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While I had this apart, I thought I would take a picture to benefit others. The pen is a solid 14kt Command Performance. It had a very dented body. To gain access to the inside, to fix the dents, the pen had to be broken entirely apart to burnish the dents out. When burnishing the dents, it is better to get most the dent out and stop, than over do it and create a surface (outward) bump. The metal bodied Skylines have a plastic piece which presses and glues into the metal body, it is the threaded part in the picture which is next to the gold shell; I refer to it as the "Plug". This layout is true of both the Command Performance and the Gold Award. The body shell does not have plastic/hard rubber/celluloid under it (part of the reason why they dent). The cap Does have an inner liner. It has the usual fault that the cap liner has shrunk, and the shell is no longer bonded to it. This will be addressed in the restoration. To replace the sac the Plug must also be removed. The Sac is NOT glued to the section on this model, it actually glues to the Plug. The section needs to have a good seal where it presses into the Plug, otherwise, you can get leakage. This is an earlier model Command performance, you can tell by the fact the "tail" of the body is more pointed than later produced Command Performance pens. The same is true on Gold Award (gold filled) pens as well. A little background on this pen, it was an eBay find. The seller originally listed it as a "gold plated coronet" in his first (brief) listing. After a day he re-listed it as a gold plated pen. I made an offer on the pen, which took the dents into consideration (and the risk of destroying the pen getting it apart to fix the dents. He accepted the offer, he probably wondered why his dented "gold plated pen" got such a large offer, but he accepted the offer within 3 minutes. Some kind of insidious purple ink had been used in the pen, and the sac was so tender you could pull it apart with your fingers. The sac had the strength and consistency of properly cooked pasta. Tomorrow it hits the ultrasonic cleaner, and then a bit more burnishing will be done on the dents. A new Skyline sac will be installed, and the nib may take a few tweaks to get it perfect. It always feels good to save a pen from being sold for parts, or gold scrap.

Here are a couple pictures of Skyline Gold Award pens side by side. The larger of the two is a "standard" (but it is an odd standard as it measures 5.5 inches capped). The smaller of the two is a demi, measuring in at 4 and 7/8ths (4.875) inches capped. The bigger of the two came with a nice fine (very) flex nib, the demi came with a more typical slight flex (almost miniscule flex) with a medium tip. It is worth noting that BOTH the body and the cap are longer on the standard Gold Award pens.