My 25th Azure Blue Vacumatic Senior Maxima

Just received back freshly restored by Joel Hamilton my 25th Parker Vacumatic Senior Maxima in Azure Blue celluloid. Thought I'd use the occasion as chance to chat about this neat pen.

Blue Maxes are somewhat more difficult in double-jewel trim to find than other colors, at least with typical cap-band, as the color was introduced mid 1940, while most Maxima colors appeared late 1937. Since the bottom jewel was discontinued by the end of 1941, DJ pens in blue ran only about a year and a half. Amongst single jewel Sr Maxima from 1942-1947 (or so) there is much less disparity.

In ten years hunting Vacs, I've grabbed- obviously- 25 Maxes in this color. Sold about 20 with a few in the collection for the long haul. While Blue Maxes in general are nowhere near as scarce as "Vac-Band" Maximas in any color and probably are similarly uncommon to "Jeweler's Band" Maxima from 1939-40 (or so), they are impressive pens. As is often the case with colleting, finding my first posed the greatest challenge. It's all been downhill since then. Not so hard to find the pens, if one is willing to pay the ticket price ;)

Making the collecting task easier (is that a good thing?) the late introduction of Blue minimizes the number of variants one can seek, as we need not worry about clip evolution. Too, there is well less cap-band evolution, and well less jewel evolution. The key (a somewhat subjective claim) forms are shown here:

L to R:

1) Typical 2nd Gen Sr. Max. shows expected "late" features, black bottom pseudojewel, cap-band indicia with vertical borders, blue diamond clip.

"All" Blue Maxes have black end jewel(s), though I have one which challenges that notion, but that photo will await another day.

2) "Jeweler's" Cap-band Blue Max with wide lined cap-band. The intent behind this cap-band remains shrouded, but the band is far less common than the typical cap-bands found in catalogues. Blue + Jeweler's Band makes for a bit of a special pen.

3) 3rd Generation Sr. Max, single jewel. The thin cap-band is correct on this 1942- 1947-ish pen. One might expect them to be more common than the first pen given the longer prodution run, but it is not clear that this is so. SJ Maxes are uncommon, perhaps because by 1942 those who would pay the cost to get a Maxima made the jump to the ascendant Parker 51.

4) Canadian 3rd Gen Max. Canadian pens essentially always show some differences from USA-made pens, and I often don't lump them under "key variants", but for 3rd Gen Max the key difference warrants attention. Unlike in the USA, Parker in Canada appears to have continued to use the wide cap-band (similar to pen #1) throughout the 3rd Generation, making a wide band single jewel pen wholly correct when found with Canadian markings.

I picked up a mint collection (yah, really) of Sr Maxima 3rd Generation pens a couple years ago, including a stickered blue.

                       

I probably need to format this brief note and to shoot couple more images for a formal website essay, but figured finding my 25th pen made good excuse to post.

regards

david

An Interesting Vacumatic.

This set is heading for the pending website update.  I'm letting it go only because I have another.  It was not a trivial effort to get both. The pencil is more rare than the already scarce pen.

More than one thing about this set should hit one's radar for unusual Vacs.

PREVIEW for Nov/Dec Sales Update is online.

Welcome to this pictorial preview for the upcoming website update.

"Real life" events of late have kept me diverted from completing the latest sales update, but the darn thing nearly is ready to upload. All the pens I've shot for this update are shown below, along with some that are targeted for subsequent "focused" updates.

While I likely will hold the 1940's Sheaffers and some of the Parker Duofold pens for later updates, and while a couple of the prototype Lady Sheaffer pens have not yet met their nib assemblies, most of the other pens below will be up for grabs in a few days.

This group sees a nice range of Burgundy Parker Vacumatic pens including an early and scarce full-size Vacuum-Filler, and a late and more scarce Canada-only Junior set. Sheaffer Balances see a significant array of oversized pens, and some Snorkels of the quite high cachet are present too.

You can click the pic at the left to load it as a new page (then click/magnify it again to full size) 


The link below will take you to the actual preview page.

http://www.vacumania.com/websitesales/newpens.htm

Hey, the "sold" pens are disappearing from the website. You know what THAT means...

I am in the final approach to the next website update. I've shot and (mostly) detailed 120 pens or so, probably with 80 or so to go on the next update.

