Sheaffer School Pens

[penemuel]

I find the cartridge punch of the Sheaffers to be very sturdy. Short International Standard cartridges are quite usable. Make a pilot hole, in the flat end, using a nail or push pin. Install it into the pen.

The first few times, the cartridge stays in place, very well. Thereafter, the seal becomes loose. To assist it staying in place, drop in the spring from a ballpoint pen. If the nib is in good condition, these old pens write great ! Mine do.

That's a great idea! I'm going to try that with one of mine and then I can use even more colours! I wonder if the barrel is long enough to put two short cartridges in instead of the spring... (Mine's at home and I can't check right now)

[bob_hayden]

Thank you so much for the photos! I landed here from another page at FPN with a lively discussion of "the"Sheaffer "school pen" but no photos to show what pen they were talking about. I am guessing it was the all blue one at the far left of the first photo above. AFAIK, the outfit that manufactured pens in Iowa never described one of their models as "the school pen". The closest I have seen was a British model sold by an online dealer in the US as the "school pen" but I do not know if that was its British name or a name supplied by the dealer.

 

In general, "school pen" is not peculiar to Sheaffer. It describes any inexpensive pen that might (or might not) be targeted at students. Sheaffer had several such pens. With a little luck, you may see some samples below. This is a fuzzy scan made just by dumping the pens on a flatbed scanner, but it's more help with identification than no image at all!-) An additional reason for my interest in names here is that inexpensive Sheaffer pens show up all the time on eBay with no name, or a variety of different models can be called "the school pen".

 

To the left you see two examples of the first Sheaffer pen I ran across that could be described as a school pen. You can find old ads for this pen on eBay and they mostly target college students. I think it is the "Model 295" mentioned above, a name that might have had some connection with its $2.95 list price. Every one of these I have ever seen had an opaque body. You can see that both the cap and the body have a bit of a taper, and that the nib is semi-hooded, unlike the cheaper pens. And speaking of cheap, the original name for the blue, clear, and green pens to the right of the 295s is "Dollar Pen". The pens were much more durable than the value of the dollar, and that name had to be dropped. Thereafter the pens were simply labeled "Sheaffer Cartridge Pen" which could as well describe nearly every pen Sheaffer was making in those years. So I think we have Sheaffer to blame for nobody knowing what to call these. I still just call them "Dollar Pens" regardless of what they actually cost.

 

Next to last in the scan is a black mystery pen I found on eBay. I know nothing about it. The black palstic is softer than any of the other pens and has not held up very well. The nib is inferior to any to its left. The band around the middle seems to be plastic. I would be most curious to hear of any informatin about this model.

 

Last and least to the far right is the dreaded Reaktor meant to replace the dollar pen. It does have a nicer matte-finish cap (which can be used on at least some dollar pens), but the nib is a miserable crimped one, meaning there is no ball of metal at the tip. insted the sheet meatal is bent to give that appearance. Fine if you don't try to write wtih it.

 

There was a question about the Viewpoint/No Nonsense pens. These were introduced at $1.98 at a time when the dollar pens were probably more than a dollar, so they represented a modest step up. They appear to have the same nibs, though in my experience the nibs on the dollar pens were often roughly finished and needed some breaking in, while that was not the case with the larger pens. I have some of those, but never use them much because they are too fat for my hand.

 

Re converters, I have found random Sheaffer converters to work in most of these. I recall writing to Sheaffer long ago asking why they did not offer converters at that time and was told that another company held the patent. Evidently that patent expired long ago. In any case, the early pens were not designed to work with a converter because Sheaffer did not offer one. As already suggested, it can be pretty hit or miss what works with what as a result. However, I can say my experience has been more positive. Random Sheaffer converters generally work for me.

 

I will agree wtih others that these pens write very well indeed, and are very sturdy. I have worn out dozens through the years and never managed to break the plastic parts. (I have had clips come off, metal parts rust, and the caps get loose -- the latter problem easily fixed with pliers or even a Swiss Army Knife. If that fact that I wore so many out puts you off, the reason is that when I was young I got very worked up while writing and applied a wide range of pressures, which was very had on nibs. I recall wearing out a competitor's pen in about three weeks while the little Sheaffers would last me three years.

