Sheaffer's Balance is the second most prevalent pen in my own collection, following only Parker's Vacumatic. I enjoy finding better variants, especially those that were high-end back in the day and even more so the oddities and off-catalogue material. At the recent Raleigh pen show during June 2011, Pat Mohan and I showed what is without doubt the largest hoard of funky Balances ever presented in one place.
Some discussion of that (with more videos to follow I hope) can be seen here:
http://fountainpenbo...rue-prototypes/
I am fond of pens generally lumped under the Autograph line by Sheaffer, otherwise typical pens featuring solid 14 gold trim (usually cap-band and clip, sometimes just cap-band). These pens often cost in the $20 range when even the vaunted but otherwise typical oversize pens ran just $8 or so. These were not trivial purchases during the heart of the Great Depression.
Autograph goes back to early flat-top Sheaffers and can be found through at least the 1960's Sheaffer PFM (Pen For Men), and I'm lucky to have such pens spanning that range. Figured I'd toss a couple out for consideration. These two are (yeah, big shock) a bit special.
First is the only Sheaffer Autograph I've seen to feature 18k instead of 14k trim. We can speculate it was meant for European market, where- hearsay has it- that to be called "gold" the alloy had to be at least 18k. Not sure why such a pen then would not be Canadian (this pen is from USA) since Canada sent pens to Britain, but I do not know all the European import divisions, so perhaps pens to some countries would not benefit from the Canada-Britain connection. This is a standard size black/pearl Balance from around 1930
Second is a triple Autograph set, standard pen and pencil with matching golf pencil. This is the only Marine Green (mottled) Autograph golf pencil I've ever seen. I have vague recollection that David Nishimura offered up a black pencil of this sort previously.
I can post more Auotgraph shots in coming days/weeks, but would be interested in comments and in images (don't be shy) of other people's Sheaffer Autographs.
regards
David