Fully-Hooded (Parker Model 51 & 61 Style) Hero® and Wing Sung® Fountain Pens - Made in China...

Most of us fountain pen enthusiasts that are really big fans of the fully-hooded Parker fountain pens have to admit that we've all eyed the cheaper Chinese-made clones being made by companies like Hero & Wing Sung at least once and wondered what they really were like. It is real easy to just assume that our Parkers are superior to these clones, regardless of their great price points and/or flashy models or designs. I've wondered myself, from time to time, just how good they really are and whether or not they are worth the money they are asking for them and above all, how do they write?

Over the past few years, I too was tempted more than a few times, to purchase and really try one or more of them out. I finally succumbed to the temptation a few months ago and purchased a few of what seemed like the most popular models at the time... a Hero 100, old style 329, old style 330 and one of each sizes of the Hero 616. I figured at that time, that these were more than enough to get a decent sense of these and make up my mind one way or another about them.

Here I am months later and I've just gone over 22 different models/variations and have amassed more than 34 of these including duplicates and other colors, etc... and still I am not quite sure what I think about them as a whole. Individually, I've come to the conclusion that some of these fully-hooded, Chinese-made fountain pens are at a minimum, just as good as the Parkers and at a maximum, far exceed the behavior of the similar Parkers for various reasons... mostly nib and writing characteristics. On the other-hand, there are several of these clones that are not even in the same class as any of the older Parkers. This is especially true with some of the cheapest Heros and Wing-Sungs. A couple that stand-out as some of the worst in this category include one of the Hero's that is really more of a "miniature-size" fountain pen and the other is a Wing-Sung that doesn't even measure up to a stick in my opinion.

On the flip-side of the issue, a real pleasant surprise turned out to be the Hero 100 series which includes a regular chrome capped plastic pen, a stainless steel looking flighter, a silver-filled and a gold-filled version. These incredible writers with their precision made 14kt gold nibs are absolutely outstanding! They seemingly write forever on a single tank full of ink and can write buttery smooth circles around practically every other pen there is...

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Boy oh boy, the folks at the Parker Pen Company should really be flattered! Historically, Parker is very well known and extremely popular in Asia (where they still use a lot of fountain pens). In order to improve sales and reduce the learning curve, Hero has emulated Parker with several of its products. In their eyes, Parker is the best... why not have their products look like Parkers? This includes the closely looking fully-hooded Parker 51 / Hero 100 & the nearly identical Parker 61 / Hero 616 identities crisis'. There began my quest to compare all of the fully-hooded Chinese pens in order to highlight and document the differences and their idiosyncracies, etc. In addition, as for the Parker fully-hooded fountain pens, I'm still toying with the idea of including them (potentially one of each 17, 21, 21 Super, 41, 51, 51 Special, 51 Demi, 61, 61 Flighter & maybe a 100 that I currently have in my collection). Stay tuned for that decision, really soon.

Since there seems to be sales information and some detail available on most of the models out there, at least initially, I intend to primarily focus on the comparison of the fully-hooded nib models, until such time as I've exhausted the information that is available to me and/or grow tired of the volumes of information that will be available once this comparison is done.

The above image doesn't look like much. There are 18 separate models of Chinese pens there and somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve "extra" duplicates, obtained in the course of trying to get at least one of each. I apologize for the resolution of the images found here, I've been a little clumsey lately and dropped my good SLR camera... For now, these images will have to do for the time being.

The following is a brief idea of what you should expect to find here in the upcoming days/weeks, provided I can figure-out, locate and/or discover all of the information required... I will eventually get individual pages and thoughts up for each of the fountain pens. For now, we'll just have to settle for a few thumbnails of the reviews themselves and a link to each of the "shortened" reviews for each pen. More coming practically everyday as my energy level permits. I'll get them all correctly "justified" and into tables on the page once I have all the data available here...

This effort currently includes the following Chinese fully-hooded fountain pen models:

Hero Model 007 -		Hero Model 330 (Golden Etched) -
Hero Model 100 Regular -		Hero Model 332 -
Hero Model 100 Stainless Steel -		Hero Model 343 (Hand-Painted) -
Hero Model 110 -		Hero Model 366 -
Hero Model 132 -		Hero Model 616 (regular size)
Hero/Youth Model 303/700 -		Hero Model 616 (jumbo size)
Hero Model 329 (old style) -		Hero Model 1000 -
Hero Model 329 (new style) -		Wing Sung Model 412 -
Hero Model 330 (old style) -		Wing Sung Model 730 -

Missing from the above list are the following known fully-hooded models that so far have not been either located or obtained (yet). They are:

• Hero Model Glorious 100
• Hero Model 237 & 237-1 Accountant Models
• Hero 224, 225 & 226 Combination Models
• Hero Model 334
• Hero Model 336
• Hero Model 868 Accountant

As you can see from the above "shortened" reviews on each pen, there's already been some serious time and effort put into this monumental project. Statistical data on each pen was collected, compiled, and included together here below in the following tables. This was done in order to provide a place to compare relevant information on more than one pen at a time and become better informed about them.

Fully-Hooded Pens - Just The Facts...

Most, if not all, of the fountain pens used in this effort were obtained at various online venues. With the exception of a small number, most were considered "new" or NOS (new old stock) at the time of their purchase. Some of the included models may be obtained through contacting the following vendors, I think I have everyone listed:

• SpeerBob's (Robert Speerbrecher) eBay Listings
• Todd Nussbaum at isellpens.com
• Norman Haase at hisnibs.com

• Dennis Bowden at ParkvillePen.com

Question: Have you noticed information on this page that is wrong, incorrect or is missing from these page(s)? We would really like to hear about it from you!

Your knowledge and assistance with this effort would be really helpful and extremely appreciated. Obviously, there are tons of potential errors & omissions that currently I have no clue of (yet). It would be extremely helpful if you could take a few moments, review this page and contact me with your input and/or opinions. I would be very happy to acknowledge and give you credit for your valuable information and sincerely appreciated assistance. In addition, if you are aware of any publication or person that could provide additional information about Hero or Wing Sung, either the companies themselves, or their products, please feel free to share me with me what or who they are and where I could possibly locate it/them. Thank you in advance for your helpful assistance and support.

You can share this information by contacting us directly through Steve @ SProctor.com anytime...