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What Was Used In The Imprints To Give It That White Look?


Tylerjordan

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I've got a handful of Parker Vacumatics and none of them have the 'whiteness' still in the imprint and my father's Vac does. A number of Vacumatics at (bleep) (EXAMPLE PHOTO) also have the white imprints.

 

How was this effect achieved? Is it reproducible today with any kind of product?

 

Thanks.

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A white crayon

Wow, thanks. That remarkably easy to get a hold of!

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Nothing. The were not embellished.

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Nothing. The were not embellished.

Huh, that's interesting. Is there a reason why the vintage Ads for Vacumatics show them with a white imprint?

 

Or was that simply for show and people whitened the imprint after-market to match the fliers?

 

Here's the ad I found, none of the others I can find seem to show any type of imprint.

http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/af343/densby/3-29-10/005.jpg

Edited by Tylerjordan
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I've always heard these referred to as 'chalk marks', but it seems like chalk wouldn't stay in there very well.

 

Crayon makes more sense.

Can I borrow your pen?

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I've always heard these referred to as 'chalk marks', but it seems like chalk wouldn't stay in there very well.

 

Crayon makes more sense.

I immediately thought chalk, too but I think the chalk marks might have been the prints on the pens for the dealers and customers to determine nib width and the like.

 

http://i.imgur.com/BLFzDJ8.jpg

Edited by Tylerjordan
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Yes advertizing liberties.

 

Todd

San Francisco International Pen Show - The next “Funnest Pen Show” is on schedule for August 23-24-25, 2024.  Watch the show website for registration details. 
 

My PM box is usually full. Just email me: my last name at the google mail address.

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Black and white ads can't very well show the imprints in black if the pen is shown in black.

 

Who filled in the imprints of father's Vac, when, and with what?

Not Parker. I can not say David didn't do it but if he did, he didn't get them all.

San Francisco International Pen Show - The next “Funnest Pen Show” is on schedule for August 23-24-25, 2024.  Watch the show website for registration details. 
 

My PM box is usually full. Just email me: my last name at the google mail address.

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Sometimes people put white in the imprints when they are selling them to make the lettering easy to photograph.

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time. TS Eliot

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And if you can't find a white china marker, try a white wax crayon - Crayola.

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Having seen a lot of illustrated Web postings about chalk marks, together with assertions that the chalk marks had or had not worn off, or not completely off, I believe they were marks made with something very different from a china marker or a crayon. A white powder of some kind. One that wears off with early handling of a new pen, or doesn't wear off if the user takes care that it shouldn't. Perhaps literal white chalk. Crayons are made of a waxy substance that wouldn't wear off in the same way as a powder would.

 

It can't be at all difficult, in a factory, to put a white powder into a specified indentation. Or just to make it sit on top of the plastic, and give for example the nib size and the price in shillings. Or in marks of some kind, whether Reichs- or Deutsche-.

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The chalk marks are not the same thing as making the imprints read white for photographs. Chalk marks were meant to be temporary information such as nib size, model number, etc applied to a smooth part of the pen. They were called chalk marks because they were intended to wear off, similar to chalk on a chalkboard, but they had a binder that kept the color on for the time being. On the other hand "Sheaffer" or "Parker", "Made in USA" imprints were not whitened at the factory. Sometimes a name or initials had gold or white added by the purchaser.

Edited by ANM

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time. TS Eliot

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Ah, well, sometimes I do go off half-cocked when I'm composing in real time, so to speak. ANM is right to make the distinction between chalk marks on new pens, expected to wear off, and a white substance that appears to be inlaid in the imprint.

 

On the other hand, I do not agree that imprints in general were not whitened at the factory. That may have been true of Parker in particular; my Newhaven Duofold says PARKER JUNIOR in letters that seem never to have been white. But one of my 1950s German piston fillers does say MONTBLANC MONTEROSA in white letters that don't strike me as having been whitened as a caprice by some former owner. We may need to take this one brand at a time, or even one model at a time.

 

What the white substance was is beyond me. I can imagine 19th-century hand-colored prints being colored by women who were using colors actually for sale in art-supplies shops at the time. I do not see my Monterosa as having its white letters created with the help of white crayons or markers on sale in toy stores.

 

Of course, since Pelikan was basically a colors business, I am happy to waste a few seconds imagining Montblanc as using Pelikan crayons to fill in the letters. But that is for fun, not for even the most conjectural kind of pen history.

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The chalk marks are not the same thing as making the imprints read white for photographs. Chalk marks were meant to be temporary information such as nib size, model number, etc applied to a smooth part of the pen. They were called chalk marks because they were intended to wear off, similar to chalk on a chalkboard, but they had a binder that kept the color on for the time being. On the other hand "Sheaffer" or "Parker", "Made in USA" imprints were not whitened at the factory. Sometimes a name or initials had gold or white added by the purchaser.

 

The whitening or sometimes oranging of personalizations was aftermarket then? I am thinking there must have ben one or more firms that did this for the customer. In reading about this when I was actively buying 51s, I think I read that jewelry stores, stationers and pen shops would have this done for the customer as part of the purchase arrangement.

"Don't hurry, don't worry. It's better to be late at the Golden Gate than to arrive in Hell on time."
--Sign in a bar and grill, Ormond Beach, Florida, 1960.

 

 

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J-

Your MB ain't your mother's Parker...

 

I would agree some German pens seem to have been emblazoned at the factory. I find them merely a distraction from the good stuff.

 

BTW the flow is there in a Special way.

San Francisco International Pen Show - The next “Funnest Pen Show” is on schedule for August 23-24-25, 2024.  Watch the show website for registration details. 
 

My PM box is usually full. Just email me: my last name at the google mail address.

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