Over on FPN, someone has asked a tough question about Sheaffer Valiants: both Snorkel and TD fillers. I skimmed, so it might not have covered TDs, but the poster has a fascinating flow-chart by the wonderful Teri M plotting how to determine what model Sheaffer you might have found.
[Professional note: I've been working in the computer industry since 1981 and have never written a flow-chart, partly because thney were considered obsolete by 1980, but also because we get confused trying to follow the decision points. I could explain more, but it would be like having Doctor David name the bones in the human body.]
The OP's problem, I believe, is that a few people, such as David and Teri and others probably mostly on FPB, can differentiate the Sheaffer models 1948 - 1955 or so, most EBay sellers cannot. If a pen has a Snorkel filler, it's a Snork. Even, sometimes, if it's a Touchdown...and some don't know the difference between a plunger filler and a TD filler. I think I remember a TD filler called a "piston filler" once.
Could a few experts drop by the thread at:
http://www.fountainp...eneric-snorkel/
and lend some advice?
My own advice was to contact David or Teri and ask them to find the pen he wants. Probably others could do as well, but I remember a line on Vacumania in which, in my memory, David says that Sheaffers are his second focus...second only to Vacs. So...
(and I wish Sheaffers were easily to classify!!)