Note, FPB has an extensive thread about metal Sheaffers, and perhaps this post ultimately will be melded with that one, though for now I wanted a fresh topic of the pen featured here. For those who wish to see lots of metal Sheaffers...
Sheaffer Metal Pens Galore
Sheaffer metal pens came in an impressive range of sizes and patterns. Uncommon are any of the midget short very thin metal ring tops. More uncommon by far are the long midget very thin pens (still with tiny #1 size nib) and the oversized examples (i've seen but 2 intact pens, one a short -- but fat-- ring top). As one might guess, some patterns are more scarce than others. Pens are found variably in gold-filled, sterling silver, and solid gold (usually 14k).
So, for the last few pens hows I've been chatting with a nice general antiques dealer who has a good eye for pens and has been setting up at pen shows as far back as I can recall.
He had found a long-midget (Roger, I hope, can clarify the description. I don't feel like hunting catalogue today) gold-filled Sheaffer in an uncommon pattern (a basket weave) that I have found in couple other sizes. First of these I've seen in #1-nib midgety size, noting the caveat that there are so many metal Sheaffer variants out there, that I likely have many other "first I've seen" pens to hunt. But, the long clip midget, in a better pattern, in nice shape... hit my collecting node. After couple shows negotiating in passing, I closed on the pen at Ohio.
When I mentioned this pen in the Ohio Pen Show Pen Haul post, Roger commented that it might be more rare than the Fiesta Snork. We can explore that but the ground there seems to me to be a bit squishy. There is apples and oranges element to such comparisons. Snorks all told are far more common than metal 1920's Sheaffers. Whether one knows of but one or perhaps three of a given pen, leaves statistical error bars of significance. Still, apparently this thing is a good pen.
Here is link to Ohio Pen Show 2011 pen thread Link to Photos/Details: Ohio Pen Show Pen Finds. Monster Haul
Per Roger, "18WC - Green gold filled basket weave number 1. Long number 1 clip pens are seldom found"It is tiny (girth) though as a long midget with clip, it is close to "standard" length.
Here is first view:
To give some sense of scale I plonked the thing next to a 5" Parker Vacumatic Major, and even this image fails to convey how slender/delicate this thing feels in hand.
This is, I believe, something of a special shot.
The short midget in the foreground is not uncommon, but shows the size of the pen. The middle pen is a monster OS metal Sheaffer, one of but a couple intact pens of which I know. To me, it has the rarity of the prime subject of this article, but the added cachet of being a big honking' pen. In the background is the long midget in the uncommon basket weave pattern.
regards
David