My wife's favourite fountain pen is an all stainless version of the pen shown here :-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A:IT&ih=014

My wife's pen has no gold highlights & the nib is polished stainless steel, and there is no plaque on the pocket clip. I think it was bought new in the early-mid 1980's. There seem to be a myriad of different Sheaffer models that are fairly similar to one another, so I thought I'd ask the experts..

Is my wife's pen a Targa Slim?
If not could, you give alternative suggestions so I could check up on them. At the moment I know so little about Sheaffer pens that I'm not even sure what questions I need to ask.

Regards

Richard

Edited for tripe writing errors.

Dear Richard,

There is an excellent resource on the Sheaffer Targa here:

sheaffertarga.com

The slim model is distinctly more slender, about as big around as a number 2 pencil.

Cheers,

Jim Mamoulides
www.PenHero.com

The Sheaffer Targe site is helpful for these- if you can get it to load. For some reason it takes forever to load on all of my computers (both home and work).

The pen shown is clearly a full-size Targa. When you look at the black plastic part of the nib section you can see a slight flare at the end opposite the nib, just below the threaded portion. That is a dead give-away that it is a full-size model, the slim version does not have that flare. If you can see that feature, or lack thereof, in a photo then you don't have to guess at the relationship of diameter to length.

Say, Bill -

Is the distance between the mouth of the barrel and the mid-section trim ring another distinguishing feature? To my eye, it seems that the ring is much closer to the barrel on the Slim Targa than on the standard model (please see attached).

Click to view attachment

This seems to be true of all the Targas I own, and of the ones I've been able to check online; does it hold true across the board? If so, it's a pretty handy identifier - and one that usually survives in even the blurriest eBay photograph.

Thanks,

Jon

Yes, that's another good distinguishing feature. I hadn't really thought about that one because I always use the flare, but you are absolutely correct.
Bill

Thank you for your help everyone. The photo was particularly useful - thanks Univer. It appears my wife's pen is a 'Targa' rather than a 'Targa Slim'. Which does surprise me, as it isn't a large diameter pen at all.

Sorry for not replying on Saturday.. My PC at home threw a wobbly every time the 'Replying' box came up, and needed to be re-started. Ho hum.

Regards

Richard