1947 Parker Vacumatic Demi *SOLD* ($150 US)

Hello there! Welcome to Inkquiring Minds. My name is Doug, and I’m back with another pen resurrection video. Today’s dead fountain pen ready for resurrection is a 1947 Parker 51 Vacumatic Demi with a gold-filled cap and a black Lucite body. It’s in very nice shape with a very fetching top jewel—very pearlescent. Sometimes these pens can be dull, but this one’s a beautiful shade of pearlescent.

Of course, Parker introduced the Parker 51 in 1941, but they didn’t offer any size options other than the standard size until 1947, when this pen was made. In late 1947, they introduced the Demi size, which had the same size hood and blind cap but a shorter barrel and slightly shorter cap. So, when the pen is posted, it may look a bit stubby, but it’s nicely balanced in the hand.

In 1948, Parker discontinued the Vacumatic and introduced the Aerometric. This pen is from a very narrow timeline, from 1947 to 1948. I can see an imprint of a seven right there with no dots, which means it’s from the fourth quarter of 1947. Of course, it also says Parker 51, made in the USA. There will be a date code on the nib as well.

THOUGHTS

So, what are my thoughts on this resurrection? Well, I’m really pleased with it. There were no major issues, and it polished up better than I could have imagined. It’s just glorious. This is a lovely little pen. It is 123 mm long when capped, making it a small pen. It posts beautifully and feels nicely balanced in the hand. And it draws a very nice, fine wet line.

One thing that surprised me about this resurrection was that it felt like there was no diaphragm in there. But then, when I tried it with some water, it sucked up a little water and showed bubbles and things like that. So, I thought maybe there was a diaphragm in there after all. And when I put my inspection camera in, it showed that it was a working diaphragm, but it just didn’t suck up much ink.

Upon further investigation, I found that the diaphragm that was put into this pen was cut about 5/8 of an inch short, making it very inefficient. Now, it takes up a whopping 1.4 ml of ink. I’m really surprised. I thought that the smaller barrel of the Demi Parker 51 wouldn’t take up as much ink as a regular standard model.

This pen model in this configuration was only made for a year and a half before it was replaced with the Vacumatic. It came out in 1947 as the demi-sized vacuumatic and was only made until 1948.

This gold cap is really, really nice with the vertical lines. You didn’t see this style of cap that often. Some of these had the split arrow clip, and some had the new Parker arrow clip. So, this is a transitional cap on a demi-sized Vacumatic Parker 51. It also has one of the most beautiful top jewels I’ve ever seen on a Parker 51.

The nib was rather scratchy, but I was able to polish it out, and now it writes beautifully wet and smooth. So, I’m very happy about all aspects of this restoration. If you’re interested in purchasing this pen, I’m selling it for $150 US plus shipping. Simply drop me an email at inkquiringminds@gmail.com with your name and address, and I’ll send you a shipping quote. Shipping to North America currently costs around $10 US.

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Thank you for watching!

And that's all she wrote.