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.

The Miracle of Flight(ers)

Design Features

The G. S. Parker Pen Company invented the brushed stainless steel Flighter, introducing the design in late 1949 with the fabulous “51” Flighter. Most Parker pens since then have appeared in Flighter versions. In early 2007 I acquired a handful of assorted Flighters, and instead of scattering them hither and yon I’ve grouped them here for symmetry.

First of the bunch is the Parker 25, a pen that really didn’t appear in a non-Flighter version. Manufactured in England and introduced in 1975, the steel-nibbed 25 is a “cheap” pen, but it’s remarkably reliable and robust, and it made a superb school pen for countless young Britishers. The 25 is 5⁷/32" long capped and 5¹⁹/32" posted. Parker made 25s with plastics in several colors, but the black that my pen bears is the color most commonly associated with the Flighter mystique.

Introduced in 1982, the Parker Arrow was a sleek all-metal pen that came in lacquered and Flighter versions. There were two Arrow Flighters: the “ordinary” one with chrome furniture and a steel nib, and the Flighter Deluxe, with gold-plated furniture and a gold nib. At 5⁷/32" long capped and varying around 5¹³/16" posted, the Arrow is virtually the same size as the 25, but it’s a lot more pen. The third pen shown here is a prototype with a brushed finish on the clip and an unusually coarse brushed finish running lengthwise on the body (in the manner of the T-1) instead of transversely around the pen.

In 1988, Parker discontinued the Arrow, but only one year later the 95 appeared in the catalog. The 95 uses the very same section assembly as the Arrow, and in fact it’s an Arrow with slightly better body construction and a revised clip design. My 95 Flighter Deluxe measures 5⁷/32" long capped and 5²⁵/32" posted.

The Parker 15, a relatively small pen at 4³¹/32" long capped and 5⁷/16" posted, appeared in about 1962 and is perhaps better known as the Jotter Fountain Pen. (Some sources refer to it as the 45 II, but it is really not related to the 45.) It’s very basic, with a steel nib, but that doesn’t make it a bad pen. Mine writes quite nicely.

Sale of the Century

Profile

In 1939, Waterman introduced an important new model, proclaiming that the new pen was made of “one of the most amazing materials ever to come out of a test tube.” With a huge nib and a bullet-ended ribbed barrel and cap, and available in black or “jewel-like” transparent red, blue, or green, Waterman’s Hundred Year Pen was dramatic in appearance, unlike any other pens then on the market. To top it off, the pen was guaranteed for a century. The design changed slightly in 1940 and again in 1941, and then came war. There was a slight change in 1942, and in 1943 the final version appeared. From its beginning, the Hundred Year Pen had been fitted with a military clip; whether that design was in anticipation of the coming hostilities or merely serendipitous, it gave Waterman a leg up in fitting its other models with the same clip, and the company’s pens sold as well as could be expected under the restrictions of wartime production.

My first Hundred Year Pen is 5¹/8" long capped and 6⁷/32" posted, and it has an amazingly sweet extra-fine flexible nib. This pen was made sometime from 1943 to 1946.

Next is a 1941 Hundred Year Pen, in a deep Burgundy color with a clear amber barrel end. This pen is 5¹/4" long capped and 6¹/16" posted. The pen’s RIGID nib lives up to its billing; you could nail a house together with it if it didn’t write so nicely.

I seem to be going backward in time. My third Hundred Year Pen is from 1940 and is made of transparent red Lucite. Its 5⁵/32" capped length (6³/16" posted) seems almost to fit my hand like a glove, and the extremely fine flex nib is an absolute delight. Its matching pencil is 5³/32" long.

The Parker “51” did not start the trend to trimmer pens with metal caps and smoother lines, but it provided a good incentive for the competition to keep up. Waterman joined the fray with an elegant metal-capped Hundred Year Pen bearing the “Stars and Stripes” cap engraving that also appeared in 1945 on the Taperite Stateleigh. My “Stateleigh” Hundred Year Pen is 5¹¹/32" capped and 6³/8" posted, and it has a smooth extra-fine semiflexible nib. To keep the cap as trim as possible, Waterman followed Sheaffer’s lead in reducing the diameter of the barrel where the cap fits over it but didn’t move the threads to the end of the section as Sheaffer did.

Waterman announced the Hundred Year Pen just in time for the Christmas season in 1939. That makes this pen a first-year model, but whether it was made in 1939 or ’40 is anyone’s guess. I like it. It’s 5¹³/32" capped and 6⁹/32" posted, and it is fitted with yet another gorgeous flex nib, although neither so flexible nor so fine as the one on that great 1943 pen up there.

I’ve finally completed the timeline with this blue 1942 Ladies’ Hundred Year Pen with a very nice fine flex nib. At 4²¹/32" capped and 5¹⁷/32" posted, this is definitely a small pen. But you know, although it's a ladies’ pen, I could see some gentleman using it as a really elegant vest-pocket writer. I ain’t no gentleman, so it’ll have to live in my Piquadro.

After the U.S. Federal Trade Commission handed down a ruling that placed serious restrictions on long-term warranties without full disclosure, Waterman discontinued the Hundred Year Pen — but in name only. The design continued into the latter half of the Forties under a new name, Emblem Pen. My brown Emblem Pen is 5⁷/32" capped and 6¹/8" posted, the Standard size. It’s fitted with another of Waterman’s lovely fiexies.

The Gregg Company, as owner of the U.S.A.’s de-facto shorthand method, marketed its product aggressively, opening schools, designing and licensing steno pads, and licensing pen makers to produce branded pens designed specifically for Gregg shorthand, which uses a very firm fine nib. One of the prominent manufacturers of Gregg pens was Sheaffer. My Sheaffer Gregg pen, with an enameled Gregg medallion set into the cap crown, was produced in the 1930s. It is made of black Radite and fitted with a Gregg-imprinted firm fine nib. Gregg pens tended to be rather slender and of about average length (not the typical shorter Ladies’ size); this one is 5¹/32" long capped and 6⁹/32" posted.

Need a Pencil? Unpost Your Pen!

Design Features

Schnell’s Penselpen, conceived by industry veteran Julius Schnell and introduced in 1929, is generally conceded to be the original fountain pen/pencil combination (combo). It’s rare and desirable, and the airplane-shaped clip makes it tremendously charming visually. The filler uses a thumbnail-actuated slider to force the pressure bar into the sac; its lever-like appearance makes it prone to destruction by people who try to lift it like a lever because they do not know how it’s supposed to work. My Penselpen is in superb condition, and at 5¹⁵/16" long capped and 6¹/32" posted it’s remarkably good in the hand. It’s a real pity that the Penselpen came to fruition in the disastrous year of 1929. It almost bankrupted Schnell.

© 2008 Richard F. Binder

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