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View Full Version : Awesome but somewhat decieving title!



fountainpenkid
November 12th, 2012, 02:36 PM
Looky here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-ULTRA-RARE-EXCEPTIONAL-PARKER-VACUMATIC-DEMONSTRATOR-/400338714147?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5d360bfe23
Never Seen this before...anyone have an idea of the ending price?
I always hate when images become unavailable b/c they came from eBay, so I'll upload one here:
1469

jar
November 12th, 2012, 03:02 PM
Demos like that were pretty common, almost every store that sold pens likely had one or two. And remember, many different kinds of stores carried fountain pens; just about every drugstore, clothing store, jewelry store, many hardware stores, even the local Feed & Seed also sold fountain pens and ink.

fountainpenkid
November 12th, 2012, 05:19 PM
Demos like that were pretty common, almost every store that sold pens likely had one or two. And remember, many different kinds of stores carried fountain pens; just about every drugstore, clothing store, jewelry store, many hardware stores, even the local Feed & Seed also sold fountain pens and ink.

I know, it is quite interesting to think about the scale of fountain pen production/sales back then...all these uncommon pens were so common back then, just slightly harder to find at every store. But you are right especially with this demo vac--it would make sense for them to have them everywhere to display their unique filling system. But then again, why didn't people realize that it still had a sac? ;) or was this pen made post-law suit in which Parker had to stop selling the Vacumatic as a "sacless" pen...?

pajaro
November 27th, 2012, 06:04 PM
Pens were sold in many different stores, but most stores stopped at the 21 and 45. The more expensive pens weren't sold in the five and dime store or generally in the drugstore. Junky pens like Wearever and lower cost decent pens like Sheaffer cartridge pens with the translucent barrels and pens at those levels were commonly sold. Growing up in the 1950s in Boston and the 1960s in Florida I saw mostly Parkers and nice Sheaffers in stationery and office supply stores along with less expensive generic pens. Never saw an Esterbrook pen or other makes other than Parker, Sheaffer and Cross in those days.

david i
December 3rd, 2012, 11:58 AM
Gents,

Note that I find the title of the ebay ad not to be particularly misleading. The item is vintage, rare, and (admittedly a subjective thing), rather exceptional.

We lack evidence that Demos like this one were common or that nearly every store had one or two, though one might speculate that many stores did.

There is at least one key element to this pen that separates it from status as a "mere" cut-away. Look closely at it. And, in the historical context, even if many stores had one of these, factor that against the hundreds or thousands of pens sold over time by each store (and how many of *those* survive today?). Given this type of Demo (a 1939-ish product) never served as a working pen, frequency of survival of an already scarce item likely is low. For context... I doubt I've seen five of these during my 14 years hunting Vacs. Think it sold a bit cheaply.

regards

David

jar
December 3rd, 2012, 02:30 PM
Hi David welcome home. Pull up a stump and set a spell.

Back when I was but a wee lad in the 40s and early 50s, I often got to tag along with dad as he made his rounds touching base with clients. Dad sold insurance and many of the clients were stores that did sell fountain pens, and one of the things I remember, being a curious lad always looking to learn something new were demonstrators just like that (though often with a half nib on the feed). Sheaffer, Parker, Wahl, Waterman were ones I remembered.

The people dad was talking with would usually give me something to keep me busy while the BIG folk talked and such demo pens were among my favorites. But I'll admit, my favorite memory from those days was from one of the jewelery stores where the handed me a small velvet bag of gem stones with sapphires and diamonds and rubies and garnets and onyx and amethyst and pearls and blood stones and turquoise and agate and polished petrified wood and tourmaline which was my favorite.

david i
December 3rd, 2012, 05:22 PM
Sounds like a very nice memory. :)

Some of this is semantics of course. "Common" and "rare" often depend on context.

Thus, indeed it was not rare for a dedicated pen shop to have Demonstrators (with a capital "D", unlike the modern wimpy usage of the term for any ol' clear pen some company churns), but such pens were relatively quite rare in their day, one per hundreds if not per thousands regular issue. Today certainly they tend to be very uncommonly found.

But the pen in question is uncommon even within the context of Demos or of Parker Demos.

Most Parker Vacumatic Demonstrators are 1933-1934-ish product and are not cut-aways. The black-on-color cutaways are a known beast of course, and while one might be able to make one (sort of) after the fact, but chopping a pen, the pen would have to be mint to begin with to be believable (want to chop a mint double jewel pen?) and still would not explain the unique-to-cluster cap. The cap cannot be readily simulated. These date to 1939. Look again at the cap.

These are by far a minority of Vac Demos.

regards

david

fountainpenkid
December 5th, 2012, 03:18 PM
Sounds like a very nice memory. :)

Some of this is semantics of course. "Common" and "rare" often depend on context.

Thus, indeed it was not rare for a dedicated pen shop to have Demonstrators (with a capital "D", unlike the modern wimpy usage of the term for any ol' clear pen some company churns), but such pens were relatively quite rare in their day, one per hundreds if not per thousands regular issue. Today certainly they tend to be very uncommonly found.

But the pen in question is uncommon even within the context of Demos or of Parker Demos.

Most Parker Vacumatic Demonstrators are 1933-1934-ish product and are not cut-aways. The black-on-color cutaways are a known beast of course, and while one might be able to make one (sort of) after the fact, but chopping a pen, the pen would have to be mint to begin with to be believable (want to chop a mint double jewel pen?) and still would not explain the unique-to-cluster cap. The cap cannot be readily simulated. These date to 1939. Look again at the cap.

These are by far a minority of Vac Demos.

regards

david
Thanks much for some background!