Parker 51
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The Parker 51, introduced in 1941, may well be the most famous fountain pen ever made. Parker’s period advertising called it “The World’s Most Wanted Pen”, which was no mere puffery as the pen remained on near-constant backorder for the first several years of its life. The pen was developed for use with Parker's revolutionary quick dry ink, Quink, by using "Pontalite" in the manufacture of it's barrel and cap (up to then most pens used pyralin which was prone to corrosion from the high alkaline levels and isopropyl alcohol found in this ink. With various refinements, the pen stayed in production until the 1970’s, and a limited edition was reissued in 2002.
The 51 was revolutionary at the time, with its hooded, tubular nib and multi-finned collector, all designed to combat the most common problems with fountain pens—ink drying on the nib when the pen was left uncapped and irregular flow of ink to the nib. The pen's design was so robust and practical that pens over fifty years old found in the “back of a drawer” can be filled with ink and used immediately, unlike most of the 51’s contemporaries.
Resembling the sleek fuselage of a fighter plane, the pen’s resemblance in profile to the P-51 Mustang had no bearing on its name: the 51 was so named because development was completed in Parker's 51st year and because numbers translate the same in any language. The U.S. design patent for the Parker 51 is 116,097.