PA3259 Parker 51 Aerometric Whitefriars Glass Desk Set (Medium)

PA3259 Parker 51 Aerometric Whitefriars Glass Desk Set (Medium)

Date: c1960s

Size: Pen length 166mm.

A lustrous India black English Parker 51 desk pen and Parker trumpet with its original and beautiful bright red Whitefriars glass ashtray/paperweight.  The barrel has a gold plated conical ended taper with a standard Parker 51 clutch ring. Both barrel and hood are completely undamaged with no splits, cracks or chips and no noticeable surface scratches either.  The undamaged 14 carat gold hooded nib is in a medium point.  Unscrew the barrel to expose the aerometric filler.  This is brushed stainless steel, and is still in excellent condition.  The original pli-glass ink sac has some internal ink staining as they nearly all do, but is still in perfectly serviceable condition, and likely will still be in another 50 years time.  The black trumpet has a rolled gold magnetic ball.  There is some slight pitting to the glass on one edge, it is hardly noticeable and runs for about an inch, I suppose.  It looks to me like a manufacturing fault - like the glass did not quite fill the mould properly - you can see on the close-up picture below that it is only very minor wear.  The beautiful red Whitefriars glass paperweight base has a lovely bubble grid decoration.  Mounted in the centre is a metal boss that the trumpet ball sits in.  The magnet inside holds it steady at any angle.  Although this is an ashtray ornament, most non-smokers would use this to hold paperclips or small desktop items, or just as a paperweight as it is a very substantial item.  

I have fully serviced this pen.  It writes superbly with the very smooth, wet and medium width line that you would expect of a Parker 51.