Need help on Sheaffer Fountain Pens

[bogiesan]

I am interested in learning about Sheaffer fountain pens from the 1920 to 1950 era. Can anyone suggest a book or site that I can refer to for information on telling the age of the pen, facts about the features of that time, etc.?

Be sure to visit you local library. You might stumble upon one or two old fountain pen books or something more recent. Sheaffer was a major innovator and pen supplier in that era and the factory employed hundreds. The links provided by the, umm, others will get you started. Try these:

http://www.sheaffertarga.com/sheaffe...20homepage.htm

http://www.vintagepen.net/-nos-sheaffer.html

http://dirck.delint.ca/beta/?page_id=480

Hope you find what you need. They're cool pens. I have about a dozen.

[Jon Szanto]

I would also add that there is a lot of good information at Richard Binder's site, in the Reference Pages. Very much worth a look.

[david i]

K. You are doing a great contribution to the sale of popcorn and malt "chupitos".

Staw Man. Just sayin'...

SNIP

it is pitty, you once more forget to provide the document that justifies the date, please, the date of the letter that S´S sent to dealers attach to this catalog. We've seen you another time try justify the existence of a 1945 fpen with 1948 documents. What you going to do again?

Do clarify your implied claim that a 1948 document cannot fully justify the existence of a 1945 pen.


regards

David

[david i]

[B]We now eat popcorn left over from the Sunday session.

I don't.

You dont convince anyone, you have to try harder.

Tactic 7 from the Losing Debater's Manual: Unprovable assertion.

Please provide your data polling... everyone... to show that not anyone is convinced.

own child tantrum.

Ad Hominem insult. Tactic 1 from the Losing Debater's Manual

Users let you put the last post because they do not want to be answered with your strong words but you can be sure that many see your intervention as unnecessary. It's tacky that you punching wash clothing in the garden as someone also said and you answered him with your proverbial wrong way. He is right although he did not bother to answer you.

Tactic 5 from the Losing Debater's Manual: The Telepath. "Absent issue of substance to offer, affect insight into the thoughts/psyche of your opponent or audience and... go figure... find 'em to be... bad or supportive of... go figure... your position. ".

Tactic 1 from the LDM:

Do you think that your last post was remaining, really unanswered because the popcorn is finished, you have the right?. Not so, you are simply encouraged by a small something corporatist group. In the majority of users you stay as intransigent without proof. Your personal comments about me enabled me to say you that is the intransigence what lost you.

Straw Man (Tactic 3)


Perhaps you could stick to addressing the data in play.

regards

david

[david i]

To those who do not see any importance in dating a catalog as precisely as possible, I would explain that the absolute date is useful, but determining the relative dates of catalogs (and ads, and patents, and so on) is crucial to understanding the history of the fountain pen (and of other items as well), and knowing the absolute dates, of course, leads to knowing the relative dates. If we don't care whether a catalog was printed in 1925 or 1926, we must also not care if, for example, one maker's new pen model follows or precedes another's. But those facts are crucial to figuring out what happened and why.

--Daniel

Hi Daniel,

No doubt it's important to be precise with dates especially when you wish to acquire the deep understanding that you have gained over the years. With my interest in steamline Conklins I've found two versions of the 1931 catalog....with two different versions of the same pen (catalog ID)..which caused me some angst until I realized there where two cataloga so I understand where you're coming from. Still for the person with a casual interest ( as I have in this case) I suspect a year or two makes little practical difference for them, the more interest you develop this would no doubt change.

Regards
Hugh

Hugh,

In all fairness, the details of this discussion then are best not addressed directly by those who wish to remain with a casual interest in the subject. The differences being discussed matter to those who have real interest. Those with merely casual interest do no wrong in having that merely casual interest, but really then they are not part of the active dialogue. They will benefit from the outcome of the dialogue, a clarification of details under debate, a choosing perhaps of whose information they find more solid, but they are not positioned to mediate the asserted facts of the case.

regards

david

[HughC]

To those who do not see any importance in dating a catalog as precisely as possible, I would explain that the absolute date is useful, but determining the relative dates of catalogs (and ads, and patents, and so on) is crucial to understanding the history of the fountain pen (and of other items as well), and knowing the absolute dates, of course, leads to knowing the relative dates. If we don't care whether a catalog was printed in 1925 or 1926, we must also not care if, for example, one maker's new pen model follows or precedes another's. But those facts are crucial to figuring out what happened and why.

--Daniel

Hi Daniel,

No doubt it's important to be precise with dates especially when you wish to acquire the deep understanding that you have gained over the years. With my interest in steamline Conklins I've found two versions of the 1931 catalog....with two different versions of the same pen (catalog ID)..which caused me some angst until I realized there where two cataloga so I understand where you're coming from. Still for the person with a casual interest ( as I have in this case) I suspect a year or two makes little practical difference for them, the more interest you develop this would no doubt change.

Regards
Hugh

Hugh,

In all fairness, the details of this discussion then are best not addressed directly by those who wish to remain with a casual interest in the subject. The differences being discussed matter to those who have real interest. Those with merely casual interest do no wrong in having that merely casual interest, but really then they are not part of the active dialogue. They will benefit from the outcome of the dialogue, a clarification of details under debate, a choosing perhaps of whose information they find more solid, but they are not positioned to mediate the asserted facts of the case.

regards

david

Hi David,

The thread has digressed from the OP into a more technical one centered on Lazard and a date, the OP would appear to fall into the "casual" observer at present which makes my post regarding 25 or 26 being neither here nor there relevant, even if it adds nothing constructive it doesn't detract either.

