PatM

I've picked up some interesting Sheaffer ephemera over the years.  For years I didn't know what a Magic Lantern Slide was until Don Lavin ran across a few Sheaffer slides and turned me on to them.  As I recall, he was at a show somewhere away from Chicago and called me to see if I would be interested in a few of them that were being offered at the show.  Since I knew nothing about them, and had never seen one, I naturally said yes.  My thanks to Don for all his help.

I then learned that these Magic Lantern Slides were shown using a Magic Lantern Projector and were generally used as advertising pieces for local retail merchants at intermissions during movies when reels were being changed.  All the slides that I have are 3.25" x 4" framed glass.  I've since picked up about 20 different slides for different Sheaffer products and different pen/pencil  sellers who did the advertising. The last that I found was probably 8 years ago on Ebay in a collection of about 50 different slides for a wide variety of products.  Attached is a photo of one of the slides.  

I took some of the slides to the Raleigh show for a bit of show and tell. I'm going to have to pick David's and Don's brains for how best to take photos of these slides so they can be shown to a wider audience.  I took this photo by just setting the slide on a window frame this afternoon and using an iPhone for the shot.  

Best,

Pat

A good friend recently asked me about Imperials and Imperial era demonstrators, having seen one on Gary's great Targa (and much more) site.  As is usual for me, that caused a couple days of sorting through things until I uncovered the slotter box with 1950s and later demos.  This picture shows most of what was in the box.

The two pens on the left are Sheaffer's TDs with dolphin nibs.  The picture may not do the second pen justice but it is a demonstrator nib.

The blue pen is a Lifetime cartridge pen with a Skrip Converter and a dolphin demonstrator nib.

The next two are Sheaffer's demo pencils, the second of which still has the tag from the Harry Bouras auction held on April 25, 1994 (which I did not attend). The second TD demo from the left was sold at that auction as a set with this tagged pencil at the price of $517.50, including a 15% buyer's premium.

The third pencil appears to be a Snorkel demo.

And the last three are ballpoint demos.

I'm going to keep sorting through things looking for more, and hope this thread causes more demonstrators to be uncovered.

Best,

Pat