What is on your bench?

[Carguy]

For me, since my only sources are eBay and various estate sales I find, it is hard to find a reasonable deal on a 51 to restore. I don’t have the ability to restore anything more complicated than a vac filler. I saw that gray 51 but surely didn’t see the value in it with no cap and a common nib.

 

Now I am focused on unique nibs that I can find. 
 

The last show I attended was my first as a vendor in quite a long time. I probably brought 400 pens that I would have sold but no one seemed interested in the vintage stuff. Most of what I sold was modern stuff out of my collection.

 

Go figure!

[VacNut]

I was at the SF Pen show last year. Sellers were listing 51’s around  $100-$150 (which is a fair price given the cost of travel, hotel room, and table rental), but no one was buying them. A seller can always list any price on an auction or pen show. Whether it sells, is another matter. Make an offer on the 51 at the next pen show. Perhaps the seller with accept your offer, particularly if you buy more than one 51’s.

 

The SF Area has an informal “weekly” pen gathering and a “monthly” pen club meeting. There are slotter boxes there with restored 51s for $70-$80 a pen.

 

When I bid on auction pen lots in the US and abroad, I price the lot at $35/per pen for a common unrestored 51 (factoring auction commission). I am rarely outbid.

Can one buy a single unrestored 51 for less than $35? Maybe. Can one buy 4-5 51s in a lot for around $35 each? Most definitely. Search for completed auctions on these websites to find the hammer price.

 

I would suggest you look beyond the common *bay auctions, as they are not always the best price after you factor in taxes and shipping.

 

Good Luck.

Go Vintage.

 

[VacNut]

Apologies for the additional response, but I wanted to be factual in my recent *bay auction purchases.

 

I purchased a 51 Aerometric Pen+Pencil+case for $48 in December as BIN in the US.

 

I bought a Golden Web Vac, Conway Stewart Cracked Ice (missing the clip) and another CS for £122 in January.

 

I bought an Emerald OS Vac (missing the tassie), 2xUK Duofolds (working), a larger Stephens pen, a function no-name pen, and a pencil for £108 in February. 
 

All the pens had 14K nibs. These are not all 51’s but there are always great finds out there.

It will not always be as simple as opening an auction site. Buying in bulk will save money in the long run, if you want to own more than one pen. Alternatively you can buy them at $35, restore them and resell them at the higher price with a bit of sweat equity.

Good Luck.

Go Vintage.

 

BTW they are having another get together this Sunday in SF. I will not be there. Let me know and I can ask the gentleman who sells the 51s to have a slotter box full of 51’s for sale.

 

 

 

 

[InkyProf]

May I toss out two small requests for repair advice?

 

1. Sheaffer Triumph Tuckaway Vac-Fil. Marine green, has a clasp, so I think it's postwar. The barrel doesn't readily unscrew at the cap thread ring, and I don't see any threading inside the barrel just below that junction, which I assume I would see if this were a cartridge-style pen (but maybe that's wrong?). If it's not a cartridge-style pen, my assumption was that the barrel and section are one piece and I'd need to remove the nib for access (I have the tool). But M&O suggest that the pens with the longer (5/8") section should unscrew just above the cap thread ring. Is that right?

 

Edited to add: I've just now seen the Tuckaway currently listed on Ron's website, which has the 5/8" section that is "bonded to the barrel" notwithstanding the noncontinuous pattern (which was one reason I thought this one might be two pieces), so I'm going to continue to assume mine is one piece unless I'm told otherwise. (That pen looks identical to mine except that mine has a 1/4" cap band rather than the wire band.)

 

2. Parker 51 Signet. I'm playing around with trying to see whether I can do anything with a badly dented barrel from a donor pen (bought for its cap). Is there a straightforward way to remove the metal thread sleeve from inside the barrel (so that I can use a straight steel rod as a mandrel)? If not, I might see if I can find a small musical instrument dent ball on a straight rod, to bypass the threads (but welcome other suggestions).

 

Thanks.

[GlenV]

Sorry I would have to ask Ron about your tuckaway, so you have a picture? I had one that only unscrewed at the nib unit, and the plunger still fit in through that opening, but I  would be remiss to claim to be expert I still find the vacfills challenging with quite a few places to mess up, however I do like them and donor pens in poor shape are available if you need other parts. It is the striped celluloid green or the single color later injection molded plastic?

 

No clue on straightening a bent up metal 51 barrel ( I have never been able to get a gold filled cap or barrel to looks really good)

[GlenV]

This one is on my desk, its a fun pen but has a couple small issues a chip in the red hard rubber early handle, and when I tried to unscrew the hollow plunger rod some of the threads broke inside the orange part. Since I didn't want to glue it together as would not be removable after that, I made a little ebonite screw that I could insert in the end of the hollow rod, and tapped the handle a bit deeper to have threads to grab. I think it will work ok, just need to make a cork. I am impressed by the simplicity of this pen, it's not really a plunger filling pen at all, rather more like a bulb filler but the air is forced out by depressing the plunger a few times instead of by making any suction. Quite ingenious and simple not sure why this system wasn't used more by other manufacturers since the company was short lived.  

