely.

This little black Balance is the first incarnation of the (in)famous Craftsman, from 1938 or 1939. It has a very pretty broad Nº 33 nib, and it writes, well, need I say more? This pen is 5¹/16" capped and 5²⁹/32" posted.

The next Balance is a Lifetime military-clip model (the Valiant) with a medium two-tone Lifetime nib, from the World War II era. It is 5¹/8" capped and 6" posted. This pen is interesting because it has a feed made of the white plastic Sheaffer experimented with in order to save rubber, which the U.S. government had designated as critical war matériel.

Like the ordinary Balances, military-clip models came in various sizes. The Valiant above is the full-length standard-girth model, and the striated Carmine Vigilant below is the slender version (also a Lifetime pen). At 5³/32" capped and 5³¹/32" posted, it’s effectively the same length as its fatter sibling. This Vacuum-Fil pen illustrates another wartime use of materials; instead of the stainless steel plunger shaft that had been in use before the war, it has a carbon steel shaft that has been sheathed in a nonmetallic coating to protect it against corrosion from ink. I wonder who H. L. Robertson was…

Back in the day, pen companies sometimes provided “loaner” pens for their customers who brought pens into their local stationers’ shops for repair. One such pen is this one, which bears the legend SERVICE PEN LOANED BY A. LA ROCHELLE. It is 5⁷/16" capped and 6¹/16" posted. Its No. 3 nib, as you might expect for a pen destined to be a beater, is as nail-like as they come. The flat-ball humped clip identifies the pen as having been made sometime after 1935 and almost certainly before the end of the Second World War.

Safety Pens Don’t Have to Be Complicated

Design Features

Early “safety” pen designs were based on such features as retractable nibs to keep from leaking in the user’s pocket. One of the more popular models was the Moore’s Non-Leakable Safety Pen, made from 1899 through the mid-1920s. To fill this pen, you use an eyedropper to put ink into the opening that is left when the nib is retracted. My Non-Leakable “Tourist” model has a flexible American Fountain Pen Company nib. Only the barrel is chased. Although it writes better than any other fine-point pen in my collection, I carry this inconvenient pen only infrequently. It’s a small pen, 4⁵/8" capped and 5³/4" posted and the nib extended.

Janesville’s Flagship of the 1930s

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In 1932, Parker test-marketed its stylish new Golden Arrow, with a radical new “sacless” plunger-style filling system and a transparent barrel. The pen was a great success, and Parker began full production in early 1933. But the company quickly changed the pen’s name to Vacuum-Filler and soon theareafter to the more mellifluous (and marketable) Vacumatic. These pens’ striated appearance comes from the way Parker laminated many layers of celluloid; the transparent barrels were achieved by alternating clear layers with colored. The earlier Vacumatics have striped cap and blind-cap jewels to match their body colors.

First-generation Vacumatics, like my Burgundy Pearl Standard from 1934, featured a short blind cap covering a plunger that locked in the depressed position (called the “Lockdown” filler). This pen has a great two-tone fine nib. It’s 5¹/8" capped and 6" posted. This pen shows the startling barrel clarity of the earliest Vacumatics; the colored layers of the barrel were made by mixing the color with clear celluloid rather than with black as in later pens.

Not all Vacumatics are striated. The Junior model sported several other attractive colors such as the burgundy marble shown here on a 1935 Lockdown Junior. This slightly shorter model is 4²⁷/32" capped and 5¹³/16" posted. Its plain gold nib is a very wet medium.

My third Vacumatic is another Lockdown Standard, in the Silver Pearl color with nickel-plated trim. This pen was made in 1938, and its two-tone semiflexible fine nib writes with a subtle line variation. This pen is a trifle shorter than its earlier sibling, at 5¹/16" capped and 6³/16" posted.

Also from 1938 is my Canadian black Junior, with a reticulated Visometer barrel. This pen is the same size as the earlier Junior, and it sports a truly lovely flexible medium nib.

Some Vacumatics don’t say Parker on them. Many major retailers commission products for sale under their house-brand names. Sears, Roebuck & Company sold pens branded Diamond Medal, and Parker made some of them. The pens shown here are Lockdown Vacumatics, but they bear trim reflecting a second-tier status, including Challenger-style clips and plain unjeweled end caps. They also bear the name VAC-FIL, reflecting their Vacumatic filling system. Capped, the first pen is 4¹³/16", and it’s 5³/4" posted.The second pen is larger, at 5⁷/32" capped and 6³/16" posted. This larger pen, at least for the time being, has a Vacumatic nib.

Beginning in 1937, Parker began phasing in a redesigned filler that was extended when at rest; the new design, with a much longer blind cap, was easier to use and was called the Speedline. This variation is illustrated by my Golden Pearl Major, which feature the Star clip that Parker used very briefly around the beginning if 1939 before inaugurating the Blue Diamond. This pen has a great two-tone fine nib. It’s 5⁵/16" capped and 6³/32" posted.

