1935 Parker Silver Pearl Vacumatic Junior

Last night I worked on this pen, a nice example of the larger size of the 1935 Parker Silver Pearl Vacumatic Junior. In my post, Parker Vacumatic Lockdown Filler, dated June 20, 2008, I restored a Junior Vacumatic in Burgundy Marble, produced in the same year.  These pens, measuring in at 4 7/8 inches are among the most colorful, and transparent, of the mainstream, commonly found Vacumatics.

Here is a photo of the pen after I have taken it apart.  The process was fairly standard, but the section was glued to the barrel.  These are threaded, so remember to twist out, after applying heat.  The glue made it a longer project than I was expecting, but after many applications of heat, it came apart.  I used the vac tool to get the filler out of the top of the barrel, and this was fairly straightforward as covered in various vacumatic posts which can be found by clicking on Parker Vacumatic categories to the right.

I then thoroughly cleaned all of the parts.  You can see from the picture above that there is a bit of the old sac still on the filler unit and this needs to be scraped off.  Do not use water on this metal unit (i.e. ultrasonic cleaner) as this can cause problems down the road.

Three more items to remember on these Juniors -

The diaphragm size for these is the Standard size, not Debutante, and

As this is a lockdown filler, make sure the filler is fully extended before unscrewing it from the barrel.  If not, the filler could be destroyed, and

Make sure to completely remove any remnants of the old diaphragm.  In a pen that has never been restored and sat for many years, the diaphragm will be caked to the barrel and it will require a lot of work to pry all of it off.

The next two photos show the pen after cleaning and reassembly.  The barrel is ambered, but the transparency is good.  The vacumatic filler works well and the pen filled up with water when tested.

Typically, the trim on these is Silver, though I have seen examples of Gold trim in print.

The pen was made in the 4th quarter of 1935, as you can see by the imprint below.  What is interesting about this imprint is that it is rotated 90 degrees to the rest of the imprint.  Apparently, the 4th quarter of 1935 is somewhat unique in this.  Most of the Parker date codes are in line with the rest of the imprint.

Here is a photo of the two Juniors that I have. This model also was produced in a Green Marble. I will have to be on the lookout for one to complete the common First Generation Marble Jr. Vacumatics.

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