[InkyProf]

12 minutes ago, GlenV said:

Sorry I would have to ask Ron about your tuckaway, so you have a picture? I had one that only unscrewed at the nib unit, and the plunger still fit in through that opening, but I  would be remiss to claim to be expert I still find the vacfills challenging with quite a few places to mess up, however I do like them and donor pens in poor shape are available if you need other parts. It is the striped celluloid green or the single color later injection molded plastic?

 

No clue on straightening a bent up metal 51 barrel ( I have never been able to get a gold filled cap or barrel to looks really good)

thanks Glen! The one I was asking about is the lower pen in the photo below, striped green celluloid. (I also have a disassembled one above it that’s the opaque single color plastic; that one has the cartridge-type system, obviously.) I’m just dipping my toes into Vac-Fil waters for the first time, and I’ll do the black one first for practice, but I wanted to get them both open.

 

Your Dunn-Pen is pretty cool! Looks like great color and chasing. Does the imprint give a location? I’ve never heard of them.

 

[GlenV]

It looks like you're having fun with these, I kind of think that one doesn't unscrew but other opinions would be good. Mine was a similar celluloid black with a bit of transparency if I recall. The upper pen has an amazingly good shape connector unit, that's really nice, it doesn't even look like the celluloid type. 

 

I've been wanting a Dunn pen for a while, finally found one that wasn't super expensive to purchase. They were made in New York but only for a few years starting in 1921, this one is pretty good size over 5 inches with a good-looking number 4 Dunn nib. I did darken it, so the color is better than when I got it, but the chasing is sharp. Some of these had bakelite barrels that had some transparency.  It looks like the company went under due to mismanagement as far as I can see, and the inventor, Dunn, didn't live to see his namesake pen made sadly. 

[Carguy]

I love the few Sheaffer pens I have, but dang they seem complicated to repair! 
 

Thus, I have never tried.

[InkyProf]

13 hours ago, GlenV said:

It looks like you're having fun with these, I kind of think that one doesn't unscrew but other opinions would be good. Mine was a similar celluloid black with a bit of transparency if I recall. The upper pen has an amazingly good shape connector unit, that's really nice, it doesn't even look like the celluloid type. 

 

I've been wanting a Dunn pen for a while, finally found one that wasn't super expensive to purchase. They were made in New York but only for a few years starting in 1921, this one is pretty good size over 5 inches with a good-looking number 4 Dunn nib. I did darken it, so the color is better than when I got it, but the chasing is sharp. Some of these had bakelite barrels that had some transparency.  It looks like the company went under due to mismanagement as far as I can see, and the inventor, Dunn, didn't live to see his namesake pen made sadly. 

Thanks! Yeah, I think between there being no visible threading inside the barrel of the green one, and your experience, and Ron’s comment on the pen he has for sale, I’m going to assume this is one piece and just remove the nib (having invested in the tool, I need to use it!).

 

And thank you for the info on Dunn. Always learn new things here!

12 hours ago, Carguy said:

I love the few Sheaffer pens I have, but dang they seem complicated to repair! 
 

Thus, I have never tried.

Of the Sheaffer-specific filling systems I’ve tried so far, the Touchdown was straightforward, but the Snorkel is kicking my butt (I did one but couldn’t get the snorkel tube to retract smoothly, possibly because of an issue with the spring; now I have another cheap one on the way so I can compare and try again. If I can get one or both of those working well, I have a PFM to try, but I won’t touch that until I have a little more confidence). The vac-fill seems hard in a different way: mechanically simpler, but the procedures involved (drilling out the old packing unit etc.) are more intimidating. I won’t know if I don’t try…

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

How do you guys deal with resacing pens where there's a large discrepancy between the sac nipple size and what the barrel will allow. Here's a recent example I came across... I was restoring one of the nice varieties of the Waterman Taperite and it's very obvious that they originally intended to have a 18 or 19 size sac in here because the sac nipple is very wide.

 

The 18 size was too tight for the barrel so I put a 17 in, but I find that when you put a sac that is too "small" for a sac nipple it can sometimes kink to the side a bit (and it doesn't fill as well in my experience because the lever isn't depressing the sac evenly), and putting it on is a mess as well because it tries to slip off. I got a little bit of shellac on the base of the sac above the nipple which I tried to clean off with an alcohol wipe, I hope it didn't harm the integrity of it.

 

On a kind of cheapo pen I restored recently that had this issue I just gave up and sanded the nipple down to the point where it would fit an appropriate sized sac for the barrel. I know this isn't really the "right" thing to do but pen manufacturers of yesteryear used sacs that were way too big for their pens so it seems like an okay modification?

