I went out in the wilderness yesterday and found a Sheaffer Balance in Jet Black with tarnished silver furniture. The pen was besmeared with the hardened crud from self-stick labels.

The clip is the military type. The nib is two-tone, silver and gold. The silver is partly stained black (from ink?). The gold part looks like it was very carefully painted over with a thin, semi-transparent layer of matte white stuff. I can read the imprint through this patina: "Sheaffer's Lifetime". The patina is very soft; a fingernail will easily remove it.

Questions: Is this white patina a "military modification" to lower the reflectivity of the nib? Should I leave it untouched? Why does it just cover the gold and not the whole nib?

Paddler

Any pics? Could be mold

Hi,

Suspect the pen does not have silver trim, rather Gold Filled or Vermeil (gold on silver). Stories abound of wartime pens with silver substrata (substratum?).

I greatly doubt whatever white stuff is on the nib represents any period feature.

Sounds like the pen needs- at least- a good cleaning

d

David,

I think the trim is silver. It was completely covered with black oxide when I brought it home. Some of the oxide came off with the dried self-stick label glop that I removed. The metal is silvery white underneath.

Nobody chimed in here and told me the strange coating on the gold was something valuable, so I removed it. It came right off with a little scrub with a toothbrush and some water. I kept the nib under water the whole time, just in case the white stuff was some beryllium compound alloyed with the gold.

The pen is an exquisite writer. It is very smooth and has a broad sweet spot. It writes a fine, wet line, about like a #304 nib.

Paddler