Originally Posted by
LucienPS
Fantastic. Your thread, AG, is inspiring and may prove costly to me! I'm still sorely tempted by the Lucens. I would value advice on possible directions in purchasing a classic Italian celluloid and will post a separate topic soas not to confuse this thread. Again, many thanks.
What AltecGreen is pointing out is exactly what I was trying to point out. Many manufacturers used clear sections in celluloid pens as a way to see inside to check ink levels. All of the Parker Vacumatics and Striped Duofolds, The Sheaffer Vacfil Balances and Triumphs, Montblanc and most of the German Piston fillers the Celluloid Pelikans and so many other makers used this feature. In some like those that had an internal sac (lever fillers) it was usually a smaller window that was after the sac but before the section and gave a glimpse at ink as it moved into the feed, in the various vacuum filled pens where the ink was held directly in the body of the pen it was often incorporated into clear sections in the pattern of the body.
If you look at the Sheaffer pictures with the embedded Mother of Pearl you can see it was a spiral of alternating black and clear sections. The Parker Vacumatics were a series of colored and clear stacked disks and the Striped Duofolds were alternating colored and clear vertical sections.
Over time the clear parts ambered and in all cases the less ambered ones are preferred but generally unless there is visible crazing and cracking the ambering is not a functional issue; the pen is not falling apart.
A 1943 Parker Vac with a prewar nib
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