Vacumatic Jewelers Bands

This week I restored a 1943 (1st Quarter) Single Jewel Silver Pear Vacumatic Major.  As you can see below, nothing particularly out of the ordinary, except for the cap band.

The pen, after being taken apart, is below.  As you can see, this is a wartime (1943) pen with the plastic filler.  The only part that needed repair was the debutante diaphragm.

The repair went as with several other vacumatic restorations that I have covered over past year or so.  As usual, care needs to be taken in inverting the diaphragm and attaching it to the filler.  Then it needs to be carefully placed back in the barrel using a vac tool, making sure it seats properly and does not twist or bunch up in the barrel.  All of this tested out well.

The barrel was also gently cleaned with non abrasives to preserve the transparency as with all vacumatic barrels.  This one has average clarity, but not outstanding.

Below is a photo of the Jewelers Cap Band. This is a narrow jewelers cap band.  It is sometimes referred to in literature as a stacked coin band, as it resembles a stack of dimes(?) piled in a stack.  These bands were produced on pens by Parker to be sold in Jewelry Stores.  Parker sold most of their pens in retail stores, stationary stores, and pen stores.  When they identified jewelers as an additional sales location, they produced these special bands.  Some of them were much wider than the one on this pen, and the jeweler could engrave it for the client.  It worked well for the jewelers of the period as well, as the war had cut down on their inventories, and they were looking for more products to sell in their stores.

Finally, a close up of the imprint showing the pen was manufactured in Janesville, WI in the first quarter of 1943. The three dots (one on each side and one below) by the 3 indicate the first quarter of the year. Two dots indicate the 2nd quarter, one dot the 3rd, and a lone 3 indicates the last quarter of the specified year.

The pen measures 5 inches long, capped. These pens and their unique bands are not particularly valuable, but have a little niche in history. They provide the collector with another variation to hunt for.

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