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much time spent bidding on auctions hoping to win a pen or two for
the ol' collection? Hours at fleamarkets? Weekend at Brimfield? Saving
cash to grab one retail? Much more fun to find the occasional mongo hoard of old pens. Those baggies full of dusty tobacco-stained relics, hoarded for years by someone somewhere who liked the darn things. It's been about 2 years since I encountered my last hoard of Sheaffers- 100 or so 1920's flat-top pens. I've missed the fun of sorting through them and hunting good nibs, nice varieties and oddities of all sorts. So, when the following pile of Sheaffers found its way to me, i was rather happy. All these are raw pens- pearls in the rough. These will look far far better once the restorers finish with them To Start: A pile mostly of 1930's-1940's Sheaffer Balances. Three Ebonized Pearl, several Carmine, funky cap-bands, and clips i found surprising. A charming mix. |
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| No, that's not the whole collection, though it is a nice start. A few more than a few pencils were mixed into this hoard. I like vintage pencils. Pleasant to use, they also allow completion of sets by adding to matching pens. A light polish will improve these quite nicely. The collector is well served to identify simple tarnish which can be easily removed, from brassing, or true loss of gold fill. |
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| Switching gears. This collection had more than just some 1930's-1940's celluloid. Popping into the early 1960's we see some Imperials, dolphin-snouted "800's" and a Stylist, at least. Hardly the premier members of the Sheaffer line, still-- in mint-ish condition with chalk marks intact-- they are nothing to be ashamed of. |
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| Sheaffer's 1950's gems.
Yep. There's more. Swinging back to the 1950's, I was pleased to
find a bunch of nice Snorkels in this hoard. Not having dealt
with Snorks very much-- I'd just owned a few prior to last year-- until
coming across a couple collections and finding myself with 100 of 'em
last year, i have come to appreciate the one pen that gave the
Parker "51" a run for its money in the 1950's. A nice bunch... |
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| Snorkels? Did someone cite Snorkels?.
Well, here are... some more... frrom this hoard. Couple Touchdowns mixed in no doubt. One pen has a burned blind end (greeny near middle) Often pen hoards feature numerous junker pens-- low name or no name pens-- in overwhelming majority of the grouping. Or most of the pens are trashed. One charming aspect of this bunch of Sheaffers, is that most of the pens are in sound shape, worthy of restoration, and nearly all the pens lend themselves to collector interest. The 20 % or so which are just parts pens will donate some grand parts. Lots of levers, fillers, nibs, etc. |
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| Back to the 30's and 40's. We are not done yet with celluloid.
I just wished to break the monotony with that later stuff just shown. There are still more celluloid pens in this lot, including some Balances, Triumph-era pens including those with gold-filled caps (Crest). 16 more... |
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| I've been starting really to like those fat 1940's plunger-fill celluloid Triumph pens (conical nib).
Since more restorers have been adopting the drill-n-rebuild tachnique for these, their reliability has dramatically improved. I've been using lately at work a Carmine Triumph like the one at the left of the following picture. This batch will make some grand pens once fixed. Oh yeah, notice the early Ball Point in the middle. |
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| Bored yet?.
I did mention this hoard had some Balances in it, right? Saw some in the above pics. Well... Those weren't the only ones. This Sheaffer hoard featured about a gross of old pens and pencils. Perhaps 80% are worthy of restoration, the rest will be nice parts donors. There were some nifty variants to be found. Here are more of the Balances from this grand lot of old pens. All told seems to be about a gross of pens and pencils. Thanks for peeking. |
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