Vintage Pens July/August 2006 Stylophiles Online

By Mike Stevens

There's a lot of talk at any large pen show, or for that matter, anytime that more than two collectors get together anywhere, about the "best" vintage pen for everyday use. Now keep in mind that for the purposes of this article, we are going to be talking about "everyday use" and the "average" collector. We probably all know a collector or two that fall outside those parameters. The ones who have an inked up mint condition Waterman's Patrician in their pocket every day. If their not using their 458 overlay, that is!

No, here we are speaking of the more "average" collector. Maybe you have a job that isn't "nice pen friendly". Perhaps you have just started in the world of collecting the "good stuff" and haven't yet found all those nifty "less common" examples of the golden age of fountain pen production. Or maybe your budget just doesn't stretch to even owning a mint Patrician, much less facing the need to decide whether it's a good idea to ink it up and carry it around with you all day. No matter how humble your budget or modest your collection though, there's a great deal of very good value to be found in vintage pens. Not to mention downright utility!

One of the most underappreciated of all the common vintage classics has to be the Sheaffer Flattop. This dependable icon of their 1920s line-up really came into it's own with the introduction of Radite in 1924. Of course, the design was being produced prior to that in hard rubber, both basic black as well as red (in limited numbers, and generally considered to be quite a good find!)

However, it is in the much more common Radite versions that we are mainly interested for the purposes of this article.

For one simple reason... They are often found at what would have to be considered to be very good prices. By whatever objective means you choose, the value for money in the Sheaffer OS Flattop is downright amazing. Compare this pen to anything modern. On the one hand you can get an absolutely mint, super color OS Flattop Sheaffer in Jade for around $300. Try finding a comparable modern production pen of that size, in celluloid, with a huge solid gold nib at anything close to that price... Go ahead, we'll wait here.

I don't want to dwell on the perfect color mint specimens here, however. It is more the "less than perfect" examples that I find to be such a good value for the money. If you can live with less than perfect color, you can find yourself writing with an eighty year old piece of history for around a hundred bucks. That's a pretty darn good deal any way you look at it!

"Perfect" Color Jade Green Sheaffer (Thanks to David Isaacson for the image)

Up front, I prefer the "great color" versions in both Jade and Black and Pearl. I mean, who wouldn't? The Jade is a vibrant, bright green, the Pearl in the Black and Pearl a vivid shimmering off white... No, in the looks department, the perfect color examples really are worth the extra bucks to a collector. To a user, on the other hand... Well you know, a discolored Jade Flattop is going to write just about as well as a perfect color Jade Flattop.

What is the actual difference in color between "perfect" and "user grade"? Well, since we're looking primarily at the functionality of a pen when we choose one to use, and the appearance when we collect, the difference can be quite striking. A look at the image to the right will show you pretty clearly that the change in color can be night and day. (As can the price tag!)

Obviously the "good color" version shown in this Balance model is brighter, and it is also a much more vibrant shade of green. A pen such as this would probably be left un-sacced (the rubber in ink sacs is considered to be one of the most likely causes of discoloration) and relegated to the display cabinet. The Flattop version is much more representative of the kind of color found on these pens today.

So we're looking for a "less than perfect" example of the Sheaffer OS Flattop. Fair enough, where do we go, and what's it going to set us back?

The first question decides the answer to the second. You can buy them restored; ready to write, or "as found"; needing repair. The good news is that these are really very easy pen to get back into operating order if found "in the wild". Generally, all that is going to be required is a good cleaning and a sac replacement. You might find that the original pressure bar has corroded and requires replacement. Whether you are a "do it yourself" kind of person, or whether you farm it out, either way, a simple to repair pen adds up to a less time/money spent. Resaccing and cleaning should run you about $30-$40 from most of the well known repair gurus, so count on adding that to the price if you're not a DIY (Do It Yourself) kind of person.

"Average color" Black and Pearl (Note that the cap has much better color than the barrel, a normal pattern of discoloration in celluloid pens.)

Finding these pens is not as complicated as many collectable vintage pens. For one thing, there were plenty of them made. Until the introduction of the Balance in 1929, the Flattop was Sheaffer's flagship model, and at the time, Sheaffer was one of the leading US pen makers. This results in a relative abundance of these pens on the market today. If located on Ebay you can probably count on finding these pens priced around $50-$70 for those that exhibit the usual discoloration. At a pen show, probably about the same price, depending upon how willing you are to dig through the "box-o-pens" you find every few tables. Adding in the repair and restoration costs will bring you up to around the $100 mark, at which point you can probably count on finding a pretty good selection of "ready to go" pens of this type from which to choose at any large pen show.

