The Platinum President Demonstrator clearly did not, or at least it didn't when the photos I've seen of it were taken. There's no mention of it on the page linked to above when you click through, so I think this was just a simple mistake. It is surprising that a lower model would have the touted state-of-the-art system while the "flagship" does not.

I wonder if there was a faulty batch of sacs, I had one basically melt a big hole in the side of it after ~12 mths ( give or take 4,6,8,or 10) and I use fairly basic inks like Watermans.

No question it can happen for that reason, especially in a Snorkel or TD because the proximity of metal. My personal opinion when it came up back then was that the risk of confirmation bias was overwhelming once people had made the association with Noodler's inks.

So I started exposing sac fragments in Noodler's inks for long durations, with control fragments cut from the same sacs (side-by-side cuts). Ron points out that my experiments will not yield a convincing negative result, because actual usage involves inks on one side and air on the other. I concede this and considered how to modify the experiment, but in the end I decided that I was already doing all I was willing to do. Because, you see, I really don't give a rat's ass about Noodler's inks in particular. I'm just being me when it comes to analyzing information.

Long story short, nothing happened to most of the sac fragments. I don't mean "very little". I mean as far as I could tell, they were pristine, perhaps even in better condition than the control fragments in Waterman Blue. This was also true of the fragments that had been in "dryout" versions of the experiment, open vials. However, after one year, the fragment in the closed Noodler's Blue vial had lost its elasticity and become a bit sticky, whereas the control fragments were all fine. So last July, I restarted two more trials with Noodler's Blue (and another couple of inks) using a lot more sac fragments. I check on it infrequently because it did take something like a year last time before any change was evident to me.

I'm actually kind of hoping the results repeat. Otherwise, I'm left with the enigma of the first sac failure (and not of the control fragment). But if I had to put money down, I'd bet on ending up with an enigma.

While I would preface it by noting that Ron's price is very reasonable, and I'm confident that his product is excellent, there is a sliver of Stef's position that I can relate to. It's not the cringe-worthy application of nail varnish (!), rather the notion that Ron's rosin-based sealant is the one to get in order to do it "right", which might be coming across unintentionally. It's not difficult to make rosin-based sealant with a block of rosin, pure castor oil, a glass or metal jar/tub, and a heat gun. I finally got around to mixing up around 30ml last night in an old ink bottle with $3 worth of ingredients (admittedly with a $70 heat gun). It wasn't exactly the hardest thing I did yesterday. Looks real purty, too. I'm sure it's not the optimal consistency, but I can dial it in.

Rather than go to the trouble, I'd actually have bought some from Ron myself, but either my email went astray, or I might well have pissed Ron off over the Noodler's Ink melting sacs or not issue awhile back. (Still in the process of trying to replicate a melt with Noodler's Blue, but it took a year to see it the first time, and there are still 2 or 3 months to go on this trial.)

I wasn't sure why you inferred that 1950 would be the earliest production date unless you were looking at a patent number on the actual product you were trying to date.  If we're just talking theoretically, under current US rules I think you have 1 year after the invention is revealed to file, which, if the same rules were in place back then, would put the earliest embodiment at 1945.  If there was no grace period back then, then 1946.  The date the actual patent was granted would not be relevant.

The patent number is issued when the patent is granted.  Prior to that the information is indexed by an application number.  I assume this practice is unchanged.  Consequently, if the product has the patent number inscribed on it, then the production date could be no earlier than the date the patent was granted.  Before that, they could have written "patent pending" without a number.

Not sure what the practice was back then. Currently applications are published after a delay, but issuance almost always takes longer than that. Taking one of mine as an example, it was filed on December 1, 2000, published as an application on June 6, 2002, and granted on March 9, 2004. So you would have been able to get your hands on it 2.5 years after it was filed, 1.75 years before it was eventually granted.

Singroitz is nothing.  If you start looking at the "Singroitz" hits, you find that they're all of this ilk or are errors.  The -witz suffix means "son of", and so is a common part of a surname, and Singwitz is also town in Germany, formerly East Germany, I think.  It's too bad they thought they could put a loop instead of a hook at the end of a w. Seems to have tripped a lot of people up.  Here's a different style print on a Singwitz box that is more clear

 

http://www.ebay.com....x-/160480002983

 

Of course, it might not be the same company, but what's the simplest explanation?  

 

 

Might be a replacement nib, though.

 

I agree.  David's wording could have been more definitive, but at least there is disclosure.  His intent clearly was not to deceive.  Knowing David personally, I understand why he chose to word the disclosure this way.
 

 

From Isaacson's Vacumania:  A serviceable user. Very even color on the gray parts (not so common  to find). Pen works well, but I have not had it restored. Cap cartouche neatly personalized  "JPF". Blind cap alignment a bit off. BLIND JEWEL AND  TASSIE appear to be  aftermarket replacements- likely Ariel's material.

 

 

 More or less "yep".

 

Although, I  chose my words cautiously and accurately; they  were chosen intentionally so as  not  to be seemingly more definitive. It is not good to sound definitive where uncertainty exists.

 

Reaper of course is both unduly concrete and perhaps deliberately misleading in his commentary. 

 

Not to kiss ass here, rather to voice disagreement with Reaper on this issue because I found his take on this wording to be petty and annoying, I think the original wording was plenty clear enough.

There are no invites, having invites implies you get to choose to participate.

Clean the threads inside the barrel or better yet run a chasing tap down them and don't overtighten the nut. Then push it where it belongs.

Got it. Thanks.

If the parts have not been sanded or reshaped in a prior restoration attempt (the left the factory round and on concentric axes) the can be realigned after restoration without removal of material.