 

Someone mentioned Safaris. One reason I like a fountain pen is the fact that it flexes as I write which gives it a great feel and lets me write for pages without getting tired. That is not the case for ballpoints, nor for unyielding nibs such as are found on the Safari. In addition, I must have been busy thinking about something else when my grade school teacher taught us how to hold a pen. For me the corners on the Safari section are where my fingers land rather than on the flats, so I find those pens very hard to hold comfortably as well.

 

I have noticed on FPN that my opinion of Chinese pens is much lower than average. I think that could partly be the result of growing up on these Sheaffers. You can find them used on eBay for about the median price of Chinese pens.

 

I too have used international cartidges in these upside-down though they do not seem overly secure. I suspect sucess could vary a lot with cartidge brand, as probably most manufacturers were not anticipating this use. The Jinhao cartridges that are longer than international shorts but shorter than longs generally have a very thick plug in the flat end. I don't think the metal tube on the Sheaffers would reach the ink with those.

 

Sheaffer had a very interesting design for their cartridges. In the early days they advertised that you could insert the cartridge either end first. For some of their American competitors it was not obvious which end was the business end. They also use the screw threads between the section and body to pierce the cartridge rather than ask the user to do that. That probably allowed thicker walls less likely to break. It also meant that the cartridge was firmly held in place after the pen was closed. International cartridges generally rely on friction and a prayer to keep the cartridge in place. But I wonder if Sheaffer bulit enough friction into their system since they were not relying on that. I would not put an international cartidge in a Sheaffer and then put it in the pocket of my best shirt;-)

 

But I do wonder how long we will be able to buy Sheaffer cartridges. I rarely see them in stores now. Back in the days of the dollar pen you could find them at a five and ten cent store.

 

 

[jar]

Sheaffer had a very interesting design for their cartridges. In the early days they advertised that you could insert the cartridge either end first. For some of their American competitors it was not obvious which end was the business end. They also use the screw threads between the section and body to pierce the cartridge rather than ask the user to do that. That probably allowed thicker walls less likely to break. It also meant that the cartridge was firmly held in place after the pen was closed. International cartridges generally rely on friction and a prayer to keep the cartridge in place. But I wonder if Sheaffer bulit enough friction into their system since they were not relying on that. I would not put an international cartidge in a Sheaffer and then put it in the pocket of my best shirt;-)

 

 

Sheaffer also placed a ridge inside the body that the cartridge sat on so that when inserted it was positively placed for piercing. Once pierced it was held at both ends as well as the sides.

[chromantic]

I have a few of the flat-end ones (the black one in the photo) with translucent barrels. Beautiful, minimalist design and great, smooth writers. Turquoise in the blue one and red in the red, planning on putting yellow in the 'smoke' one (why, I don't know). All of these are pretty easy to find on ebay, though the flat-end ones seem to command somewhat higher prices than the others. From what I understand, the rounded ends (cigar-shaped) are late 50s-60s, the conical ends are 70s-80s and the flat ends are 90s.

[bob_hayden]

chromantic, I am not sure which model you have. The black pen (sixth from left) came only in opaque colors AFAIK, though I have seen only mine and one pale blue one pictured online. Those are not common on eBay. What is common is the clear plastic one fourth from the left. I think these came in both solid colors like the first and second from the left and translucent colors like the fifth from the left and the Viewpoint (not pictured).

 

I agree on the order in which the models appeared. I don't think I was aware of these pens until the early 1960s by which time I think the pointy-headed ones were the current model. I have many of those and many of the later flat-tops but only one cigar which I think I got on eBay years later.

[chromantic]

^^ bob - I was referring to the OP's picture (1st photo in the thread); the 4th (black) one is the same as the clear one in your photo. Those are the ones I meant. Sorry for the confusion.

[bob_hayden]

Thanks for clarifying. Other communities I belong to make it clearer what posts are responding to. The usual options are the previous post or the first post, but I also see posts here that seem to be a response to some unidentified prior post in the middle of the list, as in "I have one of those too" appearing in a context where several different pens have been discussed.

[chromantic]

I am usually responding to the OP, otherwise I try to start with ^^name. But it's good advice to be more specific at all times and I'll keep that in mind. Thanks.