A Challenge for Sheaffer Balance Collectors: OS Ebonized Pearl mid-1930s

[david i]

Well, the Great Reorganization of the Pen Room proceeds.

I've been finding pens I've not examined in 5+ years, pens that had not at the time of purchase made it into my reasonably well-sorted personal-collection cabinet, awaiting instead eventual restoration and resale. I'm finally embracing the massive backlog. But, looking at trays of pens with fresh eyes-- not to mention a few-to-ten more years in the hobby-- I'm finding some good stuff. And, I'm finding occasional things that surprise me.

I did a triple take on this one. The finding is subtle, but provocative within the collecting sphere.

I'll offer image of the pen, then perhaps some supporting images.


There is no trick on this one. The post is not a joke. Hey, I could be wrong about what I find interesting, but this at least is a straightforward challenge.

This might be a bit of an advanced topic here, but what the heck, let's have some fun.


The pen? An oversized Sheaffer Balance in Ebonized Pearl Celluloid. Plunger-filler.

The challenge:


What's peculiar? Why is the peculiarity interesting?


http://vacumania.com/penteech2/sheafferbalance_OSebonized_challengeA950.jpg

regards

david

[david i]

(Mike had observed the peculiarity, then deleted his post to allow more time for others to consider).

A good response, Mike. Observation is true, though the swirl/context we can still explore. You got the anomaly, and touched on but didn't wholly nail the "Why is it interesting?"

Yeah, what the heck, give it a few hours then repost your answer. I'll address further at worst in the evening.

-=d

[david i]

Mike had ID'd the anomaly though not all details about its import, then erased his comment to keep the game going.


So, here's a second pic. The original pen under discussion is at left. Added is a 2nd oversized Balance in same color. Both pens are proper size (don't let confusion occur due to camera angle, different filling system impact on shape of butt).

http://vacumania.com/penteech2/sheafferbalance_OSebonized_challengeB950.jpg

The 2nd pen has the later radius clip (and sees the White Dot repositioned for that reason) but both clips and White Dot spots are perfectly normal.

Does anything else suggest itself?


regards

-d

[reprieve]

I'm intrigued. This is a puzzler for me, but I'm no vintage collector. Hmm… does it have an unusual imprint?

[mhosea]

The anomaly is the narrow cap band. It's a surprisingly subtle difference, but I happen to have several OS Balances and one with the same clip, so it jumped out at me, modulo the need to decide that perspective in the photo was not a significant factor (I held my pen up to the monitor and adjusted the perspective to be sure).

The non-white-dot standard size Balances came with narrow cap bands. AFAIK, all oversize Balances are white-dot models, and up to now, I would have assumed that they all had, at a minimum, the size cap band you see on the right in the second photo. Now why this pen has a narrow cap band, I have no idea. I'm not up on the history of the Sheaffer plunger filling system, but I should think this would be an early one. Not sure if that has anything to do with it. I'm assuming the inlaid MOP stopping shorter on the barrel of the plunger filler versus the lever filler on right is not unusual.

[mhosea]

AFAIK, all oversize Balances are white-dot models

Interestingly enough, I now know this is not true, per another post by David in an fpnuts.com thread. Ironically, the non-white-dot OS he pictures has the same same, standard cap band. Hmmm.

[reprieve]

I love these threads. I always learn so much! :rockon:

[david i]

More detail in a bit. Been running around all day prepping and shipping 200 pens to restorers. Tired.

-d

[david i]

Third image. I'll describe what's shown to try to minimize the prior knowledge requirement here.

Left to Right:


The original and key pen from this post. Oversized Balance White Dot, with anomalous cap-band, thinner than expected on White Dot pen, consistent with the next tier down the foodchain, pens that typically have "5-30" or "feathertouch #5" nibs and caps without the White Dot.
Typical oversized Balance, with White Dot and with appropriate and fatter cap-band.
Rare but documented (in brochure) Balance oversized Non_White Dot (a 2nd Tier oversized Balance). Though it does not have White Dot, it has the fat cap-band of a White Dot pen, as do all the scarce non-WD oversized Balances I've seen. It might be that for this low-production pen, Sheaffer just didn't bother to make an oversized-diameter cap ring that was narrower than the usual oversized ring.





http://vacumania.com/penteech2/sheafferbalance_OSebonized_challengeC950.jpg

regards

d

[david i]

Teaching point. Most sizes of Sheaffer Balance in nearly all colors routinely offered White Dot (WD) and Non White Dot (NWD) variants. Putting together all the different tiers of Balance offered in 12 years (not all offered at same time), one can figure at least 6 tiers of pens, based on price point, trim, nib, a charm and challenge of this series, no doubt. Here's a pic showing all four widths of catalogued cap-bands. The low-tier (#3 or Junior nib) pens had very thin band. The mid-level pens (FT #5 nib) had slightly fatter band, the WD pens had still wider band, and the uncommon (and limited color offering) Autograph pens (WD, but also solid gold cap-band, not gold filled) had very wide band.