Do you have to be invited into the Syndicate before somebody will tell you how to do this? The only degree of freedom that springs to mind without removing material is how far the filler is threaded into barrel.

Sounds like overkill. Also need to avoid the slingshot maneuver and the flail maneuver then. You can empty the pen mostly with the filler mechanism if you press the button slowly and deliberately. You just need the thermometer shake to finish off the emptying process, otherwise, repeated flushing takes forever, progressively diluting the inky water without directly removing. Would understand if arthritis or injury prevent the thermometer shake (been there!). If time is not of the essence, you can let the pen stand in a cup with the nib and feed well covered in paper towels to wick out the inky water. After an hour or so, repeat the flushing and wicking until the water that has wicked out is fairly clear.

I'm hardly offended. Rather, I'm fairly well entertained.

 

Of course you are.  I've seen it happen enough to know.  But I often wonder why people choose to entertain you so well in this manner.  They don't seem to enjoy it as much as you do.

The jewel looked to be purple in color. Perhaps the angle but it just looked odd to me, and wanted to know what thoughts you all had about it.. just the jewel color looks odd on that set.. I presently have three sets myself, but always looking for more depending on the price...

 

Looks a bit purple to me, too.  Never had a 51DJ.  Can ink get behind the blind cap jewel if the diaphragm fails?

David wonderful collection but I'm curious to know do these bands appear in any other colours?

 

Sure.  There's probably a half dozen threads on the subject here, but this is the first I happened upon when I went in search for you:

 

http://fpgeeks.com/f...pecial-Balances

Less is more.

I haven't had any experience with pens of that era, so this may be a common thing for all I know, but one thing that strikes me about your new pen is how beautiful the threads are and how well the section fits the barrel.  

I don't know for certain, but somehow I got the impression that all Parker 51 nibs are interchangeable.

Bonus points if you can tell why it is interesting.

 

It's not enough that they're striated brown instead of black?

My personal sample size is too small to say what is common.  In fact I only have only one pen with an inlaid nib that I have used much.  It happens to be a Targa (standard girth, not slender), and I don't recall it ever balking.  I'm sure the one I fixed would have given me fits, but I never gave it the chance.  As it happens, I haven't even inked that pen yet.  I have a third Targa that is a "backup" for my older one, and it looks fine.  I also have a PFM.  I think it did have a minor case of the inverted grand canyon thing.  Would be surprising to have it on a stub, though.  Might be something else.  Do you store your pens horizontally or nib up when they are inked?

Maybe this has been done to death, but I have a bunch of Targas and almost all of them are hard starters if left alone for a day or two. It takes a few blank strokes elsewhere to finally get them writing. One person who is a master (to me, at least) of solving nib problems has told me that normal age shrinkage of the plastic into which the nib is inlaid causes the tines to close up against each other and not allow ink to flow down to the tip. Has anyone else encountered this problem? Targas are the only inlaid nib Sheaffers I have so I can't speak about the other models. I guess what I'm asking is is this a chronic problem with the inlaid nib, steel or gold?

 

Not that I'm aware of.  Do Targas have a shrinkage problem?  None of mine do.  While closed up tines is a problem to be fixed, even if the tines close, it only means that the pen will be dry-writing, especially on the up-stroke.  If there are no other problems, an initial downstroke with a little pressure should prime the flow.  The more usual explanation for hard starting after days of idle time is an poorly-sealing cap.  However, I think the Targa caps should be pretty good.  So, I'll set this explanation aside.  

 

One possibility that comes to mind, only because I just had to fix it with a NOS Targa that I bought over the holidays, would be what Richard Binder calls the inverted grand canyon issue in his nib smoothing article. The gap between the tines isn't parallel.  Rather, it is wider facing the paper than it is on the other side.  With this condition the ink may fail to touch the paper on the initial touching of the nib to paper, so capillary flow does not start.  The pen may start to write when gravity sends enough ink towards the tip to fill the gap so that ink touches the paper when the nib does.

 

Maybe it's one thing or another, but I do think it is a nib adjustment issue, just not one due to shrinkage.   Unfortunately, the inverted grand canyon thing, if that's the problem, isn't one of the simpler adjustments.  It is pretty easy to see, however, with some magnification.

If not, I recommend going the easy route and ordering them.

 

Yeah, the only reason I made them was that when I was ready to order them, it was just before the DC show, which I wasn't going to.  David was already gone.  Patience isn't my strong suit.  If I knew what was good for me, I'd have ordered three last time.  But every one is supposedly my "last" one.  

 

Edit:  David N. can thank this discussion for the order I just placed for various parts, including, finally, 3 "51" breather tubes.

All the ones I've seen so far that weren't corroded, at least a little bit, were in pens that looked like they hadn't seen much use.  David Nishimura's replacements are good.  I've made a few with some stainless steel tube that I happen to have, but I don't have a good set-up for drilling the little hole in the side (though I managed it).

My dearth of experience with EP Balance models is probably showing here, but I do see, in addition to the narrow cap band, that the inlay on the plunger filler stops noticeably sooner as one approaches the end of the barrel.

 

 

A color match might be difficult.  Kullock might have a clear barrel that would make an interesting result.

Are you trying to kill me?

 

 

The thought had not crossed my mind, but now that you mention it...except that I'm sure you wouldn't go down without a fight.   I'm going to assume that you mean it's painful to consider the abomination of combining a Kullock barrel with the remains of this particular pen.  I just figured you could store the parts as a pen rather than as junk in a little drawer that will probably just get thrown in the trash once it passes back into the hands of people as enlightened as the seller.  'Course if you've built up enough magic yet, maybe you can mend the barrel.

A color match might be difficult.  Kullock might have a clear barrel that would make an interesting result.