Besides having perhaps 350 pens  ready for or already in the repair pipeline- keeping me quite busy- I also have had quite the hectic time in "real life" of late.  My hospital has seen some... politics... happen the last few weeks, and while it seems my own role and opportunity there will grow yet again in my work as Hospitalist, I have been... distracted. Sorry if I've been slow to answer emails. Certainly, I would have liked to have the latest update online a couple weeks back.

I hope to maintain updates roughly every six weeks for the next few months. I might do some mini-updates as well with 10-20 pens per pop.  I do have a nice spread of Burgundy Parker Vacumatic and Carmine Sheaffer Balances for the website update to be online in less than a week.

regards

David Isaacson

http://www.vacumania.com

A Quite Neat 1931-ish Parker so-called "Thrift" pen

After the recent mayhem with my hospital group (sparing me, at least), I'm starting to catch up with couple weeks of email and with work on the next website update.

I shot the following pen, a neat find at the Ohio Pen Show.

Often lumped under the "Thrift Pen" label, this one is of the same style shown in the inspiration for that term, a Parker ad that offered affordable sets- more or less- "in these thrifty times". That set showed cream-and-bronze. This one is black-and-bronze, a color used also for the scarce Parker Combo. Parker also issued some pens in a Conklin-like black/bronze (with more bronze)

This one is in superb condition, with code/pirce  sticker. Given how few of the (usually) un-catalogued "thrift" pens are found  with stickers, perhaps purpose would be served examining catalogues from that general era for code correlations. But, I don't have time now ;)

regards

David

A "Cherry Red" 1930's Sheaffer Balance "Loaner"

Just some show and tell from my own collection, posted for fun while I sort the pen finds from my the Nov, 2009 Ohio Pen Show.  The red celluloid Sheaffer Balance "Loaner" pen is un-catalogued, unlike some earlier flat-top era red pens of this sort.  Found (so far) only in long-slender form, for it's era the chrome trim is a bit unusual (though not unique) for a non-"Junior"-marked pen.   Far less commonly found than catalogued colors, it often is heavily discolored and often packs rather ugly trim, as the chrome trim- once worn- does not take polish as well as does gold-filled.  This one is rather the gem, still with nib-grade sticker and in superb condition.

A Sheaffer Set from the Ohio Pen Show

I continue to recover from both an intense and successful Ohio Pen Show and from the subsequent week of political tumult at my hospital, back in "real life".   I have yet to complete sorting the very many pens purchased at the show, and I am overdue to ship a couple or three hundred interesting raw pens out for restoration.

My bargain for the show no doubt is the set shown at left, and this one goes right into my personal collection.

Sitting on a dealer's desk was this slender (short-ish, thin) Sheaffer Balance set. The price was more than right, despite my pointing out it had uncommon cap-band,  because, "it's just a small black set".  It packs the un-catalogued and quite scarce "fish scale" wide cap-band.  The set indeed is just "small" and in common color, but for me the cap-band rings the bell. 

While I have not counted of late, I doubt I have more than ten pens with this cap-band amongst my couple hundred Balances, and have not seen more than twenty in the six years or so I've hunted them since becoming aware of their existence.

This set is very clean and is the first I've seen in this color/size.

Chilton Chopsticks from the Ohio Pen Show

Has it really been nearly two weeks since my last post?  What can I say?  Hospital has been crazy, and I'm still recovering from the Ohio Pen Show.  One of my grand finds (I picked up about 80 pens and had 80 more return to me there from the pen restorers) was this pair of Chilton desk pens.

Chilton was a relatively small volume manufacturer of very high quality fountain pens during the "golden age".  IIRC starting in Boston it eventually moved to Long Island City, NY.  While the pull and push of "smaller collector base" vs "smaller supply of pens" relative to the Big 4 can balance, nice Chiltons today out-price similar size/niche pens from the Big-4 in many instances.

The color of the desk pen "chopsticks" is considered.. . "Clown"... as in Chilton Clown Pen.  I've seen short clip pen, probably short ringtop, ringtop pencil and... desk pen, that one perhaps in two sizes.  Clown Pens are cherished items of high cachet in the Chilton universe, itself a desirable arena in which to play.