 n June
1933 also the name "Vacuum Filler" was discontinued, the name
didn't have the right chutzpah that Parker was looking for, someone suggested
that it too much resembled a certain household appliance, and the "Vacumatic"
imprint was adopted.
With the Vacuum Filler Parker developed a Top
Line and a Bottom Line, that continued with
the new Vacumatics the difference being mainly price
and size, and later also design. The nib on the first Top
Line pens had the imprint "Vacumatic DeLuxe". These nibs are
rather rare today [left]. The subsequent nibs were made in an innovative two-tone
design of gold and platinum, the arrow itself being in gold. The engraving on
the nib was "USA/PARKER" [right, top].The Bottom Line nibs were virtually the same but did not have the two-tone feature. The first nibs did not have the Parker arrow [right, bottom]. The imprint on the body read: 
One step back In one of their early ads for the Vacumatic, Parker explained "Why the Sacless Vacumatic Will 'Take You Places' in Learning and Earning." Similarly, they enlisted Ripley's "Believe It or Not" to conduct a "widespread inquiry among students," which, not surprisingly, found an "overwhelming preference for this revolutionary Parker Vacumatic."  arker's
innovation and marketing paid off particularly well. The Vacumatic
instantly rose to popularity and within a few years reinstated The Parker
Company as the top pen manufacturer after the decline of the then somewhat
dated Duofolds.Parker decided to stay with the striped design, allthough a few rare items in other colours and design exist (thanks Susan!). 
The Bottom Line of the Vacumatics were cheaper and did not have the lifetime guarantee of the top line, still, in many ways I find the bottom line to be more attractive than the top. TheTop Line had quite a few models but stayed essentially the same, striped, in design, only colours varying. The Bottom Line, on the other hand, was presented in a wide variety of colours and designs over the years.  The Bottom Line models were smaller than
the Top Line pens and had only two cap bands. The nib on the first models (1933-1934)
had the imprint: PARKER /VACUMATIC/MADE IN USA [right].
One step back These didn't have the famed Vac arrow, which looks
rather odd. Nor was it in two-tone platinum/gold, but in gold only (the
latter a feature that was to remain with the bottom line throughout its
lifetime). The two jewels (clipscrew and tassie) were made in black only
(while the top line followed the pens colour and design). The 1933 Vacumatics:
 t
this time there seemed to be two features that sold pens: the amount of
ink that the pen could hold, and the possibility to actually see how much
ink that was left in the pen.Parker now introduced the transparent laminated Vacumatics. The transparency was achived by DuPont by replacing the black plastic on the body with a transparent plastic. This allowed the user to simply hold the Vacumatic to the light in order to see how much ink was left. The transparent versions became so instantly popular that all opaque pens were discontinued in august 1934 Interesting statistics show that of 68 sold Vacumatics, 37 was of the Junior sizes, 30 of the Standard and Slender sizes and 1 was an Oversize. No wonder I'm having such trouble finding those darn things... In 1934 two more models were introduced in the Top line: the Oversize and the Slender, the Sub Junior was replaced by the Junior Slender, a slightly longer and thinner ladies pen. The stripes was also discontinued on the Bottom Line, it was replaced by an attractive transparent marble design. The 1934 Vacumatics:
One step back  **Demonstrator pens exist but the Junior demonstrator
was advertised as being part of the line under the model name Crystal.
It was not offered as a Junior Slender. ***For some reason it seems that the Slender was not manufactured in Opaque Black.  y
1935, Parker were selling 325,000 units annually, a figure that
levelled off through the depression and into the war years. The Vacumatic
and the saturation advertising campaign that supported it touched off
a craze for vacuum and piston filling pens, as other companies scrambled
to develop their models, none of which were as durable as the Vacumatic.
Sheaffer whose sales held steady at about $7,000,000 into 1931, entered
the market with its Vac-Fill models in 1935 and added a visual feature
a year later. Waterman's Ink-vue model was also introduced in 1936, and
Eversharp followed in 1937, trying to beat its competitors with Safety
Ink Shutoff, which the Federal Trade Commission forced the company to
withdraw the next year.
In
1935 the Crystal was discontinued in the Bottom Line
and replaced with the same black transparent "windowed" design
as previous of the Top Line. A few months later the very same Black
Transparent design was discontinued in the Top Line and was
replaced by an ordinary Transparent laminated Black. From this
point on all Vacumatics have the transparent feature. While the green
Emerald Pearl was introduced in the Top Line the Emerald
Green Marble was added to to the Bottom Line.A new nib was introduced to the bottom line. It now sported the Vacumatic arrow, although still not in two-tone colours, it had the engraving :
The 1935 Vacumatics:
One step back n
1936 Parker advertised the Vacumatic for the same amount of money
spent by all other pen manufacturers in the US combined. A new addition
 was
made to the Top Line, The Senior (14 mm Wide, 135 mm Long).
