Today my last eBay Mystery Snorkel arrived, and it has turned out to be Fiesta Red Clipper. It's in good condition, but the best thing is that it has a beautiful PdAg "A4" Triumph nib - a true Accountant (Needlepoint) nib, which is scarce in itself.
Another little pen arrived at the post office for me yesterday - a very gorgeous Sheaffer 46 Special Short Ringtop. This is a black Radite pen with gold-filled cap band, ring, and lever.
The pen is from around 1925, and I was lucky enough to find it in superb condition, and with a newly fitted sac. The 46 Ringtop measures about 4.5" long capped, and posts to almost 6". I immediately liked this feel of this pen in the hand, and find the simple black and gold combination really striking.
The 14K yellow-gold 'Sheaffer's 46 Special' nib is quite large compared to the size of the pen, and features a heart-shaped vent hole. While the nibs were not marked, I believe this nib is a Extra Fine - an added bonus. When I received the pen, I loupe’d the nib, and found the tines were misaligned, so I carefully corrected them, and now this 46 is a wonderfully smooth writer. I’m really pleased with this pen, and so glad it caught my eye!
The past week has been a good one for vintage pens. I picked up a small Sheaffer lever-filler which looked interesting - a black 46 Special Short Ringtop. A nice one for the small pens collection.
I found another Snorkel also, a Fiesta Red Clipper by all accounts! This is very exciting - it was such a bargain too... ;)
Still having very little luck locating Snorkels with EF nibs though...
Yesterday I had the nicest presents waiting for me in my PO box - a beautiful Sailor 1911M and the long-awaited Levenger ink!
Sailor 1911M
I'm really pleased with the Sailor - it's nib puts my Pelikan nibs to shame. I've filled the Sailor with Levenger 'Fireball' ink, and it's a very nice combination! I'm going to take a few photographs of the Sailor tomorrow, and then I will add a more detailed overview about the pen here.
Levenger Inks
I really love the Levenger 'Slightly Wild' ink colours. To my surprise, I find 'Skies of Blue' to be a very pretty blue, and normally I don't care for blue ink. 'Pinkly' is a great hot-pink shade also.
Snorkel Dislikes Noodlers
On an interesting ink note, my new (to me) Sheaffer Snorkel started to write very poorly the other day. It was two days after I had filled it with Noodlers Saguaro Wine, and the pen had started to write so dry that I thought I must not have filled it with enough ink. I filled it again, and there was no change. Then I rinsed it and tried some different inks, again, no change. I then figured something had gotten in and clogged the snorkel tube.
I sent a little e-mail to Peter Ford, who serviced the Sheaffer after I bought it, and he advised me to flush the pen with a weak ammonia solution. Sure enough, after doing that several times, the pen wrote a lot better when I had re-filled it with Caran d'Ache Blue ink. I guess the Noodlers is just too saturated for my Snorkel, which is a pretty dry writer.
I won an Australian Sheaffer today, but I don't know much about it. I think it might be a Sheaffer Snorkel Autograph. I'm not to sure on the Snorkel part, for all I know, it may be some kind of Triumph, although it does look too long and too slim for that. Perhaps it is a TM Touchdown? At any rate, it is a White Dot Sheaffer with a two-tone 14K Triumph nib, a 14K cap clip and 14K wide cap band:
I have been reading a bit about Sheaffer's on PenHero.com, but I do not know if the information applies to the Australian Sheaffer company. I guess it's fairly safe to say the pen is from the 1950's. I have read that the Snorkel may have been manufactured in Australia until 1962, but again, I don't know yet if this pen is a Touchdown or a Snorkel.
I'm really looking forward to getting this Sheaffer. However, I think maybe that I paid a little too much for this pen - it was $58US. If it needs $50 worth of work, I won't be happy. A big plus is that the nib seems fine, and more importantly, the pen has *not* been autographed - the cap band is clean. It seems like it is in good 'user' condition, but I have no information about what the condition of the filling system may be like... fingers crossed that it will be fine.
