PARKER 51 VAC VS AERO
THIS PEN HAS SOLD!
Hello there and welcome to Inkquiring Minds. My name is Doug and I’m back with another Pen Resurrection Sunday Video. Last week I showed you how to convert a Parker 51 Aerometric into a cartridge converter pen using a brass adapter. It worked so well on my friend Ron’s Parker 51, that I went back to the vendor and bought three more.
I’ve got one more Parker 51 Aerometric here in grey with a stainless steel cap that I’ve been working on. When I get the shipment of adapters, I’ll convert this one and go ahead and look for more Aerometrics.
Last week I mentioned I was not fond of Aerometrics and preferred the Vacumatics. So I thought, before I return Ronnie’s beautiful Aerometric pen/pencil and ballpoint set in burgundy and gold, let’s compare a Parker 51 Vacumatic with a Parker 51 Aerometric and see the differences.
Here is Ron’s Dad’s 1954 Parker 51 Aerometric that I’ve restored and converted for him. And here is a 1947 Parker 51 Vacumatic in the same burgundy with a gold-filled cap. I’ve already restored this Vacumatic. I showed it to you last week and went ahead and restored it without you. I have such a backlog of vintage fountain pens needing repair that if I only repaired one a week because I have to film each step, it would take me 1.23 years to complete them all. So I’ve started restoring them without filming each step and guess what?? It takes half the time to do this off-camera! Who knew?
Here are two other vintage pens I’ve restored this week alone. Both of these belong to John Somers. And no, I don’t do fountain pen restorations as a business so please don’t ask me. I made a deal with John to look at a few of his old dead pens in exchange for this gorgeous 1960 Sheaffer PFM or Pen For Men which he gave me and I restored. This was a grail pen for me and you can see that restoration by clicking right up here.
This is a vintage Moore Junior lever-filler in brown celluloid. I’m guessing it is the 1940s. It has a 14k gold #3 nib. And this is a vintage Arnold lever-filler in this beautiful aqua-blue celluloid also dating from the 1940s. It is so tiny and has a steel nib. That says “Arnold Pen Co Inc Petersburg VA”. I had never heard of them before.
Getting back to the Parker 51s. Here is what this Vacumatic looked like before I resurrected it. It had some deep gouges in the barrel and shell, as evidenced by these before photos and the cap was heavily tarnished with some degree of brassing on the edge, and the blue paint in the blue diamond clip was gone.
Here is the pen now. The barrel and shell are pristine and the cap is 1000 times better after polishing. There’s nothing to be done when the gold is gone and the brass shows through, but I still think the pen looks gorgeous. I restored the blue paint in the blue diamond clip.
Interestingly, some of these split arrow blue diamond clips were produced without the blue paint. In December 1945, Fountain pen manufacturers, Sheaffer, Parker, Eversharp, and Waterman were ordered by the FTC in the US to cease making unqualified representations that their fountain pens are unconditionally guaranteed for the life of the user unless those companies, make whatever repairs or replacements necessary without expense to the user.
Before this ruling, pen companies would state the pen was unconditionally warranted for life. However, the fine print was that users would have to pay shipping and service costs. The FTC basically forced those companies to provide the free lifetime warranties as they were stated - for free. All the companies stopped providing lifetime warranties. So the blue diamond mark of the lifetime warranty for Parker went away. But Parker had a bunch of stock of the blue diamond stamped clips. So they just used them up without the blue paint. This might have been one of those clips.
PARKER 51 VAC VS AERO
So, let’s compare the parts and features of the Vacumatic versus the Aeometric. The revolutionary design Parker 51 fountain pen was launched in 1941 and Parker continued to make the model until 1972, a remarkable 31 years.
The invention of the hooded nib and ink collector kept the nib from drying out. Combined with Parker’s newly formulated quick-drying ink Parker 51 ink, the 51 was a revolution in pen design.
The pen was named the 51 for the 51st anniversary of the Parker Pen company in 1939 when the design of the 51 was completed. It was also easily translated into other languages. It was not named after the famed fighter the P51, although Parker’s marketing department made full use of the coincidence; especially when they released the P51 Flighter model.
The new Parker 51 had a tried and true filling system called the Vacumatic that was invented by Parker in 1932. You remove the blind cap and dip the nib in ink. Then press down on the plunger until you don’t see bubbles anymore and the pen is full.
Here’s some video I shot with my endoscopic camera of the vacumatic diaphragm moving up and down inside the barrel. Under the hood, the vacumatic has an ink collector that stores and regulates the ink flow and houses the tubular nib and feed. Inserted into the back of the feed is a breather tube that will allow the ink to be drawn up and collected inside the barrel and not expelled again with a plunger press. The Vacumatic can take up to 1.5 ml of ink!
The Vacumatic was replaced in 1948 by what Parker named the “Aerometric” filling system. Let’s take a look at the differences.
Here’s Ronnie’s 1954 Parker 51 Aerometric. The split blue diamond clip was redesigned in 1948 and replaced by this sleeker straight arrow clip. The “gold-filled” content on the front of the cap was replaced with Parker on the front and the gold-filled content on the back of the Aerometric.
This Vacumatic is a 14k gold cap whereas the Aerometric is 14k gold-filled. Without their caps, these two pens are almost indistinguishable. The only way to tell is to remove the blind cap on the Vacumatic or remove the barrel of the Aerometric.
The Aerometric barrel unscrews, and of course, this one has been converted into a cartridge pen. So I’ll look at this Aerometric that I’m currently restoring. The barrel unscrews and we see the Aerometric filling system designed by Parker in 1948. There is a stainless steel sac protector and squeeze bar surrounding a PVC sac that is semi-transparent to allow you to see your ink levels. The sac protector is engraved with “Parker 51 to fill press ribbed bar firmly 4 times use dry writing Superchrome ink holding point down wipe point with soft tissue the Parker Pen Co. Made in USA.” That’s a lot of information in a small space.
Under the hood, things look very similar with the addition of an O-ring that helps seal the section from leaking. The P51 Vacumatics had imprints on the barrels with date codes until 1948. The Aerometrics have no barrel imprints and early ones had date codes on the nibs.
What are the likes and dislikes of vacumatics and aerometrics? I have no doubt that Parker felt the Aerometric was new, innovative, and modern. The Aerometric had a new ink sac made from PVC that never wore out, unlike the latex diaphragm of the Vacumatic.
The Aerometric was more efficient and less costly to manufacture and there were fewer returns and less maintenance once they were in users hands. Those are all well and good, but I still prefer the Vacumatic. I find it easier to fill with a few straight-down presses of the plunger, it holds more ink and weighs less.
I’ve owned some Parker Vacumatics that were close to 90 years old and still work beautifully with a new diaphragm. And cleaning the Vacumatic is so much less painful than the Aerometric which can shred your fingers like a cheese grater.
Otherwise, the look and feel of the two varieties of Parker 51 are pretty much identical. The outward appearance is slightly different with the two different clips, and that is up to personal preferences. I prefer the deco style of the split arrow blue diamond clip over the straight arrow.
And now that I’ve restored this 1947 Parker 51 Vacumatic, let’s fill it with ink and give it a writing test.
WRITING TEST
There is a tiny amount of brassing on the bottom of the cap but other than that, this pen is in pristine condition and writes with a smooth extra fine line.
If you are interested in purchasing this P51 Vacumatic, drop me an email at Inkquiringminds@gmail.com.
I’m selling it for $130 US. Shipping is $20US to anywhere Canada Post will ship with tracking.
And there you have it.
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And that’s all she wrote!
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