Hi, I found a reference to these pens in an advert from the 1920's. I have never seen one of these pens, not even via ebay and dealer sites.

They seem to be extremely rare, maybe the paint wore off over the years?!?!?

Does anyone have any information on these pens or even better - a photo??????

Thanks in advance.

They turn up from time to time. A few issues back, the PENnant had a cover story on painted pens. Here's a link to some terrific pictures by Bill Reipl. Enjoy!

--Daniel

Many many thanks Daniel, exactly what i was after.......

Time for some drooling!

Like Daniel, I've seen these come up from time to time on Ebay, although less than almost any other Sheaffer type. I think you are spot on about the paint wearing off. I have an example of one of these "painted pens", where the paint is about 90% gone. I think it really wears off quite easily. I suspect that often the owners of these painted pens would, once enough paint had worn off to make the pen look somewhat pathetic (as mine does), simply pick off the rest of the paint. If you had to choose between a very worn looking painted pen, and a perfect looking GF pen, which would you choose? So I think there are a decent number of former painted pens floating around as regular GF ringtops. Mine (and I believe the rest are the same) has the draped chasing pattern, GF section, and No.2 nib. If you find all of those together (and a cap lip that's quite strait--doesn't bend in like the other GF Sheaffer ringtops do), then you may very well be looking at a former painted Sheaffer. Hope this helps.

Edit: And I should add that my pattern (or what's left of it) is not one the three in that ad (I think it's primarily blue/yellow), so note that there are more colors/patterns than in the ad (the great Stylophiles page has quite a few others too). I wonder how many there were in total...

Rhodes;

A staight lipped cap would not be an indication that it had ever been a painted pen as there were not pens specifically manufactured for the enamel paint. The painted pens were in the 1928 catalogue of which all the pens of that era have straight cap lips.

There are four patterns mentioned in the catalogue. I don't know if there were additional patterns besides the ones mentioned. I suppose a few plain pens may have been originally painted but I doubt that would be a large number. Painted pens even with significant paint lose do fetch quite high premiums.

Roger W.

Thanks Roger. I hadn't seen any other GF ringtops with the strait lip and though it made sense that it was straight for ease of painting. :doh: Was it just '28 that the pens had strait lips or did it change over sometime before then. Also, am I right in thinking that by '28 the GF pens all had metal sections? Finally, I didn't realize that even with a good amount of paint loss they still fetched quite high premiums--I picked mine up on Ebay (with no damage other than the paint loss) for $15... (of course I figured it was worth more than that and thought that the paint might add a little value, but not much)