See the four bands on appropriate pens. Note that it is not the pen size (length or diameter) that is key, but the tier/level of the pen. One could have a short skinny ladies pen with White Dot, with wide-ish cap-band and with hefty price tag or a more plump and hlong standard size non-WD pen that was cheaper and that was fitted with thinner cap-band than the little lady's pen.

http://vacumania.com/paul/small_banditry001_regularstuffRAWcrop.jpg

If the pen that started this post-- Oversized, White Dot, but with Thin cap-band of a lower tier pen-- had been a standard size or slender pen it would be easy to imagine a factory mistake in which a cap was fitted with white dot, but with groove cut and cap-band fitted as if it were meant not to have the White Dot. An anomaly, an error perhaps, but one that saw obvious parts lying about to allow the mistake.

But, a simple mistake of fitting a cap-band from a non-white-to pen to a white-dot cap does not quite explain the special pen in this thread. Why? Because unlike the non-white-dot pens offered in all other sizes, the NWD Oversized pen (again, fairly short run, scarce today, minimally detailed by Sheaffer) itself had a full-girth "white dot level" cap-band, at least the ten or so specimens I've seen. The routine (but scarce) non White Dot oversize did not have a thin cap-band. There appears to be no model that had routine placement of thin cap-band on an oversized pen. There should have been no thin cap-band in oversized diameter lying about to accidentally fit to this cap. There should have been no routine expectation of cutting a groove narrower than usual on an oversized pen, since even the non-White-Dot scarce and briefly made version had the more plump band.

So, what's up? Idunno. Anomaly certainly. Factory accident of sorts, maybe. Possible lurking non-white-dot OS pens that routinely had thinner cap band, but not yet encountered by me? Possible too.

So far this is the only oversized Balance I've seen with the thinner band of a non-white-dot pen. Recognizing I could have missed things when looking at the thousands upon thousands of Balances I've handled over the years, I don't recall seeing this mix of findings even on a standard size pen, for which a factory accident would seem more likely, since standard size caps at least are found with both types of cap-band.

Now, who has another to offer, so we can remove the "unique" label from this pen?

regards

david

[kirchh]

AFAIK, all oversize Balances are white-dot models

Interestingly enough, I now know this is not true, per another post by David in an fpnuts.com thread. Ironically, the non-white-dot OS he pictures has the same same, standard cap band. Hmmm.
Ironically, indeed. Some details escape noticehttp://home.comcas.net/~kirchh/Misc/nrwbndOSbalWDcompltclrset.jpghttp://home.comcas.net/~kirchh/Misc/nrwbndOSbalWD-PCAdoc.tif for a long time, whilehttp://home.comcas.net/~kirchh/Misc/nrwbndOSbalWD-PCAdoc2.tif others not so much. Gotta go for now.

--Daniel

[david i]

And, this week, another grand find.

It's all good for this wee dabbler...

-d

[kirchh]

Looks like there's a typo in my picture URLs, but that's OK -- might hold them for something else down the line. Unreal stuff.

Sometimes you look at lots of things and don't notice something; the ability to analyze sensory data in a flash is important but hard to acquire. Worth the work, though, especially when trying to become educated in our field. Fun, too.

--Daniel

[david i]

Sheaffer collecting indeed offers the charms of big game hunting, being a wee dabbler and bagging he best ivory. Or was that Burma-Shave. Maybe Space Invaders.

Hugh did point me to some engaging bleating about Tuckies. I enjoyed that.

-d

[kirchh]

Advanced collectors learn the value of understanding that what seem to be amazing discoveries might be a result of simply overlooking something again and again; merely seeing large volumes of items doesn't necessarily imbue one with acuity of perception, and jumping to conclusions can be problematic. The learning never ends.

I might use those pictures in a future article or book chapter so I'll leave the links broken. Interesting subject, from a certain standpoint. I think Mike used the word "ironic."

--Daniel

[mhosea]

I had a look and repaired the links. The first could have shown, but TIF's apparently aren't supported by the board software. It was a little difficult to sort out visually with the cropping, but there was something there about "trimmer trim" and "recovery".

[david i]

The Burma-Shave crowd tends to be saddened when the wee dabblers get the great pens and draw out information from would-be hoarders. It's part of the pokity-poke process. Keeps 'em running :)

regards

-d

[kirchh]

I had a look and repaired the links. The first could have shown, but TIF's apparently aren't supported by the board software. It was a little difficult to sort out visually with the cropping, but there was something there about "trimmer trim" and "recovery".

Ignore those images; they're not the right ones anyway. Just some image-manipulation tests, no real information. Uninteresting. I'll take them down to avoid confusion.

