Procyon wrote,
Instead of fading to an olive brown color overall. In this pen certain parts of the plastic seem to have turned black leaving the green as original. It is pretty much uniform over both the cap and barrel. I actually like the look of this, but have always wondered what could have caused it. I have a bunch more that are discolored in the usual way, but this one is unique. Curious if anyone else has seen this?
You have touched on another aspect of Jade Sheaffer, noting again the color might have been used by Sheaffer > 15 years, 1923-4 or so even through 1940, even for flattops by some accounts, noting the last catalogue appearance for Jade flat end pens was 1930.
The pens in your pics are late production. The low set clip and the lack of a lever pin (instead using an internal lever ring) dates them to 1931+. Could be 1934 even as that is when round-ball clip gave way to flat-ball clip in Balance. Keep in mind we are in off-catalogue terrain already just by virtue of being post-1930.
Your pens are typical to the post 1930 flat-top jade Sheaffer cluster, and they do sport differences from earlier stock.
Besides structural (low set clip, internal lever ring), there appear to be color/chemical differences to the plastic as welll. Your three pens match what I wrote in with the big spread photo I offered above, when I wrote that the two OS pens followed by most of the pens on the right are late stock (not true for the back-butt Quill Pen though)
These late pieces tend, to my eye, to be lean a bit to the blue side, while the pre 1931 pens tend to have a hint more yellow to the green, and of course we just saw how some of the quite early pens have a habit of turning yellow (unless one believes they really started that way).
You mentioned the discoloration seen on your pens. That diffuse mottled blackening is typical to these late blue-hint green pens, unlike the patchier brown/yellow discoloration found on earlier pens. Personally I find it a more appealing appearance. I'd rather have a bright green (hint of blue) pen with dark variegations than the early yucky look of the pens I showed in the tray earlier in this discussion, the tray that shows one crisp color pen (that one a late pen again, with the blue hint, the low set clip, the lack of lever pin) among a pile of bad ones.
regards
David