Hello everyone. I just purchased a nice Senior Size Balance. I took it apart to clean it and install a new Silicone Sac. I checked out the feed and was shocked at what I saw. I'm not THE greatest expert on Balances but I have taken apart more than a couple dozen. Take a look at the pictures and tell me what you think. I'll post my description a couple posts down.
PeteWK
Full Version: Very Strange Feed on 1935 Senior Balance
Pic #2
I'm guessing that the feed is a 1935 only as I don't think I've ever owned a Senior Size of that vintage. Its the earlier style flat feed but without a traditional ink channel. Instead it has a channel running through the middle and a blind channel that doesn't seem to go anywhere. Very odd. Has anyone seen such a thing? Have I just lived a sheltered life?
PeteWK
PeteWK
And finally a picture of the pen itself. Very nice and without any cracks.
PeteWK
PeteWK
Pete;
It doesn't look like it got finished does it. It is interesting that it only has three fins like a small pen. Maybe the worker on this one usually did small pens and was suppossed to do a feed on this one and couldn't figure it out and so punted. I don't think you'll find a string of feeds out there like this. Interesting piece and my theory is just that others explanations equally plausible.
Roger W.
It doesn't look like it got finished does it. It is interesting that it only has three fins like a small pen. Maybe the worker on this one usually did small pens and was suppossed to do a feed on this one and couldn't figure it out and so punted. I don't think you'll find a string of feeds out there like this. Interesting piece and my theory is just that others explanations equally plausible.
Roger W.
QUOTE(Roger W. @ Nov 23 2006, 08:44 AM)
Pete;
It doesn't look like it got finished does it. It is interesting that it only has three fins like a small pen. Maybe the worker on this one usually did small pens and was suppossed to do a feed on this one and couldn't figure it out and so punted. I don't think you'll find a string of feeds out there like this. Interesting piece and my theory is just that others explanations equally plausible.
Roger W.
It doesn't look like it got finished does it. It is interesting that it only has three fins like a small pen. Maybe the worker on this one usually did small pens and was suppossed to do a feed on this one and couldn't figure it out and so punted. I don't think you'll find a string of feeds out there like this. Interesting piece and my theory is just that others explanations equally plausible.
Roger W.
If the feed works, then it relied on the roughened surface to spread the ink to the short channels.
I think this is the way it was supposed to be. Aurora used a similar feed for a short while, minus the short ink channels. It worked.
QUOTE(Roger W. @ Nov 23 2006, 04:44 PM)
Pete;
It doesn't look like it got finished does it. It is interesting that it only has three fins like a small pen. Maybe the worker on this one usually did small pens and was suppossed to do a feed on this one and couldn't figure it out and so punted. I don't think you'll find a string of feeds out there like this. Interesting piece and my theory is just that others explanations equally plausible.
Roger W.
It doesn't look like it got finished does it. It is interesting that it only has three fins like a small pen. Maybe the worker on this one usually did small pens and was suppossed to do a feed on this one and couldn't figure it out and so punted. I don't think you'll find a string of feeds out there like this. Interesting piece and my theory is just that others explanations equally plausible.
Roger W.
The slot is on the underneath and looks like its a feedback or pressure channel. The hole in the back actually extents into and through the feed terminating in the little opening under the nib. The hole has a sort of feed insert that reminds me of the insert in a snorkel tube.
PeteWK
Good, didn't know channels went through. Interesting still that it has three fins which is typical on petite balances and not seniors.
Roger W.
Roger W.
See US Patent 1908123, awarded 5/9/1933. Look at both pages of drawings.
--Daniel
--Daniel
I'd guess that yours is the first of the center feed style units to appear in the Sheaffer lineup...no evidence for that, but it resembles the feed systems in the 30s pens which draw ink through a tube then up to a slot under the nib (very much like a snorkel). The earliest ones I had seen before were in small balance pens and have a rounded bottom rather than a flat one.
QUOTE(kirchh @ Nov 24 2006, 05:55 AM)
See US Patent 1908123, awarded 5/9/1933. Look at both pages of drawings.
--Daniel
--Daniel
Thanks, that was very helpful. I'm guessing that Sheaffer was playing around with this idea at the same time they were instituting the feeds with 300 degree fins. And that design just ended up being better. Still, its nice to have a bit of history however small.
PeteWK
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