English Parker 51 Vacumatic Dove Grey Repaired in December, 1962 and fitted with a Navy Grey Barrel.

[mitto]

As in the topic. 

Here is the pen and The Parker Pen Company's letter dated 20th December, 1962 in which they mention that the pen was repaired and fitted with the nearest colour barrel. 

Watch and enjoy peeping into the history of Parker 51. 

[bsenn]

Nice find with the letter! Interesting, other Vacumatics in Aerometric colors I have seen in person or photos have had hood and blind cap match the barrel.

 

Brian

[jchch1950]

The Parker letter is useful information about what was the repair policy of the company at the time.They try to keep the pens working even if they don't have the exact part.

[Beechwood]

4 minutes ago, jchch1950 said:

The Parker letter is useful information about what was the repair policy of the company at the time.They try to keep the pens working even if they don't have the exact part.

 

The corollary to that point of view is that if Parker cannot make the pen as good as new then they should offer to replace the pen.

 

If I sent a pen to a repairer today and they replaced parts with mismatched items and without prior approval then we might have an animated discussion

[welch]

I thought immediately that Parker Service had had to work over the aerometric barrel to fit the vac filling system, including cutting off a bit for the blind cap. Tells us something about the place of fountain pens then...the ultimate writing instrument.

[joss]

This is indeed an interesting letter. It suggests that they still had the machinery (and/or skills) to produce 51 Vac barrels in 1962, as they could not simply chop the top from a Navy Grey Aerometric barrel to fit a Vac filling unit. The odd thing is that the Dove Gray 51 Vac barrel must have been available as a spare part, as it is still in the 1962 parts catalog. Perhaps Parker England did not bother to order it from the USA?

[FarmBoy]

2 hours ago, joss said:

This is indeed an interesting letter. It suggests that they still had the machinery (and/or skills) to produce 51 Vac barrels in 1962, as they could not simply chop the top from a Navy Grey Aerometric barrel to fit a Vac filling unit. The odd thing is that the Dove Gray 51 Vac barrel must have been available as a spare part, as it is still in the 1962 parts catalog. Perhaps Parker England did not bother to order it from the USA?

Parker US was replacing Dove grey with Navy grey very early on. 
 

Often you got a matching blind cap.

[VacNut]

Wouldn’t there be a more local pen technician who could have made the repair with a barrel that matched? 1962 wouldn’t have been that long after the end of the Vacumatic filler. NOS still pop up now.

 

The barrels are solid stock correct? They could have machined a new barrel and made a matching pen.

 

I am assuming they still had the diaphragm for the filler, so there may have been available barrels.

 

[mitto]

1 hour ago, VacNut said:

Wouldn’t there be a more local pen technician who could have made the repair with a barrel that matched? 1962 wouldn’t have been that long after the end of the Vacumatic filler. NOS still pop up now.

 

The barrels are solid stock correct? They could have machined a new barrel and made a matching pen.

 

I am assuming they still had the diaphragm for the filler, so there may have been available barrels.

 

Let us go back to 1962. What means were there for sourcing NOS parts other than sending the pen to the Company's Service Departpment? Let us not forget that was the era when people would stick to their own pens. People would seldom sell their personal pens. Again there were neither online websites nor online auction houses / platforms where to buy used pens / pen parts. And, hence, the idea of local pen repairer is, somewhat, unreasonable. 

[FarmBoy]

1962 is 14 years after the last Vacumatic filled 51s left their birth place. 
 

nearly all the NOS parts that turn up originate from a pen store stock, not the factory. It isn’t like there was a huge interconnected network of shops with a parts locator system in play. 
 

Some people had parts and there no real mechanism to find those parts. Remember email in 1962 still used a stamp on an envelope. 

[VacNut]

But the factory had diaphragms from 14 years back that would fit a 51 Vacumatic filler? It seems the end cap and hoods where the two parts that were made in surplus because the would get damaged or stained. The letter is from the UK?

[mitto]

1 hour ago, VacNut said:

But the factory had diaphragms from 14 years back that would fit a 51 Vacumatic filler? It seems the end cap and hoods where the two parts that were made in surplus because the would get damaged or stained. The letter is from the UK?

Here:

 

 

[FarmBoy]

9 hours ago, VacNut said:

But the factory had diaphragms from 14 years back that would fit a 51 Vacumatic filler? It seems the end cap and hoods where the two parts that were made in surplus because the would get damaged or stained. The letter is from the UK?

I know where Parker got their diaphragms. They didn’t rely on 15 year old stock to repair pens….

[VacNut]

It is a noble effort on the part of Parker to fulfill their pledge.

[joss]

On 11/12/2024 at 4:52 AM, FarmBoy said:

1962 is 14 years after the last Vacumatic filled 51s left their birth place. 
 

nearly all the NOS parts that turn up originate from a pen store stock, not the factory. It isn’t like there was a huge interconnected network of shops with a parts locator system in play. 
 

Some people had parts and there no real mechanism to find those parts. Remember email in 1962 still used a stamp on an envelope. 

 

But then what was the relevance of the extensive repair parts lists that Parker published in 1958, 1960 and 1962 which include virtually every part of the 51 Vacumatic?

 

The parts lists also mention the 'Parts Exchange Policy', which allowed Parker service stations to return or exchange new or used parts with the Parker factory. Could this have been a basic network that also allowed locating parts that were hard-to-find?

[VacNut]

I guess it would be dependent on how much effort the Parker technician applied to the pen. I assume there was a Parker parts network throughout the UK and it would have depended on whether or not the technician wanted to call the various repair shops to hunt down a dove gray barrel. Dover is towards the south end of the UK. 

[FarmBoy]

In that parts list Parker indicates that the Dove and Cordovan barrels are no longer available and will be substituted.

I highly doubt that a pen repair shop in Tennessee had access to the parts inventory of a pen repair shop in San Francisco, thus one place may still have spare parts while another and the factory did not.

[VacNut]

I was assuming there may have been shops around the UK. I am guessing Dover may not have been a major repair center, as opposed to New Haven, or London. On another note, it have been more effort to send a single barrel to Dover than it was worth. Either way, still very noble of Parker.

 

[mitto]

Whatever the situation of supply of parts may have been in England in 1962, I am happy with the pen the way it is. I picked it off of eBay. UK for £21 +£6 (shipping cost). Nobody seemed interested in the pen. I also like the dingless early production UK 51 cap on the pen. Needless to say I have a spare dove grey 51 vacumatic barrel (may be a Janesville production) but would not replace it on the pen.