It was very much a more slender version of the Oversize. Interestingly
enough it was fitted with three cap rings, like all the other Top Line
pens, but the middle one was wider, much like the 1932 style Duofolds.
The new colour brown Golden Pearl was also added to the Top
Line. Two new designs was added to the Bottom Line. The first was a black model referred to as Black Reticular, it was of a design not unlike the Canadian Televisors from the mid 1930's, but while the Televisor was of a pattern with a coloured bottom and black lines "scribbled" all over, the Black Reticular was the other way around, the bottom colour being black. This is a very rare pen but often overlooked due to its but subtle beauty. The other design was the famous Golden Web that
was of a golden brown colour designed in an intricate system of tile-,
or brickwork. Each tile surrounded by a black line (transparent amber).
Both these new pens had black blind caps, as opposed to the other designs
that followed the colour of the body. The nib on the Top Line pens also changed in the manner of the Bottom Line the previous year. It now had the engraving:
One step back This nib style was to stay with the Vacumatics until the end. The 1936 Vacumatics:
During the mid thirties a range of special nibs for the Vacumatics were produced, the so called Special Purpose Point. This nib had two identifying stars (very much alike those on the famous "star clips") these nibs came in eight different styles, all denoted by a letter: A Superfine, Rigid, Long nib. B Superfine, Semi-flexible, Long nib C Superfine, Rigid, Short nib D Extra-fine, Rigid, Short nib E Music Point, Flexible, Long nib F Extra Broad, Fast Flow, Short nib G Stenographic, Long nib H Stenographic, Short nib The nibs were of the standard size only, except G and H that was also made in the slender size. All these nibs are rather rare. y
the late 1930s, the fountain pen had completed its technical development,
and design became increasingly more important than innovation in marketing
fountain pens. By then, Art Deco had given way to another industrially
based design, generally referred to as Streamline or Streamline Moderne.
That style, put simply, rounded the edges of Art Deco. Sheaffer became
the first to use this design in pens with the introduction of the "Balance"
models. Even Parker's revolutionary Vacumatic had squared edges which
were smoothed only in 1937. Waterman's waited even longer. Their
elegant, but blocky, Patrician enlargement was replaced only in 1939 by
a dramatic new Hundred Year Pen, manufactured entirely out of translucent
celluloid. The pen was accented by a highly futuristic streamlined and
ribbed design accented by liberal use of gold trim. The same year, Sheaffer
set another new trend with the introduction of its Crest model, which
featured gold-filled and white metal caps. A year later all these new
pens were of course scooped by the introduction of what would come to
be the most popular pen in history, the Parker "51".In 1937 Parker decided to change the style of the Vacumatics. Following the recipe of the Duofolds, Parker started to produce a more streamlined version of the Vacumatic (the Standard and the Slender however remained "square" until their last year, 1939, when they also were streamlined). The Twist fill was replaced with a new style plunger, only difference was that it didn't lock down. It was still made out of aluminium. The blind cap was lengthened to fit the new plunger and the new filling system was named the "Speedline" fill by Parker. The story was that the new filler could be operated with one hand, and therefore was quicker. Another truth was that the Twist filler was prone to breakage and was difficult to repair.
The Oversize was replaced with a streamlined version called the Senior Maxima (16 mm Wide, 139 mm Long). This entirely new pen had a wide cap band (app 5 mm) initially with a very attractive engraving with "VACUMATIC" in raised letters on the cap band, these models are quite rare. Later the band was engraved with a pattern of repeated lines leaning left and right: ///\\\///\\\. The unequal banded Senior met with an untimely death and was replaced with the Maxima a more slender version of the Senior Maxima . The third new model was destined to become the best seller of the Vacumatic line, the Major. It was identical to the streamlined Standard Vacumatics of 1939, only with a cap band in the style of the two Maximas. The Slender was also streamlined. The Bottom Line mostly stayed the same but the Junior Slender was renamed Juniorette. The
1937 Vacumatics:
The
1938 Vacumatics: The
1939 Vacumatics: |
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 he
streamlined Standard pen was discontinued in 1940 and the
Major filled the gap. (The Major is in fact referred to as the
"Standard" by many collectors). The Slender was also discontinued
and replaced by the Debutante, it was very much like the Junior
Debutante but was fitted with the Blue Diamond and had the two-tone
nib. The Maxima was appropriately renamed Slender Maxima
but stayed unchanged. In the Bottom Line the Shadow Wave
colour was discontinued and they all adopted the laminated colours except
the burgundy. This was probably because Parker already had planned
to stop producing the burgundy in the Top Line, as they also did
in 1941.The
1940 Vacumatics:
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1995-2008 Tony Fischier and The Parker Pen Company®/Sanford Ecriture. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
