Editing The Pen Addict 51/transcript (section)

== Email Follow Up ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, I'm just kidding. Okay. We got some follow-up topics. I got a lot of good email this week, so I wanted to go a few things. One of the topics that, you know, after the pen show recap episode last week and my blog posts on the pens I picked up, I got a lot of good emails. And one of them stood out, and I thought it was an awesome email, and it was a really very, very helpful email, which is one of the things I enjoy about doing this podcast and writing the blog is I get to learn so much about things that, you know, I'm not completely experienced with, like fountain pens, especially on the vintage side. So, excuse me, the Parker Vacumatic that I bought at the pen show and how I was raving about how, you know, you could see the amber coloration through the stripes in the barrel and how I just thought that was the coolest thing ever. And it looked beautiful. I mean, it really made the pen for me. And I got an email from a guy named Daniel who is very experienced, you know, purchasing vacuumatics. And he said that's actually not a feature that a hardcore vacuumatic collector looks for. That's actually an unwanted result of, you know, ink staying in the barrel too long and discoloring the inside of the barrel.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so it's not – but unfortunately, I guess for vacuumatic collectors, that's the norm, right, because it's an, you know, 80-, 90-year-old pen or 70-year-old pen. And you almost aren't going to find one that's clear, and those are the ones that bring in lots of money. Like if it was just a regular stripe one and had kind of a clear, more see-through barrel, the less ambering they are, the more collectible it is. So let me – I'll read you his email real quick just so it kind of makes sense to everyone. It says, you may already know this from your research, so forgive me if I'm telling something you already learned. The amber color you see between the stripes is not something original to the pen but something that comes from age and is very, very common with vacuumatics. Originally, when the pen was new, the area between the stripes would have been clear, allowing for you to see the ink sloshing around inside and letting you know how much ink you have left. But depending on how badly ambered the barrel is, you may still be able to see ink inside when you hold the pen up to the light. And the more heavy the ambering, the stronger a light you'll need to see the ink. The ambering you're seeing is not actually desirable to hardcore vacuumatic collectors. Instead, they're looking for vacs that have remained clear all these years, which is pretty rare. So he says, that said, I agree with you that the amber is pretty cool looking. And as someone who is using the pen rather than putting it in a display case, you didn't worry about it at all. It has no impact on the pen's use. And that's it. So I mean I thought that was a pretty – I was really excited to get that email. It's like, oh, man, that's great information to have, right? I mean it doesn't change what I think about the pen because, to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't have bought it if it didn't have that because it probably wouldn't have looked as cool. And it probably would have been three times as expensive or something like that, right?