I read often of what looks like a lovely example of a pen being labelled 'only a 2nd or 3rd tier' pen, either within a manufacturer or because of the manufacturer. 
What defines such labelling and classing?
Who defines this?
Sounds like pen snobbery or bigotry [and not a large pine in an Italian forest] in a strange sort of way; and I am sure it isn't. 
Like I said; often great looking pens are shown and then it is mentioned it is not 1st tier / grade.
I await the onslaught of postings to this to help enlighten and teach me.
I think the majority of mine would have to be in the lower tiers, but I just love them all for their individualities.
Hi Garth,
You put a few issues into play. One has to do with definitions and semantics (eg. what is first tier within a manufacturer's output or for a given era in pendom). Another has to do with "who makes the rules?". And finally we get a bit of the class envy and pen racism thing ("how dare those bigots knock my pen find")
OK then.
Labels, classes and tiers are defined by those who bother to do so.
How much respect we assign those doing the labeling, contributes to to the seriousness with which we take those labels. There might not be rules to all this, but there are guidelines. As with most old items that turned into collectables decades after they were manufactured for utilitarian purposes, back in the day rankings were not spelled out in hard fashion (though info exists from which to derive such things), and the pen makers were not concerned with collectors' eventual attempts to retrospectively create hierarchies.
Some of the pen books do this to one degree or another. Paul has a nice page listing dozens of pen makers and assigning general quality/cachet labels to them.
As to what makes a first quality or first tier pens, even the terms can be a bit context-sensitive. Sheaffer's Balance was a first quality / high quality / top tier /first tier (etc) series, no doubt. Compare it to an Arnold from the 1930's, if you have doubts. But Sheaffer itself offered at least four tiers of Balance, based on price point, trim color, nib type, presence of guarantee, etc. Language gets muddy when we can honestly say a fourth tier Balance still is a first tier pen, far better all around than a third tier pen like Arnold. Dizzy yet? One fellow suggested we save "tier" for brands or at least series with brands in general, not using it also to rank models within a series. Always open to alternative notions, but we then need something to replace "tier" for the four levels (hmmm...) of Balance, etc. Looking at Sheaffer's Balance, the tiers all have same general quality, regarding manufacture of plastic, filling units and so forth. Arguably the lower tier Balances can be given a slight ding as the nibs perhaps are thinner and more fragile than those found on higher line Balances, but the pens overall are quite solid top to bottom line.
Moving beyond context (Sheaffer is a first tier label, and Balance is a first tier pen, though there are several tiers of Balances) into what makes.... any pen... better quality/cachet than another, well there are some clear issues and some gray zones. For now, to focus on what you and I tend to collect, I'll limit my examples to 1930's celluloid pens.
Large pens should have large heavy nibs. One way 2nd tier makers saved money was to offer a pen that looked a bit like Parker's Duofold Senior, but which packed a small and thin nib that weighed perhaps half as much as Duofold's. Nibs should be proportionate to pen. Quality makers used triple threads to allow solid closure of cap without requiring large thread height. Quality makers used heavily coated trim, sound gold fill rather than cheap gold wash/plate. Quality makers used well cured and reasonably thick celluloid, to minimize barrel swell around the lever. Yeah, this is a soft spot as even good pens from the era of course can show (80 years later) discoloration and even decay of plastic.
So, first tier brands tend to have proportionate nibs, heavy trim, sound celluloid, triple tap (if that's the right term) threads. Lesser tier pens skimp.
Keep in mind that cachet and desirability today draw in large part from native quality of the pens, but also from other factors, and there are 2nd tier pens that have popular followings. Cachet thus does not overlap Tierage (sic?) 100% on the ol' Venn Diagram. Indeed, and I take risk here as the following is not my usual zone, I've seen some collections of very pretty old italian pens that pull what seem to me huge bucks for their quality, as they have fragile trim, often steel nibs, ginchy threading and generally iffy feel, but have pretty plastic and are scarce. Think $500 for a very pretty pen made with Parker Parkette quality.
And, there are cases in which makers generally viewed as second tier made some pens of first tier quality, while clearly 1st tier makers such as Parker and Sheaffer also made some pens of quite low quality thus low tier pens... such as Parker's rather dreadful Parkette (which still is collectable, btw). A Parkette though probably gets more attention from collectors than a similar quality Arnold would, because the Parkette carries the Parker name.
Any collectables field involves stratification of the items collected. It might be snobbery or bigotry to insist that a Picasso painting has more merit than an Isaacson painting, but that's the way the game goes. Both a Yugo and a Mercedes/AMG ML-63 provide transportation to the local food market, but the Mercedes is a... loftier... car no doubt. Whether it is snobbery or bigotry to label the Yugo inferior (hey, it cost 10% the Mercedes and did the job, right?)... well... we can play that game if we must, but few will argue against notions t the Mercedes uses more impressive and higher quality parts and carries more cachet in the marketplace.
regards
david
