For lunch yesterday, my wife and I went to a couple antique shops. With my new-found interest in fountain pens, I was looking real hard. I found a couple pens that I really wanted for a pretty good price.
Parker Vacumatic
The Parker Vacumatic (front pen in picture) is, I think, a great-looking pen. The filling mechanism is a push button that sucks ink up into the barrel of the pen. The filler was completely seized up, and I ruined it trying to unscrew it (without the proper tool). So now I am going to convert it into an eye-dropper pen (filling the barel using a syringe).
I’ve been writing with it today and it writes pretty great. It is a much finer point than my Pilot Metropolitan. Of course, since it wasn’t meant to be an eyedropper pen, I won’t be carrying it in my pocket. It will stay at my desk.
My particular model, as best I can tell, was made between 1939 and 1942.
Esterbrook Dollar Pen
My second pen is an H size Esterbrook Dollar pen from between 1938 and 1942. I’ve got the section out and cleaned up, ready for a new sac. The nib is a 2442 that is in kind of rough shape, but still usable it think. The lever for filling it works great. So with a $2 sac, a little sac adhesive, and some talcom powder, this pen should be ready to go.
The Esterbrook pens have swappable nibs, and I was going to buy a new nib too. But I think I’m going to try keeping the existing nib first and see how well it does or if I can get it back into shape.