Left Hook Pens

There are many Chinese Parker 51 clone pens available on online shopping platforms such as Amazon, Ali Express, EBay, and Etsy, and some of them are better than others. Wing Sung has the 601 with a hooded nib, but they also have the 601a with a Sheaffer-like stainless steel conical nib. I needed to try this pen so I ordered one, and here are my thoughts.

The Wing Sung 601a has the brushed aluminum cap, arrow clip, and cigar shaped body that we’re all familiar with, and a few surprises. The cap is a slip cap that feels very bad to cap. Uncapping is also bad, and I’m worried that I’m going to splatter ink everywhere (that somehow hasn’t happened yet!). Ink has found its way into the lower part of the cap though and gets on the barrel. Capping feels like grinding metal on sandpaper, and the little spring shims (I think that’s what they’re called?) inside the cap are heavily abraded. I looked online to see if other people had complained about the 601a cap and I didn’t find anything, so maybe I got a lemon.

If you look closely at the body of the 601a, you’ll see that it has a blind cap. Taking off the blind cap reveals a pump / spring-loaded piston, which is something that the Jinhao 601 doesn’t have. The over $100 Parker 51 reissue isn’t even a piston filler. There’s an ink window as well that’s striped and does its job. Wing Sung even sends a little slide converter filled with silicone grease and a replacement plastic piece that friction fits the piston to the pen body.

The cone nib is very stiff but writes well. I filled this pen with Pilot Iroshizuku Syo-ro, which is a good color match for the dark teal body. This nib writes wet, and it’s a pleasant experience. This nib also reverse writes well with a slightly finer line and a tiny bit of stubbyness. After not using the 601a for about two weeks, I wrote with it and the pen started immediately.

I wanted to try a different, better behaved, ink so I cleaned out my 601a to ink up Waterman Serenity Blue. After cleaning the pen pretty thoroughly there was still ink seeping out from under the nib. The nib cone just screws off, but I learned the hard way that the tiny threads on the end of the grip section strip very easily. The nib would no longer screw on securely, so I superglued it. The nib and grip section are now permanently fused together! If you’re notorious for stripping screws like I am, just don’t unscrew this nib and you’ll be fine.

After inking this pen with Serenity Blue, it’s still a wet writer. Too wet for my taste. The previous sentence was written right after inking. If you leave the pen overnight or for a few days, the pen writes kinda dry.

Overall, the Wing Sung 601a is cromulent. This would make a good beater pen where if something happened to it, it wouldn’t be a big deal. I was going to write that the 601a would be a good office pen, but I feel like if someone stole this they would bring it right back. If you would like to purchase one for yourself for $20 USD, you can through this non-affiliated Amazon link.