In the 1980s many sheaffer pens were found with their nibs ripped off long after gold peaked between 1979-1981, particularly triumph nibs. With the gold price recently achieving a high enough level to virtually guarantee about a twenty dollar bill per snorkel and/or triumph based tubular nib ONLY upon gold content....please be aware that if you sell that snorkel for even a few dollars over $25 you might ensure that the pen will not be scrapped. However, if somebody wants to buy nonworking sheaffer's at a price below that point: keep in mind it is likely those pens may suffer nib, vermeil, and gold fill removal - forever. White gold snorkel nibs are alloys of 14K gold with silver and palladium in the remainder in many cases - most jewelers can test for this (proportions varied). White gold nibs are less common than yellow gold nibs based upon Sheaffer's own production figures - so they are just as vulnerable if not more so to complete scrapping.
If the pen is completely broken up and all the working parts have been salvaged - that's one thing...but I remember mint and stickered pens with their nibs ripped off simply because the gold price went high enough to do so. As a hobby, I hope we can value the pen itself for at least $2 above gold content and thus avoid these ripped off nibs!
Remember: many European makes from before the war years of similar quality to a 1940s sheaffer triumph are so incredibly high priced today....and have been for decades - because so many were scraped during the desperate times following the war. A nib or a loaf of bread? You would chose the loaf of bread too, if in that same situation.... Here we can save the pens with that extra $2 to $4 above gold content. Assuming you care how the pens wind up, that is....then $2 to $4 isn't much of a premium for saving them.
Flame all you may - but the gold price IS going to do this to sheaffer triumph snorkels and WW II triumphs again. Just stating the obvious. $2 to $4 in premium might help keep them whole for a while longer (unless gold goes to $2,000 per oz!).