Once you've found your Sheaffer Flattop, either "ready to go", or in the wild and gotten it restored, what do you have to look forward to?

Well, for one thing, these pens are surprisingly durable. The Radite material tends to discolor, and on some of the Jade versions I have seen some pretty good crystallization at the cap top ends, but aside from these issues, it's a remarkably stable plastic considering it's age.

The real treat with these pens is actually the nib. By the time Sheaffer was producing these pens the trend was for very heavy, rigid manifold nibs. This allowed the use of the pens in the everyday business world of the 1920s, where carbon-copy forms were the only way to get "multiple printouts" of your day to day business paperwork. A heavy, non-flexible nib in fine to medium tip is the perfect answer to the problem of how to get a legible impression through several sheets of carbon paper.

What it does for the modern user is provide a great, smooth nib that is often very "usable" in everyday situations. The idea of a super-flex "wet noodle" nib that allows magnificent flourishes to spout forth from your pen at will is enchanting, but often proves to be better "in the mind" than on paper. In everyday use a more rigid nib allows the use of the pen in a hurry, and a fine or finish-medium means that even filling out forms is doable. Sheaffer's large Lifetime nib is an amazing, massive construction of 14K gold, more than thick enough to stand up to the heaviest use. The tipping material is also usually very well shaped and polished, and the result is a very smooth, easy to use pen. You won't get any flex or line width variation of course, but you do get a very reliable and dependable writer.

Your best bargain in the Sheaffer Flattop is likely to be either the plain Black, a discolored Pearl and Black or Jade. Just how discolored is up to you, but for the most part, the discoloration is cosmetic, and really doesn't detract from the pen except in terms of looks. I have seen that on the Jade celluloid, enough deterioration of the material can lead to crazing and cracking at the cap top, for some reason I don't seem to see this as much on the Pearl and Black versions. The Black ones are the least susceptible to damage, and of course, being plain black, there's no discoloration issue.

Another possibility if you don't mind a slightly slimmer pen would be to seek out the smaller size Flattop pens. As is usual within the vintage pen collecting world, the smaller the pen, the lower the price tag, and Sheaffer Flattops are no exception. I personally prefer the larger size pens, as I like a wider pen, but the smaller versions are still going to be what most would consider a "full sized" pen by today's standards. With the cap posted, they are more than long enough to balance well in the hand. If you don't need an oversized pen for comfortable writing, the smaller Flattops offer great value for money.

If you stick with the larger pens, but still want a bargain, you might end up with something like my personal favorite of the Flattops in my "daily user" rotation. As you can see from the picture to the right, it's definitely "not perfect".... I generally just refer to it as "When Jade Goes Bad"!

Just about everything that could be wrong with a collectable pen is wrong. Cap lip chipped around over half the diameter (and where it's not chipped, it's hosting numerous cracks), cracks around the clip at the cap top, horribly discolored celluloid both in the cap and the barrel, and to top it all off, every piece of metal trim save the lever is massively brassed!

On the other hand.... This pen has one of those wonderful, super smooth medium Lifetime nibs I was describing earlier. It holds a ton of ink, and lays down a great fine-ish medium line that just plain works well for everyday use. It's downright hideous, no doubt about it, but there's also no doubt that it's a real workhorse. Looks as though it's been a workhorse for a large portion of its life! There is a certain twisted part of my nature that enjoys putting this pen in my pocket. Collectors may cringe when they see it, but to "non-pen people" it's just a "neat old ink-pen". This is one of those pens that often get comments along the lines of "I remember having a pen like that" from some of the more elderly folks I run across during the day. It's always neat hearing the stories that usually follow a comment like that!

The main point is that this pen, as beat up and worn out as it is, still manages to do the same job today as it was designed and built to do seventy-some years ago! I view the dents and dings as honorable battle scars picked up through a long and useful life, and I no longer have the slightest hesitation to add this pen to my pocket. I only hope that after I've been around for as long that I'm still working as well!

It seems that sometimes, the key to selling the latest modern limited edition is to tout the fact that it has "vintage styling", not to mention "celluloid construction". Well, I suppose it's easy to overlook the fact that there's a lot of pens out there that have both, but aren't modern limited editions! The upshot is, if you really want a nice, dependable "everyday" pen with vintage styling, massive 14K nib, and real celluloid construction....

You might want to pass by the modern pen counter and look for a Sheaffer Flattop!

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