 

(and yes, I've checked the barrel for old sac fragments or other stuff. It was clean as a whistle. A size 18 was just too big. )

[FarmBoy]

Just stretch the sac over the nipple?

[GlenV]

On 4/7/2026 at 2:29 PM, LoveBigPensAndCannotLie said:

How do you guys deal with resacing pens where there's a large discrepancy between the sac nipple size and what the barrel will allow. Here's a recent example I came across... I was restoring one of the nice varieties of the Waterman Taperite and it's very obvious that they originally intended to have a 18 or 19 size sac in here because the sac nipple is very wide.

 

The 18 size was too tight for the barrel so I put a 17 in, but I find that when you put a sac that is too "small" for a sac nipple it can sometimes kink to the side a bit (and it doesn't fill as well in my experience because the lever isn't depressing the sac evenly), and putting it on is a mess as well because it tries to slip off. I got a little bit of shellac on the base of the sac above the nipple which I tried to clean off with an alcohol wipe, I hope it didn't harm the integrity of it.

 

On a kind of cheapo pen I restored recently that had this issue I just gave up and sanded the nipple down to the point where it would fit an appropriate sized sac for the barrel. I know this isn't really the "right" thing to do but pen manufacturers of yesteryear used sacs that were way too big for their pens so it seems like an okay modification?

 

(and yes, I've checked the barrel for old sac fragments or other stuff. It was clean as a whistle. A size 18 was just too big. )

It sounds to me like you've resacked alot of pens, so would be well aware of leftover remnants...   I don't think large sacs were used 70 years ago or earlier though since the older sacs were actually a bit thicker back then than the ones we use now so would have needed a smaller sac nipple size?    ( I don't mind reducing the sac nipple thickness if it's quite thick, but that's just me probably ...) 

[GlenV]

On 4/5/2026 at 7:05 PM, Carguy said:

I love the few Sheaffer pens I have, but dang they seem complicated to repair! 
 

Thus, I have never tried.

Try it it's fun to try to restore vac fillers  .. maybe a cheap one to play on though

[VacNut]

22 minutes ago, GlenV said:

It sounds to me like you've resacked alot of pens, so would be well aware of leftover remnants...   I don't think large sacs were used 70 years ago or earlier though since the older sacs were actually a bit thicker back then than the ones we use now so would have needed a smaller sac nipple size?    ( I don't mind reducing the sac nipple thickness if it's quite thick, but that's just me probably ...) 

I am not sure that sacs were thicker in the past. The formulations of modern sacs are very close to the original formulations and they are using the same molds as the original company. 

I guess it also depends on how one defines the “past”. 20, 50, 100 years? Maybe the sacs from the 1970’s and 80’s were thicker?

🤷🏻‍♂️

[LoveBigPensAndCannotLie]

1 hour ago, GlenV said:

It sounds to me like you've resacked alot of pens, so would be well aware of leftover remnants...   I don't think large sacs were used 70 years ago or earlier though since the older sacs were actually a bit thicker back then than the ones we use now so would have needed a smaller sac nipple size?    ( I don't mind reducing the sac nipple thickness if it's quite thick, but that's just me probably ...) 

 

Hmmm, I am not sure. I have resacced some pens that had their original sacs (even some really old ribbed ones that were probably from the 1920's or 1930's) and they seemed around the same thickness but it's hard to tell since they were mostly falling apart.

 

I get the impression that in the good old days they just put as large a sac they could so they could maximize ink capacity. The increased wear on the sac/lever/etc. wasn't a big deal because they could manufacture replacement parts as needed and I'm sure pen repair people were a dime a dozen back in those days. But that's just conjecture from me.

[GlenV]

(It's known that early sacs were thicker and more durable than what we use today)  The 1915-1925 decade being my favorite pens ...you can see that they are anyway if you recall how thick they are "fossilized" on the sac nipple that you have to remove or chip off. 

[FarmBoy]

11 hours ago, GlenV said:

(It's known that early sacs were thicker and more durable than what we use today)  The 1915-1925 decade being my favorite pens ...you can see that they are anyway if you recall how thick they are "fossilized" on the sac nipple that you have to remove or chip off. 

Hummm. Might be an artifact. Some of the sac specifications go back to the 30s and haven’t changed. 
 

But, the sac dipping process is a bit recipe and a bit gut. It’s like baking a cookie with in an oven with no thermostat. Things can change from batch to batch. There are a lot of variables. 

[Ron Z]

Things can change from batch to batch. There are a lot of variables.

 

Change "batch" to "pen" and you pretty well describe pen repair, especially advanced pen repairs.

 

For those of you who don't know, Todd now owns the Pen Sac Company.

[VacNut]

2 hours ago, Ron Z said:

 

 

 

Change "batch" to "pen" and you pretty well describe pen repair, especially advanced pen repairs.

 

For those of you who don't know, Todd now owns the Pen Sac Company.

What!?!?!?

They grow sacs on the farm?