he Parker "41" is a very attractive and rather rare pen that for some reason has failed to attract the eye of the main collector community. It has all the features of the late style Parker "21" and some parts are in fact interchangeable. It is an aerometric filler with an octanium (eight metal alloy) nib, a steel cap and a black clip screw, and it was offered as yet another cheaper alternative to the famed Parker "51".

It was introduced in 1950 and was positioned in a price range between the rather popular school pen the Parker "21" and the much more expensive Parker "51". In the beginning of the 1950's a standard Parker "51" cost $15 and a Parker "21" $5.75, so the Parker "41" probably cost around $10.

The Parker "41" came in bright colours of pink and light turquoise, and was intended to win the attraction of the the ladies. There had been complaints regarding the conservative colours of the "51'", but since the Parker "51" was so terrifically hyped, it turned out that few chose the Parker "41" anyway, in spite of the colouring and the lower pricing. The idea of more colorful pens was however later adopted in the Parker "21" and Parker "45" lines. Some sources claim that the the Parker 41 was replaced by the 21 Super, but this was of course not launched until 1956, some five years later.

t seemed that women felt more comfortable with the smaller version of the Parker "51" – the Demi, which was introduced only a couple of years earlier, also aimed at the female population. One reason for this was that The Parker "41" was made out of a more brittle plastic and could often not withstand the hard life inside womens purses, together with keys, compacts, coins and steel hair brushes. So, within a year the Parker "41" was discontinued. It was replaced by the cheaper version of Parker "51" – the Special, a "real" Parker "51", which was introduced later the same year. But not before Parker realized that the Parker "41" handled ink better than the old Parker "21" style, which, among other things had a larger breather hole. So when the Parker "41" was discontinued in 1951 the complete Parker "21" line was also redesigned, becoming in fact identical in most aspects to the Parker "41", what differed was:

• The design of the clip, the clip of the Parker "41" was of the Parker "51" style.
• The imprint on the cap
• The imprint on the filler mechanism (The Parker "41" are imprinted as such, the Parker "21's" are not)

he Parker "41" originally came in the four standard colours of brown, black, pink and turquoise, but they seem to exist in a wide range of colours. Since the some parts are interchangable it is quite probable that Parker used old 41 stock and fitted to 21 filling mechanisms, and vice versa, leaving both Parker "21's" and Parker "41's" in rare colours. A very rare and beautiful Parker "21" was offered in 1950 with a white enamel cap with a gold pattern that could be described as "fishscale". In an effort to boost the sales Parker fitted these caps to the Parker "41" and marketed them as the Parker Debutante. This pen had nothing, save size, in common with the old Vacumatic Debutantes. But even this seemed belated since the Parker "41" was phased out in 1951. Some sources claim that they were in production well into the sixties. They may have been produced in Canada or in Europe, but i have still to see evidence of this.

  A Parker Debutante (41) with the fishscale cap. Note the Parker "21" clip.