Regards
Hugh

[david i]

To those who do not see any importance in dating a catalog as precisely as possible, I would explain that the absolute date is useful, but determining the relative dates of catalogs (and ads, and patents, and so on) is crucial to understanding the history of the fountain pen (and of other items as well), and knowing the absolute dates, of course, leads to knowing the relative dates. If we don't care whether a catalog was printed in 1925 or 1926, we must also not care if, for example, one maker's new pen model follows or precedes another's. But those facts are crucial to figuring out what happened and why.

--Daniel

Hi Daniel,

No doubt it's important to be precise with dates especially when you wish to acquire the deep understanding that you have gained over the years. With my interest in steamline Conklins I've found two versions of the 1931 catalog....with two different versions of the same pen (catalog ID)..which caused me some angst until I realized there where two cataloga so I understand where you're coming from. Still for the person with a casual interest ( as I have in this case) I suspect a year or two makes little practical difference for them, the more interest you develop this would no doubt change.

Regards
Hugh

Hugh,

In all fairness, the details of this discussion then are best not addressed directly by those who wish to remain with a casual interest in the subject. The differences being discussed matter to those who have real interest. Those with merely casual interest do no wrong in having that merely casual interest, but really then they are not part of the active dialogue. They will benefit from the outcome of the dialogue, a clarification of details under debate, a choosing perhaps of whose information they find more solid, but they are not positioned to mediate the asserted facts of the case.

regards

david

Hi David,

The thread has digressed from the OP into a more technical one centered on Lazard and a date, the OP would appear to fall into the "casual" observer at present which makes my post regarding 25 or 26 being neither here nor there relevant, even if it adds nothing constructive it doesn't detract either.

Regards
Hugh

Fair enough, though Lazard is arguing the details as someone would who is not "casual" and his approach to the dialogue is weak. He could just opt out regarding interest in the given point, but he has not done that.

regards

d

[welch]

Sheaffers are puzzling because:

(1) as best I know, there has not been a comprehensive book on Sheaffer-as-a-company, or on any Sheaffer model. There is no website quite like ParkerCollector.com, and no books like the Shepherds' books on the Duofold, the Vacumatic, and the Parker 51.

(2) Sheaffer had a terrible habit of re-using model names. What's an Imperial? There was the classic Balance and a recent Balance. Was the 330 an Imperial? Why the various open and Triumph nibs on the snorkels? I have a pen shaped like a slender Balance, but with a vac-filler. I also have a Sheaffer Triumph nib with a lever. Which is the earlier pen? Why would Sheaffer sell lever-fillers with a classy wrap-around nib, and how did that pen compete with Parker? What were they thinking? And on and on.

(Dr) David I knows Sheaffers, but the different models are bewildering! In addition to Pen Hero, look at David's Sheaffer sales pages, under: http://www.vacumania.com/website/forsalemainpage.htm There is a lot of information just in David's comments.

What draws my attention: Sheaffer and Parker were, I think, the Big Two in fountain pens. It is common to talk about the Big Four US makers (adding Waterman and Eversharp), but Waterman and Eversharp collapsed in the '50s. Today's Waterman is the French subsidiary of the original Waterman -- something like an expeditionary army cut off on an island -- and Eversharp was bought by Parker. Sheaffer and Parker competed with new filling systems and different nibs until both companies were clobbered by the ballpoint.

Sheaffer's up-turned nib was a great idea, whether used in the Triumph nib or the "inlaid" nib. Their snorkel filling system is, I think, the cleanest system designed before the cartridge...let's call it the most sophisticated, and complicated, filling system of the "golden age" of fountin pens. It was Sheaffer's last filling invention before the all-component pen was designed. That is, the pen, like the Parker 45 and Parker 75, that assumed an owner would want to unscrew a bad part and swap in a replacement...rather than take the pen to the repair counter of a local department store, which would send the Parker or Sheaffer back to a company repair center even for somethign as simple (we would now think) as a wider nib. The Parker 45 was a new pen design that assumed a different relation between pen owner and the company.

A social change that required a design change.

[blopplop]

You can start here:
http://penhero.com/PenGallery/Sheaffer/Sheaffer.htm

Ditto on the Pen Hero site. I've learned a ton from that sight when I was learning to identify snorkels and td's, which I use to sell by the dozens on another site.

Dave

[david i]

This is still Beta (i need to add some pics, shrink the text), but here is a pretty comprehensive look, both nomenclature and collecting value stratification on Snorkel. I will tweak it next couple months

http://vacumania.com/website/sheaffersnorkelguide.htm

regards

david

[david i]

Daniel appears to be doing a book on Balance, perhaps more.

regards

david

[Jon Szanto]

This is still Beta (i need to add some pics, shrink the text), but here is a pretty comprehensive look, both nomenclature and collecting value stratification on Snorkel. I will tweak it next couple months

http://vacumania.com/website/sheaffersnorkelguide.htm

While I had seen this (or an earlier version) over at FPB, again: thanks. Great stuff.

Daniel appears to be doing a book on Balance, perhaps more.

Well, that would certainly be worth having.

[david i]

By coincidence, the topic of Jade Sheaffer popped up over at Fountain Pen Board. Since I shot a tray full (nice color, a non-trivial thing) for that, figured I'd offer images of that pen, which has been under discussion here.

Davey's Fountain Pen Eye Candy, as they say...




regards

David

[welch]

This is still Beta (i need to add some pics, shrink the text), but here is a pretty comprehensive look, both nomenclature and collecting value stratification on Snorkel. I will tweak it next couple months

http://vacumania.com/website/sheaffersnorkelguide.htm

regards

david

Good stuff! I had only read through your sales section, which give some idea of what Sheaffer offered from the '30s to the PfM around 1960.