How Common Is The Extra Long Balance?

[MusterMark]

Hello Everyone!

 

I recently found a post on FPN mentioning an extra long Balance. From the pictures, it looks as if this Balance is the standard girth but substantially longer than the Oversize model. I have two questions that I thought the kind folks in the Sheaffer sub-forum might be able to answer:

 

1) Was there, at any point in the history of the Balance, a model specifically marketed as "extra long," or was the length variation just a result of model variation year to year?

 

2) How common are these extra long varieties?

 

I really want to find an extra long Balance but am not sure how it should be described to other collectors when I'm searching. Is it just a regular Balance produced in a particular year/place? Was there a specific extra long model?

 

Thanks!

[kirchh]

The first full-length Balance models were of this longer type; at some point, within a year and a half or so, they were shortened somewhat. There was no separate extra-long model.

 

--Daniel

[MusterMark]

Thanks, Daniel!

 

So, if it was only produced during that first year, does that make them particularly rare or (the real question) expensive? I'm thinking in comparison to a regular Sheaffer Balance.

[Lazard 20]

I really want to find an extra long Balance but am not sure how it should be described to other collectors when I'm searching. Is it just a regular Balance produced in a particular year/place? Was there a specific extra long model?

 

 

 

Perhaps this thread is helpful to know the measures over time:

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/238025-sheaffer-balance-oversize-question/page-2

[kirchh]

Thanks, Daniel!

 

So, if it was only produced during that first year, does that make them particularly rare or (the real question) expensive? I'm thinking in comparison to a regular Sheaffer Balance.

 

Please note that I didn't say that it was only produced during the first year.

 

The earlier, longer versions of the full-length pens perhaps draw a slight premium over the shortened version, though not consistently, and other factors (color, condition) tend to swamp any such value differential. I wouldn't refer to either version as being a "regular" Balance; they were both normal models, produced during different parts of the run.

 

--Daniel

Edited October 1, 2014 by kirchh

[MusterMark]

Thanks!

[mark e]

The first full-length Balance models were of this longer type; at some point, within a year and a half or so, they were shortened somewhat. There was no separate extra-long model.

 

--Daniel

i had enquired about the lengths/ diameters of old sheaffer balance pens on a thread a couple weeks ago and i even threatened to post photos, but got too busy and forgot it, and i see this thread and blahblahblah, so here are a couple of photos...the longer one is 'pat-pat pending' and the shorter one 'patented'...i believe these pens are both circa 1929-31...the caliper measurements were 141.6mm and 133.2mm lengthwise, both barrels were diameter of 11.2mm just below the cap, and the cap diameters 13mm...

 

when i finish restoring them i will use briefly (or not) and then sell them, so....as i dont want to falsely advert----what do i have here...oversize or no?...thanks!

Edited October 2, 2014 by mark e

[Roger W.]

It is not the length but, the girth that makes a pen OS and OS is 15mm (if that is what .58" is - pretty close to 15 anyway).

 

Roger W.

[kirchh]

what do i have here...oversize or no?

 

Both pens are standard size, not oversize.

 

--Daniel

[mark e]

thanks, all!

[Drone]

Isn't there a "Telephone Dialer" version of the Balance that has a longer tapered barrel end? I think the dialer version had a barrel end that unscrewed and was replaceable (maybe with a desk pen quill?) The barrel in mark e's picture looks to be a single piece. so it is just an early "long" balance after all?

[terim]

We don't find that we get higher prices on these early ones with long tails .....

[kirchh]

Isn't there a "Telephone Dialer" version of the Balance that has a longer tapered barrel end? I think the dialer version had a barrel end that unscrewed and was replaceable (maybe with a desk pen quill?) The barrel in mark e's picture looks to be a single piece. so it is just an early "long" balance after all?

 

There are Balances with separate and generally removable short quills, generally black composition or occasionally celluloid; there is no evidence this configuration had anything to do with dialing a phone, nor with conversion to a desk pen (the analytic definition I use of "short quill" is that the cap can be posted). There is a somewhat later, and completely distinct, model (the "TDC", as we Sheaffer folks like to say, based on Sheaffer's model symbol suffix) that had a regular short barrel profile incorporating a small matching-material removable blind cap for which a desk pen quill could be substituted. Again, no phone-dialing function has been shown for these either.

 

--Daniel

 

--Daniel

[Argee]

I've got one of each of the removable end pens, If the blind cap was for conversion to a desk pen, and the Short Quill wasn't, then what was the short quill for? Why does it exist?

[kirchh]

I've got one of each of the removable end pens, If the blind cap was for conversion to a desk pen, and the Short Quill wasn't, then what was the short quill for? Why does it exist?

 

It's not clear. The Balance pens with a short quill may have been a carryover of the style of the earlier cataloged flat top short quill model which likely was the progenitor of the entire Balance design, but there is no known documentation from Sheaffer of the quilled Balances of which I am aware at this point. They may have been intended to give a pseudo-desk-pen appearance when used unposted, they may have been (in whole or in part) a conversion of excess flat top barrels (a hypothesis supported somewhat by the location of the joint and the frequency with which these pens bear the same barrel imprint as generally contemporaneous flat top pens), or there may have been another reason for their existence. It is apparent that they were not terribly popular, based on the frequency with which they appear today.

 

--Daniel

Edited October 9, 2014 by kirchh