mhosea
January 15th, 2015, 09:22 PM
So, I picked up a silver pearl vac standard off eBay the other day.
15635
It's not a particularly attractive one. Transparency is OK (heavily ambered but pretty clear), but the plating on the cap bands is toast, and it's missing the cap jewel. When I got it, I found that the barrel threads don't engage very well (cap stays on, but with a very short twist).
I don't know that much about vac history, but a vac standard with a lockdown filler wasn't something I thought they were making anymore by 1944. Anyway, it's very much like my 37 silver pearl vac standard, which I quite like, except that the grip on this pen is slightly narrower, and the nib is slightly smaller.
However, I got it because I liked the look of the nib, with most of its plating still intact The nib shape, however, was more reminiscent of modern Parkers like my Duofold Centennial, only smaller.
15636
It looked like it would be easy to smooth, if it even needed smoothing.
15637
I was expecting a firm. As I dry scribbled with it on some Tomoe River paper, I noted that it was already quite smooth. Hopefully it wouldn't have too much baby's bottom. I'll find out about that later, but imagine my surprise when I applied a modicum of pressure and saw this
15638
A semi-flexible nib was the last thing I expected here. It's cool though. I bought it for the nib, and I got a pretty cool nib.
15635
It's not a particularly attractive one. Transparency is OK (heavily ambered but pretty clear), but the plating on the cap bands is toast, and it's missing the cap jewel. When I got it, I found that the barrel threads don't engage very well (cap stays on, but with a very short twist).
I don't know that much about vac history, but a vac standard with a lockdown filler wasn't something I thought they were making anymore by 1944. Anyway, it's very much like my 37 silver pearl vac standard, which I quite like, except that the grip on this pen is slightly narrower, and the nib is slightly smaller.
However, I got it because I liked the look of the nib, with most of its plating still intact The nib shape, however, was more reminiscent of modern Parkers like my Duofold Centennial, only smaller.
15636
It looked like it would be easy to smooth, if it even needed smoothing.
15637
I was expecting a firm. As I dry scribbled with it on some Tomoe River paper, I noted that it was already quite smooth. Hopefully it wouldn't have too much baby's bottom. I'll find out about that later, but imagine my surprise when I applied a modicum of pressure and saw this
15638
A semi-flexible nib was the last thing I expected here. It's cool though. I bought it for the nib, and I got a pretty cool nib.