--Daniel

[david i]

Pokity-poke at its best :)

-d

[kirchh]

I had a look and repaired the links. The first could have shown, but TIF's apparently aren't supported by the board software. It was a little difficult to sort out visually with the cropping, but there was something there about "trimmer trim" and "recovery".

Ignore those images; they're not the right ones anyway. Just some image-manipulation tests, no real information. Uninteresting. I'll take them down to avoid confusion.

--Daniel

Yeah I checked 'em and like I thought they're just mock-ups (and weirdly cropped and with a line through them -- odd-looking! -- imaging programs sometimes have a mind of their own). Not of any value at all on this topic. If you saved 'em, toss 'em. Can't make them out anyway.

Gotta go -- new game starting and there's already a score. And American Pickers is on, too. Or Mythbusters. Fun shows.

--Daniel

[david i]

PPP was well served today. At El Zorno's house in Beaver Falls-- we had some good laughs about the pen world-- I found in his Sheaffer stash... get ready for it... an off-catalogue "flat-top". I bought it. Too bad I left the good camera in New York. There will be more eye candy posts soon though. :)

-d

[Jon Szanto]

One element that would be very nice to document *somewhere* would be the hard data - i.e. actual measurements - of the width of the cap bands. It's swell to see the four pens next to each other, and observe the 4 'relative' sizes of the cap band, but looking at a single pen in hand it would be hard for an individual to know, off-hand (hehe) just which band was in play. Obviously, a simple measurement would answer the question and take us a step further away from myth and mystery and decoder rings.

Happy New Year. I declare 2015 the year I purchase, somewhere, an OS Ebonized Pearl Balance.

[david i]

Jon, I have a bunch of Ebonized in the pipeline. The OS's and the off-catalogue cap-band pens are pricey, but I might have a couple standard/slender back soon. Great color. Not too crazy price. Of course, "not too crazy" could be subjective.

We must get dinner this year at LA.

-d

[david i]

I wouldn't be surprised if Roger or if someone else has posted the widths of the four key rings. I don't know 'em offhand, though even knowing the numbers probably would not help when looking at a random photo.

regards

-d

[kirchh]

One element that would be very nice to document *somewhere* would be the hard data - i.e. actual measurements - of the width of the cap bands. It's swell to see the four pens next to each other, and observe the 4 'relative' sizes of the cap band, but looking at a single pen in hand it would be hard for an individual to know, off-hand (hehe) just which band was in play. Obviously, a simple measurement would answer the question and take us a step further away from myth and mystery and decoder rings.
As you suspected, serious Sheaffer collectors long ago noted these dimensions (as did Sheaffer themselves -- probably a doc in the PCA library that has the info). 1/2" ("Grand" Autograph), 5/16" (standard Autograph), 1/8" (typical Lifetime, excepting Petite), 3/32" (best non-Lifetime level, and Lifetime Petite), and 1/16" (Junior and entry/step-up strata). This is for the Balance line.

--Daniel

[david i]

PPP. Excellent. :)

[Jon Szanto]

As you suspected, serious Sheaffer collectors long ago noted these dimensions (as did Sheaffer themselves -- probably a doc in the PCA library that has the info).

Thanks, Daniel. TBH, I don't care to delineate who is, or is not, a "serious Sheaffer collector". It is just a difficult task for many, like myself, who are relatively new to all of this to come by information. It is often scattered all over the place, and not easy to track down when you need to. I'll make a note of this and put it in one of my pen books.

[david i]

Excellent.

regards

-d

[kirchh]

As you suspected, serious Sheaffer collectors long ago noted these dimensions (as did Sheaffer themselves -- probably a doc in the PCA library that has the info).

Thanks, Daniel. TBH, I don't care to delineate who is, or is not, a "serious Sheaffer collector". It is just a difficult task for many, like myself, who are relatively new to all of this to come by information. It is often scattered all over the place, and not easy to track down when you need to. I'll make a note of this and put it in one of my pen books.
You're welcome -- happy to help folks like you with this sort of question.

--Daniel

[david i]

It was great to see the PPP do its thing :)

More soon...

regards

-d

[kirchh]

Jon -

To follow up, there are some Sheaffer documents in the PCA Library that give the widths of various models' cap bands. One I just checked is the Sheaffer Service Policy & Pricing Chart, 1951, which is filed in two parts.

I will caution that as with other such materials, they are not infallible; for example, a quick look showed the width of an Autograph cap band listed as 1/4", but that's not quite right (it's 5/16"). In any event, the materials in the PCA Library are a great place to start.

--Daniel

[Farmboy]

It was great to see the PPP do its thing :)

More soon...

regards

-d

What is PPP and what does it do that it did?

[david i]

It was great to see the PPP do its thing :)

More soon...

regards

-d

What is PPP and what does it do that it did?


The Pokity Poke Process.

They can't resist. There tends to be some bleating though.

regards

d