Canadian Balance Pen With Gold Wasp Clip... Rare? Or Just "different"?

[Oobly]

Greetings Sheaffer afficionados!

 

I won an auction a while back for a lot of 4 pens and this little one was in there. Before bidding I tried to identify all the pens from the poor photos on the site, but this one stumped me because of the clip. I thought it must have been a cheap copy of some sort. After arriving I was very happy to discover "Sheaffer" on the barrel, the visulated section and Lifetime nib, especially so because I based my bid on the other pens in the lot that I wanted and could identify (Parker 45 Flighter, Sheaffer 440 and a Conway Stewart). It has a very fine, hard nib, but writes amazingly smoothly.

 

I have since researched a little more and found pictures of other Canadian Sheaffers with the WASP-style clip, but most appear to be silver.

 

Would anyone care to attempt to properly identify and date my little gem of a pen? Or are the Canadian pens too hard to nail down?

 

From meaurements, it appears to be "short" and "slender", white dot, narrow cap band, carmine color, gold trim, lever filler, two-tone Lifetime nib, made in Canada.

 

-Oobly

 

P.S. - the Conway Stewart also proved to be interesting... Like a 60 or 27, but only "The Conway Stewart" imprint, no number and no sign of being worn off. These slightly "odd" pens do seem to be attracted to me, I also have a little Waterman 512v with a type of marbling which is unlike all others of the model I have seen. None have any special collector value as far as I know, but they suit me with their little oddities. It helps that they all happen to have very nice nibs, too

[mitto]

Nice Sheaffer. Enjoy writing with it.

[doggle2]

I like it, but I still like the "Radius" and other "normal" Sheaffer clips better.

[Estragon]

Scarcer than a Balance (American or Canadian) in the same color with the standard clip, that's for sure. Somewhat esoteric for the typical collector, though, which has kept the prices of these variants comparatively low.

 

I believe David Isaacson has commented on these in a Fountain Pen Journal article (if not, then I suspect that article is forthcoming). Info about Canadian Balance dates and variants is meagre owing to our lack of advertising/catalogue records from the period. I own several 5-30 Balances with unusual clips: viz. reverse trim, "anachronistic" ball-clips on striated pens; and a WASPish spade clip that's different from yours. A quick shot of some:

 

 

I seem to recall seeing clips like the one on your pen on no other Balances but the Lifetime/white dot models, but I could be mistaken here. In the US, the short-slim Lifetime model was called the Milady, which came with a radius clip situated higher up on the cap. But I'm dubious as to whether this nomenclature ever crossed the northern border.

Edited September 2, 2018 by Estragon

[Oobly]

Thanks for that awesome info!

 

I see you have some lovely "slightly unusual" pens, there. I'm fine with them not having any real value over more standard versions, just really like having something that's a little less common.

 

It writes beautifully and the design is very modern compared to other pens of the era. They also seem to age very well, giving the "Lifetime" moniker on the nib a little more credence.