Ebay vacumatic - has no date code

Hi all,

I pounced on a black Vacumatic on Ebay, and it arrived this morning. It's got no date code, which has surprised me. (The barrel imprints are lovely and clear, but there's no indication of there ever having been a date code) It's a speedline filler, with a split arrow - so going by Richard Binder's site, that would narrow it down to 1937-38 - is this correct?

The feed is slightly twisted round, and I don't have a knockout block yet (ordering one... now!) so I've not tried the nib. It seems to be a fine / extra-fine, with some flex. Other than the feed / nib being out of alignment, it's in reasonably good shape. I took it apart and gave it a thorough clean this morning, once all the dried blue ink was rinsed from the inside I could see the formerly-clear stripes well (though now very ambered).


Canadian Vacumatic no date by Inkysloth, on Flickr

Hi all,

I pounced on a black Vacumatic on Ebay, and it arrived this morning. It's got no date code, which has surprised me. (The barrel imprints are lovely and clear, but there's no indication of there ever having been a date code) It's a speedline filler, with a split arrow - so going by Richard Binder's site, that would narrow it down to 1937-38 - is this correct?

The feed is slightly twisted round, and I don't have a knockout block yet (ordering one... now!) so I've not tried the nib. It seems to be a fine / extra-fine, with some flex. Other than the feed / nib being out of alignment, it's in reasonably good shape. I took it apart and gave it a thorough clean this morning, once all the dried blue ink was rinsed from the inside I could see the formerly-clear stripes well (though now very ambered).

Hi,

The pen looks very Canadian (tight cap-bands, feathers encroaching on arrow shaft of nib).

The metal non-locking filler (which many call "speedline filler", though Parker hadn't) was used through at least 1941. The split arrow was introduced to small (Debutante and Junior Debutante) pen around mid 1938 and to full size pens really in 1939. Canada delayed the introduction of the Blue Diamond clip (early 1939 in USA) probably until mid 1940 or so. Pens which in USA would have had the diamond clip in 1939 tend to have split arrow clip like yours (which generally was a non-high-line clip) even on high line pens in 1939. One can find even Senior Maxima from Canada with that clip, never used on that model in USA. Your pen is an off catalogue variant (assuming 5+ inch pen, as it appears in the pic. If a shorty, let us know) well known though as the "streamlined" Standard or Streamline Standard, shape of a Major but triple cap-bands of a Standard. This pen never had a blue diamond clip. I would date it to 1939-1941.

Hey, noticed your pic is on Flickr. If you plan to delete it and rotate images (seems to happen with free external host sites), maybe instead upload the pic to our own GALLERY instead? We seem to have posts like this lose images over the course of a couple years, and then anyone looking at thread will have no idea what the pen looked like.

best regards

david

Hi,

The pen looks very Canadian (tight cap-bands, feathers encroaching on arrow shaft of nib).

The metal non-locking filler (which many call "speedline filler", though Parker hadn't) was used through at least 1941. The split arrow was introduced to small (Debutante and Junior Debutante) pen around mid 1938 and to full size pens really in 1939. Canada delayed the introduction of the Blue Diamond clip (early 1939 in USA) probably until mid 1940 or so. Pens which in USA would have had the diamond clip in 1939 tend to have split arrow clip like yours (which generally was a non-high-line clip) even on high line pens in 1939. One can find even Senior Maxima from Canada with that clip, never used on that model in USA. Your pen is an off catalogue variant (assuming 5+ inch pen, as it appears in the pic. If a shorty, let us know) well known though as the "streamlined" Standard or Streamline Standard, shape of a Major but triple cap-bands of a Standard. This pen never had a blue diamond clip. I would date it to 1939-1941.

Hey, noticed your pic is on Flickr. If you plan to delete it and rotate images (seems to happen with free external host sites), maybe instead upload the pic to our own GALLERY instead? We seem to have posts like this lose images over the course of a couple years, and then anyone looking at thread will have no idea what the pen looked like.

best regards

david

Thanks David,

Canada seemed to be fond of the off catalogue variant... part of the joy of collecting, but given I'm still right at the start, it's also a frustration! I'm so glad the internet exists now!

Lengthwise, capped, it's 5 3/16" (133mm) so definitely not a shortie. The one thing that confuses me is this, and my other Canadian vac, which I thought was a Major, take a small diaphragm - the medium size is just too fat. Or do I have my sizes confused?

I don't delete stuff from Flickr, but I'm happy to pop my picture up in the gallery here, too, so it's stashed for digital prosperity

Best wishes

Robin

David, do note that Flickr now offers 1TB of storage to every user, even free accounts. That's a LOT of pictures. Though I do understand the benefit of hosting the pictures in the web gallery.

Thanks David,

Canada seemed to be fond of the off catalogue variant... part of the joy of collecting, but given I'm still right at the start, it's also a frustration! I'm so glad the internet exists now!

Lengthwise, capped, it's 5 3/16" (133mm) so definitely not a shortie. The one thing that confuses me is this, and my other Canadian vac, which I thought was a Major, take a small diaphragm - the medium size is just too fat. Or do I have my sizes confused?

I don't delete stuff from Flickr, but I'm happy to pop my picture up in the gallery here, too, so it's stashed for digital prosperity

Best wishes

Robin

Hi,

I should clarify. The tight cap-bands, the special arrow style on the nib, the late introduction of Blue Diamond (thus seeing Split-Arrow clip on pens that never had 'em in USA) are Canadian features.

Your pen never had BD so Split Arrow is c/w USA pens to a fair degree. Too, the Streamline Standard (Major-shape pen, slightly smaller nib, features that straddle economy-line and high-line Vacs (details on that another day ) ) was made in both countries. The pen is not off-catalogue d/t its Canadinity (sic?).

regards

david

David, do note that Flickr now offers 1TB of storage to every user, even free accounts. That's a LOT of pictures. Though I do understand the benefit of hosting the pictures in the web gallery.

All good. Actually, for those who are able/willing to host externally without deleting images, external hosting is fine. Gallery images do take bandwidth hit here at FPB. Over time, hosting the site would be cheaper if we did not have Gallery at all. But, it seemed an important service to offer, especially to keep posts intact over time.

regards

david

David, do note that Flickr now offers 1TB of storage to every user, even free accounts. That's a LOT of pictures. Though I do understand the benefit of hosting the pictures in the web gallery.

All good. Actually, for those who are able/willing to host externally without deleting images, external hosting is fine. Gallery images do take bandwidth hit here at FPB. Over time, hosting the site would be cheaper if we did not have Gallery at all. But, it seemed an important service to offer, especially to keep posts intact over time.

regards

david

Just FYI, imgur is really easy (and free) to host and images stay up indefinitely unless they're specifically deleted (unlike imageshack, photobucket, et al.)