1938 saw Parker introducing a set of longitudinally striated colors, called Shadow Wave, on the Junior model. My 1939 gray Shadow Wave Vac has an extra-fine nib. At 5¹/8" capped and 6¹/16" posted, this pen is unremarkable in size ó but it is a remarkably nice specimen.

In 1942, as World War II saw Americans tighten their belts, Parker restyled the Vacumatic by deleting the blind-cap jewel. When peace returned in 1945, the Vacumatic was getting quite long in the tooth. But Parker needed time to develop a successor, so the trusty Vac hung on for a while longer. This ’46 Golden Pearl Vac is a Major, 5" capped and 5³/4" posted, with a smooth medium nib; this pen’s barrel transparency is remarkable.

Fast and Smooth — the Magnificent “51”

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The Parker “51,” introduced in the United States in 1941, heralded a new age in pen design. With its streamlined shape like a miniature jet fighter airplane, its hooded nib, and its unique ability to use Parker’s new super-fast-drying “51” ink, it rapidly became one of the most popular pens of all time. Until 1948, the “51” used Parker’s proven Vacumatic filling system; in the previous year, Parker had introduced a short model called the Demi, and in 1948 the Demi was the first “51” to be redesigned to use a new Aero-metric filling system. The Aero-metric filler soon became standard across the line and continued in production until the “51” was retired. (A cartridge-filler “51” was marketed briefly; it proved unpopular and was quickly withdrawn.) The “51“ was famous for its exceptionally smooth performance, and even today few pens are smoother than a well-maintained “51.” My Vacumatic-filling “51”s bear the "Blue Diamond" mark, Parker’s answer to the Sheaffer “Lifetime” guarantee of quality.

My first double-jeweled pen was made in 1944. It is Cordovan Brown, with a gold-filled “Feather” (or “Chevron”) cap. This pen is 5½" capped and 6¹/16" posted, and it has a fine nib.

Next is a double-jeweled pen with a medium nib, made in 1945, with an interrupted-line 1/10 16K gold-filled cap. It’s 5¹⁵/32" capped and 6" posted. (Click the thumbnail above for a larger image of the nib and shell.)

At 5⁹/16" capped and 6¹/16" posted, my third “51” is an undated single-jewel Navy Gray model with a restored Lustraloy cap and a custom 0.8-mm stub nib. Navy Gray wasn’t used for standard production of the Vacumatic-filling “51” in the U.S.A.; I acquired a NOS Australian barrel assembly and built this pen on it. The clip on this pen has no Blue Diamond; David Shepherd agrees with me that it must be a 1939/1940 pre-production clip made for beta testing of the “51” in Latin America.

Next is a black Vacumatic model with a stainless steel cap featuring a “Stacked Coin” band, and a fine nib. This cap is the only model that has a chrome-plated Blue Diamond clip; all other Blue Diamond caps have gold-filled clips.

Next is a 1946 Blue Cedar pen with a lined sterling silver cap and a wet medium nib. This is the pen that I always carry with me, my “go to” writer, and I often refer to it as THE  “51”. The pen was originally a single-jewel model, but I prefer double-jeweled pens, so I’ve fitted a replacement blind cap.

In 1947, Parker introduced a new “51”. It wasn’t a Maxima, though; it was the “51” Demi, a shorter pen (only 4²⁷/32" capped and 5³/16" posted). With the same diameter as a standard “51” the Demi might be said to look a little “dumpy”; nevertheless, as my medium-nibbed Cordovan Brown Demi will testify, it’s a ”51” from one end to the other.

In 1948, only one year after débuting the “51” Demi, Parker redesigned it completely, introducing the first Aero-metric filler and wrapping it in a new pen that was initially called the Demi but soon took a new name, the Parker “51” Slender. This model isn’t dumpy; with slightly less girth than the standard ”51”, it retains that pen’s elegant proportions. Falling between the Vacumatic-filling Demi and the standard pen in size, it is 5¹/16" capped and 5¹⁹/32" posted. My 1949 Teal Demi has a nice smooth extra-fine nib.

My earliest dated Aero-metric “51” (fourth quarter 1948) features the uncommon (and very difficult to photograph) Plum color. It has a very smooth wet medium nib, and it measures 5½" capped and 5¹⁵/16" posted.

My 1949 “Flighter”, with barrel and cap of stainless steel, also has a medium nib. It is 5⁹/16" capped and 6¹/16" posted.

Parker made demonstrator versions of both the Vacumatic and the Aero-metric “51” models. My Aero-metric demonstrator was made in about 1953. At 5⁷/16" capped and 5¹⁵/16" posted, it”s perhaps a tad on the shortish side, but that doesn’t stop its fine nib from writing very nicely indeed.

Next is an undated Burgundy pen, 5½" capped and 6" posted with a Lustraloy cap and a reground needlepoint (XXXF) nib.

The last hurrah for the “51” came in about 1969, when Parker introduced the Mark III, a “modernized” version that was less expensive to manufacture but shows the cutting of corners in such features as its jewel-less cap. My Mark III, in Rage Red, has a custom-tuned fine nib and is 5⁹/32" capped and 5¹¹/16" posted.

© 2008 Richard F. Binder

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