1942 Parker Vacumatic Golden Pearl *SOLD* ($195 US)

Hello there! Welcome to Inkquiring Minds. My name is Doug, and I’m back with another pen resurrection Sunday video. I recently acquired three Parker vacuumatics, and I can’t figure out which one to do first!

This Parker Vacuumatic is a double jewel model with two gold cap bands and no blue diamond on the clip. It’s a middle-of-the-road value standard fountain pen. The top-of-the-line model had the blue diamond clip, of course. Here’s my 1945 Parker Vacuumatic Azure Blue Pearl. It’s the premium version with the large cap band and the blue diamond on the clip. All three of these are standard models: this one is all black but with a transparent barrel, which looks very nice. 

I’ll get a flashlight here, and you can see that nice transparent barrel. There are quite a few nicks and scratches on it, of course, being so old. But the clip looks in really good shape. Let’s take a look at the imprint and see what we can see. You might not be able to see it on camera, but right there is a zero, so that’s 1940, the fourth quarter of 1940. Let’s unscrew the cap and take a look at the nib. This is where the challenge is for this particular pen. Let’s get a little closer here. Maybe you can see that the tine is broken off. I knew that when I bought it.

My favourite Vacumatic was exactly the same. The nib was one of the times it was snapped off, and I made one of the best writing stubs I own out of it. So, I thought, well, maybe I can give it another try and try to make a custom stub out of this nib. So, that’s one pen with the double jewel, 1940, with a broken nib that needs repair.

Let’s take a look at this Azure Blue Pearl pen again. It’s a nice clip, not a blue diamond double cap band. It’s not double-ended, but it has a lot of teeth marks or pliers marks, or I don’t know what it looks like. It was attacked by a tiger, certainly. That blind cap needs a lot of work.

The rest of the pen isn’t in bad shape. It has a nice transparency to it. I forgot to look at the pump on the first one. Let’s get the light going through it, and we’ll see. It seems like there’s a working diaphragm in this pen, but we’d have to check that out. It feels okay, but it’s suspect.

Back to the Azure Blue. Let’s uncap it. You can see it has a nib issue as well. The tine isn’t broken, but it is seriously gnarly. Look at that, completely bent. So, I’ll have to straighten that out. That seems to be the major issue with this pen. Plus, those gouge marks in the blind cap.

Let’s check out its diaphragm with the light. It has a working diaphragm in it. Look at that. With this one, I put it in some water and pumped it, and I got a full 1.4 to 1.45 millilitres of ink. So, that diaphragm is in good shape.

The major issues here are that the nib is bent and the blind cap is chewed up. Everything else looks okay. Its date code has a six and a dot, which is the third quarter of 1946.

This fountain pen has a lot of wear for its age. Let’s find out where you are and check the date. There’s a dot-to-dot pattern on the clip, which means it was made in the second quarter of 1942. The clip is in good condition, with no bite marks or deep scratches. The nib is in excellent shape, looking like an extra fine nib. Let’s check the pump to see if there’s a diaphragm. Nope, it’s completely broken off. You can see it pushed the tip of the old, desiccated diaphragm out. This pen has the fewest issues; it just needs a diaphragm replacement. Eeny meeny miny mo, which of you is going to go? 1, 2, 3, 4. I pick you, very scientifically.

I think I’ll start with the golden pearl first. I have a soft spot for these, and my favourite are the blue pearls, of course. But I have one of those, so I’m thinking if this one turns out nicely, I might just keep it instead of selling it. Isn’t that gorgeous? I think a little polishing will help us see if the section comes off and if the pump comes out. We’ll do some polishing and red diaphragming to see if we can get this pen back to life. They’re coming to get you, Barbara. They’re coming for you! Look, there comes one of them now. Let’s save these guys for later. Let’s get on with it!

Here’s the pen all polished up. The cap and barrel were a bit tricky to get the top jewel out of, so instead of applying excessive force, I decided to give up on taking that clip off. I polished the clip by itself on my buffer and polished the cap around it. It came up very nicely. One reason for this is that it didn’t have many deep scratches, so I mildly polished it to get the scratches and gouges out.

The nib is in gorgeous shape. I went ahead and polished out a bit of feedback, so it’s now writing very smoothly with very little touch. It’s a fine line, but I said before that it has some flex to it. It’s not a flex nib at all; it’s a vintage, bouncy gold 14 karat gold nib, which is very juicy indeed.

This is a beautiful writer which takes a lot of ink. It’s polished up perfectly and looks almost brand new. It’s a 1942 Parker Vacuumatic Golden Pearl. I’m very happy with this restoration.

The nib is a bit fine for my personal taste, so I’m going to sell this pen for $195 US. The previous one I restored was the top level with the large cap band and the blue diamond. I sold that one for $220, so I think that’s a reasonable price.

If you’re interested in purchasing this pen, just drop me a line at inkquiringminds@gmail.com with your name and address. I’ll get you a shipping quote. Shipping to North America is about $10 US these days. I’ll send you instructions on how to pay me through PayPal.

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That just leaves it for me to say thank you for watching. That’s all she wrote.