Hi,
I've just recently discovered fountain pens, mainly through internet and the other day I found some on ebay and they arrived today. My thought when I decided to bid for something hardly seen on a very blurry photo was that it was a way for me to try and see if I like to write with this kind of pen and if they didn't work to write with I could always use them as a way of figure out how such a pen should work, I didn't pay much for the pens. The two pens arrived today looking very good, one Parker and one Swedish model called Runa. However, neither would release any ink so I thought maybe it's dried out and pulled the Parker apart, found the instruction "grip here, pull out" so I did but nothing pulled out. Afer reading David Nishimuras saying "Do NOT soak any part of your pen other than the nib assembly! Pens are designed to hold liquids, not to be immersed in them" I decided to pull once more and now look what happened!!! I know my now blue hands will be back to normal again but will the pen ever? What did I do wrong and can it be fixed? I feel really sorry for what I did because the pen looked really good, with a nice blue/green color and some gold and silver too and it also felt good in my hand.

This is my first time posting so I hope I'm doing it right and that the pic of my broken pen will be seen as an attachment

Thanks

It says "press ribbed bar four times" or something slimilar, not PULL HERE!.

I would guess you have pulled the sac off, and likely torn it, so it will probably need a new sac. The metal sleeve just pushes back on, but the sac must be glued with shellac.

Peter

Hello Cordelia,

Welcome to FPN.
Your pen looks like a Parker VP from the early 1960s, (62-64), these pens had an unusual and rather fragile filler, which is one of the reasons that they were in production for such a short time and finding replacement fillers is not very easy to do and they tend to be quite expensive when you do, you might be lucky in finding one with a broken barrel but a good filler. By the way the instructions will read pull here but what they don't mention is that it is a good idea to place the nib unit in some cool water until it covers the whole front end of the pen, this will do the pen no harm at at as long as it is properly dried afterward.

With the filler broken off I don't know how easy it is to get the broken end out,it is not something I have ever had to do mainly because I have only had one and that behaved itself. There are a couple of peole here who have more experience of these pens and who might be able to help with finding a filler and getting the broken part out of the pen.

I hope you get it working again as the VP writes very well when it is working.

Now about this Swedish pen any chance of a picture please, just for reference, I like odd brands of pen and like to know what they look like etc.

Once again best of luck.

Cheers, John

Your pen is a VP. You've pulled the sac and the sac guard off of the filler, may have broken the nipple that the sac attaches to, but have not broken the breather tube. It may be possible to machine a piece to repair the broken nipple, and then attach the sac and the sac guard. Finding a replacement filler is pretty much impossible. I do have a front end, but would most likely make a new nipple out of acrylic and solvent weld it on to what remains since the front of the filler is intact.

You're tanked if you break off the breather tube, so put the barrel on the pen to protect it until you find a new filler, or send the pen with the filler in it, for repair.

FWIW, one can soak the front end of this pen to remove the filler and it won't hurt the pen. But the best thing to do is to ignore Parkers instructions, and fill the pen through the nib and feed as you do most pens. It won't hurt it, and there's less chance of breaking the filler.