Parker 51: A Work of Art

Gear Factor's Rob Beschizza has been doing a bang-up job transforming Wired's gadget blog into something besides just another clone of Gizmodo or Engadget, largely through his coverage of weird retro gadgets, like his lovingly worded write-up of the ubiquitously elegant Parker 51 fountain pen.

After our paean to Sir Clive Sinclair's C5 electrical vehicle last week, this Friday offers not another ridiculed invention of the 1980s, but a true timeless classic: the venerable, humble, and perfect Parker 51, the best pen ever made.

Mine was a gift from my grandfather, who had received it decades earlier as a retirement token-of-appreciation from British Gas. It was a little ugly, I thought, being cast from what appeared to be olive green bakelite and gold-plated tin. And what possible condition could it be in after years in a drawer?

Filling it with ink and putting nib to paper, however, I found myself laughing: I had never even used a decent fountain pen before, and suddenly I saw the point of such messy, difficult devices. Its line was a creation, not merely an impression; every sweep of the Parker 51's hooded nib results in a tiny work of art.

Despite the fact that I have the handwriting of an elderly double amputee clutching a crayon between his arthritic toes, his latest Technoporn post has done what I thought was almost impossible: chomping at the bit to spend a couple hundred dollars for a pen.

Technoporn: The Parker 51 [Gear Factor]