Unbranded Parker 51 Style Fountain Pen With Morison Nib c. 1952-1955

by Jim Mamoulides, April 25, 2025

Unbranded Parker 51 style fountain pen with Morison nib c. 1952-1955

Back to school!

This is one of the many 1950s Japanese pens made to look like the immensely popular Parker 51 Aerometric fountain pen. Some Japanese manufacturers essentially copied the Parker 51, while others made pens with similar visual cues such as selective or modified use of the hooded nib, the arrow clip, and the cap and barrel shape. Many of these “homage” pens are found with open nibs and are made of different materials than Parker used. This 5 3/8 inch long squeeze filling pen would fall into that latter category.

Parker certainly never made any translucent pink 51s, nor did they make all plastic ones. They also did not etch or engrave the plastic parts. The maker of this pen is unknown, but they put some effort into making an interesting pen for their prospective buyers, probably school kids. The clip and squeeze filler are direct knockoffs of the Parker 51 Aerometric. The nib is a conventional stainless steel open type. The elaborate lacy design on the cap and barrel may be etched rather than engraved as it’s not very deep. I doubt it’s hand engraved. Seeing the clear parts, especially the clear grip section would signal to collectors today that this may be a demonstrator pen.

Unbranded Parker 51 style fountain pen with Morison nib c. 1952-1955

A survey of 1950s Japanese pens will reveal many examples of clear and translucent plastic fountain pens in a range of colors, including clear plastic, blue, red, and pink, and probably more. Some will have painted designs and some will be etched or engraved, like this example. Pens may have painted caps and barrels that range from a simple free style that looks like only a small amount of work was done on the decoration to moderately elaborate designs, but not approaching the detail of Maki-E. The etched or engraved designs can be quite elaborate and may be done by a machine. Many, if not most examples that I have seen are lower end models, and most of those are from now unknown pen makers. That so many of these clear and translucent pens appear to be inexpensively made makes me think they were intended to appeal to students and were not “demonstrators” as one might think about them today.

Japanese pens from that period usually have maker’s marks stamped on the clip, nib, and / or the barrel. The nib alone may not be a good identifier of the maker as it could be exchanged by one of the many pen shops in Japan in the 1950s. If the nib does not match the other marks on the pen, unless it is a generic type, it may not be original.

Unbranded Parker 51 style fountain pen with Morison nib c. 1952-1955

In this case the stainless steel nib is made by Morison, and the company, according to Fountain Pens of Japan, was one of the large volume Japanese pen manufacturers during the 1950s, focused on the lower price market and school pens. The nib is stamped GOOD ARTICLE over MORISON (in an old English font) over ETERNAL over -< 4 >- over PEN. The lack of JIS marks dates the nib earlier than 1953. It may not be an indication of the date of the rest of the pen, as designs like this pen were made well into the 1950s. It also does not confirm the pen was made by Morison, as the company was in the habit of stamping their name on the clips and barrels as well as the nib. It’s probably made by a smaller shop that made generic inexpensive pens with no branding.

The Japan Industrial Standard (JIS) marking for fountain pen nibs was instituted in 1951 and gold nibs intended for export were required to have the JIS mark beginning in 1952. Gold nibs intended for domestic sale were required to have the JIS mark in 1953. Nibs are stamped with the JIS mark and a four digit number indicating the maker.

Unbranded Parker 51 style fountain pen with Morison nib c. 1952-1955

It’s a squeeze filling pen with a metal shroud and a cut out for the press bar. It operates by dipping the nib in ink and squeezing the press bar several times to fill the pen. Morison pens made in the 1950s would have a different filling unit that has a bulb on the end that would be squeezed to fill the pen. Later Morison pens with the type of filling system shown here would have the metal shroud stamped with the Morison name.

There’s no performance section as this pen was left uninked.

Regardless of who made it, clear and translucent Japanese pens from the 1950s generally are not expensive to aquire. Because so many of them were school pens, they may not be in very good condition, so finding unused examples with paper price bands or stickers is a bonus. Those will be higher priced. A fun corner of the Japanese pen story to collect!

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References

“Collecting Japanese Pens” by Stan Klemanowicz, The Pennant, Winter 2006, published by the Pen Collectors of America

Fountain Pens of Japan by Andreas Lambrou and Masamichi Sunami, © 2012 Andreas Lambrou Publishers, Epping, Essex, United Kingdom, pages 143-147