Help identifying a Sheaffer pen.

[MT4]

Hi,

 

I've bought a Sheaffer pen, but it has differences with the similar ones I've found (TM Touchdown, Crests, etc). Main features:

 

- Slip-on cap, no white-dot. All metal.

- No snorkel.

- Touchdown filler.

- All gold outside (probably rolled), upper body is black plastic inside.

- About 13.5cm long (with cap on).

- Triumph two-tone nib, "labeled Sheaffer's", no serial number.

 

Pictures added in case it helps.

 

Thanks to all

 

Martin

 

[MT4]

Any idea?

 

Seems to be quite a mistery to me. I've asked for advice on other places and received quite a few answers: Admiral, Imperial, Valiant, Crest, Craftsman,...

 

The one I like more is someone that told me that this might be a no-name pen, made of parts of different models, in a factory outside the US (he suggested Canada, I wasn't even aware of a Sheaffer factory in Canada), as it doesn't state the typical "Made in the US" anywhere.

 

But if someone else knows anything else, or is more certain of where to look at, please let me know.

 

In the meantime, I am still using it. It writes nicely.

 

Thanks

 

Martin

[psfred]

Lovely pen, but I've not seen one exactly like that before.

 

The nib looks like a SkripSert. but those are cartridge fillers, not touchdowns, and the section is wrong (the SkipSerts have a ring at the base, the clutch grabs the section, not the ring). The cap is wrong, too.

 

Very interesting. Check with PenHero.com -- might be on there, and if not Jim may know. And there is the possibility that it was not a production pen, too -- prototypes do exist of pens that never got made in quantity.

 

Peter

[Zoe]

I have a somewhat similar pen, all black, and on the length it says W. A. Sheaffer Pen Co. (made in US).

 

I don't have a loop and my eyes ain't that good, but I think there are some other markings as well. (Got it, made in Fort Marion, Iowa USA).

Edited June 7, 2008 by Zoe

[Ernst Bitterman]

IN the picture with the cap on, there's a band of plastic showing between cap and barrel-- is that usual, because the all-metal Thin Model pens I've seen don't show a gap like that? I am not claiming this as the true insight, but I think Dr. Frankenstein may have been at this pen. The body looks rather like a TD Triumph (bar the signed clip and LACK of a white dot, which on an all-metal pen are quite baffling), and there's a little step on the plastic of the barrel that looks like the absence of the little trim ring common to Thin Model pens. The section might be off an Imperial III, which is the only two-tone short triumph point I can think of... but I've just tried putting a TM TD cap onto my Imperial II and it stops well before the little clutch fingers, not even getting to the three-lump area. That lump ring on the section is a poser, too, because it really doesn't look like that on the earlier Imperials.

 

A riddle wrapped in an enigma slathered with secret sauce, indeed.

[Martius]

Seems to be an authentic Skripsert. As Ernst says, no Skripsert cap would fit on an Imperial nib. No Imperial body would fit on a Skripsert section, either. So this has to be a step up from the Skripsert Deluxe. Maybe a higher end model that replaced the gold filled Imperials?

 

Let's get David I in on this.

 

Best,

Summer

[Pablo]

The one I like more is someone that told me that this might be a no-name pen, made of parts of different models, in a factory outside the US (he suggested Canada, I wasn't even aware of a Sheaffer factory in Canada), as it doesn't state the typical "Made in the US" anywhere.

 

But if someone else knows anything else, or is more certain of where to look at, please let me know.

 

This is probably the answer nearest to the true. What you have there is a legit Sheaffer, but most certainly not made in the USA. My father bought a Sheaffer Crest (gold filled cap, black plastic barrel) in Brasil, around 1962-63, and it has all the unusual features shown in your picture:

 

- Short unhallmarked Triumph two-tone nib.

- Cap is slip-on, held by the section ring.

- Same shape, length and TD filler as in the Thin Model pens (which were out of production in the USA since 1953).

 

The pen is part of a pen/pencil set, which comes into a leatherete box, with the legend "Sheaffer do Brasil", and the address of the Sheaffer headquarter at Sao Paulo.

 

Maybe it was some kind of hybrid model, assembled in foreign Sheaffer facilities (to avoid import taxes), probably using old barrels from TM production coupled with the short Triumph nib used by then in the Imperial III.

 

Regards.

 

Pablo

Edited June 10, 2008 by Pablo

[MT4]

IN the picture with the cap on, there's a band of plastic showing between cap and barrel-- is that usual, because the all-metal Thin Model pens I've seen don't show a gap like that?

 

No gap usually, just a loose cap.

 

Thanks for your insight!