Rare Vacumatic: 36 pens for $86. Anudder sumgai vs dumbgai.

Another hypothesis would be that these pens actually predate the Golden Arrow -- perhaps used for market testing at a time or place where Parker did not want to reveal the new pen's name. If the initial testing was with a single color and model (which would make sense), this would be consistent with the lack of variation in surviving Vacs-with-no-Vac-imprint (or should we call them anonyVacs?). Unfortunately, our sample size is still far too small, especially considering how common the red laminate pens were in early production.

Another hypothesis would be that these pens actually predate the Golden Arrow -- perhaps used for market testing at a time or place where Parker did not want to reveal the new pen's name. If the initial testing was with a single color and model (which would make sense), this would be consistent with the lack of variation in surviving Vacs-with-no-Vac-imprint (or should we call them anonyVacs?). Unfortunately, our sample size is still far too small, especially considering how common the red laminate pens were in early production.

Along such lines...

Not certain on the clip on this one, but the pencil speaks anyway...

regards,

David

BTW, Anonyvac has a nice ring (or is that "nice rings") to it.

Or, cough cough... shall we just call them Bob... as in "No Vac"

-d

For me, I'd much prefer KIM NO-VA[C]K

For me, I'd much prefer KIM NO-VA[C]K

No doubt. But... it was a bit of an in-joke. You really need to get to some pen shows, Garth.

-d

Now that you mention it, I've seen a lot more anonyVac pencils than pens.

All are early, of course, but I always just figured that Parker didn't regard it as so important to put the Golden Arrow/Vacuum Filler/Vacumatic name on the pencils as on the pens.

Will have to do a little digging tonight to see how many such pencils I have, and in what colors.

ADDENDUM: Whoops, posting too late at night -- as pointed out below, that's the standard post-Golden Arrow pencil imprint.

Edited by David Nishimura, 14 December 2011 - 01:54 PM.

Now that you mention it, I've seen a lot more anonyVac pencils than pens.

All are early, of course,

SNIP

Hi David,

Either I'm misreading your note, or you had a bit of a short-circuit when you posted

ALL USA-made Vacumatic-family pencils (save for Golden Arrow of course), are "anonyVacs", imprinted only with the bland "Parker" imprint.

I posted that red pencil a note or two above, to show its Duofold imprint. Again, it is same shape/size as the three Anonyvac pens we've now discussed, and its anomalous imprint at least goes along with the obviously tentative notion of pre-Golden-Arrow striped pieces, trials, etc. That it is same color and size/trim again is... interesting.

If we were to find bland Parker imprint pencils of this sort, those of course would be typical pencils to match with pens Vacuum-Filler imprint.

regards

David

No doubt. But... it was a bit of an in-joke. You really need to get to some pen shows, Garth.

-d

Ahhh, but I have never, ever, been comfortable with the 'in' crowd... let alone an 'in joke'
... and re Pen shows; when there are substantial shows in Australia, that I can attend - afford to - I'll be there.

Australia seems to be very sparse with shows, and I was not in a position to attend the Melbourne pen show that was held most recently... poss a couple of years back... LOL

Either I'm misreading your note, or you had a bit of a short-circuit when you posted

Short-circuited indeed -- posting past my sleep-by time!

Man, you go off line for a few days, and all sorts of stuff happen.

First - Very cool pen. Doubly so for me because of my Vac and "Thrift time" attractions.

Second - I'd favor accident proposition which really gets supported by the three sited pens all being burgundy. Imagine, someone tosses in the wrong die, several hundred burgundy pens run through before some yells "Johnson you dolt! That's the wrong die. Hmmm no big deal, just add them t0 the Cinncinnati shipment, they'll never notice the difference."
I haven't been around that long, but it seems someone would have documented pre GA pens proposition by now.

Third - Given that "we" think this is scarce enough to call rare, how improbable is it that one of perhaps a dozen folks that would know it was an oddity saw it, suspected it, and successfully bought it. I think I saw this lot and either skimmed over it or placed a paltry snipe. And I should know better!

So kudos for both ferreting it out and acquiring it.

On another subject, I borrowed Len Provisor's photos of the PCA's Parker archive visit in 92. I've scanned them and eventually will get them into the PCA library. The photos have a pronounced yellow cast that I will try to compensate for. There are some really really neat pens that if you haven't been collecting forever you may never see live.

John

Man, you go off line for a few days, and all sorts of stuff happen.

First - Very cool pen. Doubly so for me because of my Vac and "Thrift time" attractions.

Hi John,

Glad you checked in. Hey, we might not be the biggest show in town... but we do have some solid content here

Second- I'd favor accident proposition which really gets supported by the three sited pens all being burgundy. Imagine, someone tosses in the wrong die, several hundred burgundy pens run through before some yells "Johnson you dolt! That's the wrong die. Hmmm no big deal, just add them t0 the Cinncinnati shipment, they'll never notice the difference."
I haven't been around that long, but it seems someone would have documented pre GA pens proposition by now.

Really, I don't know.

Besides the pens themselves, we have very little documentation for even the GA. Had Lynn Sorgatz not found some early Parker company information, leading to his 1993 PENnant article, we'd have about nothing on GA. I was pointed to a local newspaper page a couple years ago showing tiny advert for GA, perhaps strengthening claim that pens marked GA made it to market, vs seeing switch to VF imprint before pens went public. Food for another conversation

Again, three pens total found when only three colors existed, still only requires 1/27 prospective odds of occurring. I hear people buy lottery tickets with worse odds.

An early-early pen might have had only one plastic on hand. Or indeed an accident could have resulted in one batch of off-imprints but might not require only one color. Did only one color pass through each stamp? Idunno...

Third - Given that "we" think this is scarce enough to call rare, how improbable is it that one of perhaps a dozen folks that would know it was an oddity saw it, suspected it, and successfully bought it. I think I saw this lot and either skimmed over it or placed a paltry snipe. And I should know better!

Quite so. Certainly others besides David and I might have encountered them, and either didn't care, didn't get it, didn't document, don't recall now... and so forth.

So kudos for both ferreting it out and acquiring it.

Glad to have it, but didn't know at bidding time what imprint would be found, of course. I figured I was grabbing a nice medium-size Vacuum-Filler. No imprint showed in the ad. Lucky find no doubt. Still, would have been worth much more with that precious GA imprint.

On another subject, I borrowed Len Provisor's photos of the PCA's Parker archive visit in 92. I've scanned them and eventually will get them into the PCA library. The photos have a pronounced yellow cast that I will try to compensate for. There are some really really neat pens that if you haven't been collecting forever you may never see live. John

I had chance to play with Dan Zazov's prototype collection. Always happy to see more interesting oddities.

regards

david

I tend to be leery of invoking accidents to explain anomalies. Parker seems to have run a pretty tight ship back in the '30s: I can't think of corroborating examples of anomalous imprints that have a strong claim to be accidental.

Also, the examples here discussed are all *very* early, as indicated by the feeds. From that feature alone, I would date them as pre-Vacuum-Filler. So they would have been produced prior to the full rollout, at a time when this new flagship pen was still being test-marketed and shown around to company reps and top retailers. These circumstances are about the least conducive imaginable to a production accident when it comes to the imprint. The pens were still being made in small numbers, and surely with special care. In all likelihood, the manufacturing machinery was still being set up and tweaked, so the production line -- such as it was -- would have been run by the most skilled and experienced workers Parker had.