Product Description
Type Fountain pen with unique filling system
Product Name Parker 61, Mark II
Manufacturer and Year Parker -- USA -- 1959-62
Length 5-1/2"
Filling System Capillary filling system which is unique to this model. See further details below.
Color Beautiful "Vista Blue" colored body with "Rainbow" cap of nickel and silver arching "rainbow" swirls.
Nib EXTRA FINE 14k nib is smooth, with good tipping material. Veyr smooth.
Condition Very nice condition. There's some wear evident on the rainbow cap, many small dots of pitting (see photos) focused around the arching lines which give it its name. The barrel has some light scratches on it, along with some handwear, but still looks quite beautiful and has no cracks. Just one tiny scratch in the teflon coating of the filling system. There's a rough area o the right side of the nib that is a bit stained.
We cleaned and tested the filling system, and got good ink flow. You'll need to be patient when you fill it the first time, as it takes a few minutes for the capillary system to draw in enough ink to get started the first time.
A word or two about the Parker 61 Capillary Filling System. If you are not familiar with this unique design, you should read this.
Here is how you fill a Parker 61, and an insight into how the pen actually works. Unscrew the barrel and stick the back end of the pen (aka the capillary cell) into a bottle of ink. Wait a few minutes (probably more like a half hour when you first start one of these older used ones), and let the ink wick up into the capillary cell. The cell contains a sheet of perforated plastic that has been given a 3-D pattern resembling tire tread, and rolled up. The perforations allow ink to seep between the rolled-up layers, and the tread pattern maintains space between the layers. In the middle of this tube, which runs the entire length of the capillary cell, is the feed. To keep things clean, the capillary cell has on a coating of teflonon the outside that is intended to shed ink as the user withdraws the pen from the ink bottle, leaving very little ink to be wiped off. The end of the barrel contains a spring-loaded thingey which covers the open end of the capillary tube, but still allows it to vent.