Feather Touch Nib with Serial Number

[kirchh]

Note that the streamlined 'radius' clip appeared by mid-1935.

 

--Daniel

Daniel, I'm amazed to see postulating the age of anything based on the clip design given your many posts debunking that as a dating method. Or does it only work when you use it? Certainly a fair question.

PeteWK

It might be a fair question -- if the statement you made characterizing my posts were not flatly false. In reality, I find clips to be an excellent method for dating pens (or, more precisely, for providing "no earlier than" dates for pens). As with all feature-based dating, this is subject to the continual refinement of our knowledge of when features appeared, but given the ready availability of patents, ads, and reinforcing correlation with other attributes, dating by clip style is quite powerful, I feel.

 

Please feel free -- encouraged, really -- to support your claim by referencing the "many posts debunking [clips] as a dating method" that I have supposedly made. Barring that, it would seem that a correction would be in order.

 

It is always interesting to constructively discuss matters of pen history, but it is distinctly counter to the spirit of these forums to make the sorts of personal attacks you have launched on more than one occasion -- and especially when the content of the assault is fabricated, as in the present instance. I again request that you avoid initiating these distracting digressions and consider their effect on your ability to contribute to the shared knowledge of the hobby. Far better to deal in facts and reasoning, I think.

 

As for my own examples, I also have and have had a couple of the gold filled Tuckaway pens with Vac-Fil that didn't have the numbering on top.

 

That's the sort of data that is very useful; can you post pictures of those pens showing the Lifetime nibs?

 

--Daniel

[kirchh]

So far I've turned up eight Sheaffers with top-numbered nibs; six Lifetime Feathertouch examples and two Feathertouch items. Earliest item is likely a Gray Pearl pen datable to mid-1935 to mid-'36 based on catalogs.

 

--Daniel

Daniel,

 

The terminology is a little confusing to a neophyte. I was thinking Lifetime and Feathertouch would not apply to the same pen. On some web sites it seems to call Feathertouch = non-Lifetime, a no warranty, lower cost pen, but I also saw some Sheaffer ads that referred to Lifetime Feathertouch Tuckaways. Does that mean the pen itself can be called a Lifetime pen due to its white dot but the nib could be stamped "Feathertouch"? Is that what you refer to as Lifetime Feathertouch in your message above? When you say two Feathertouch items, these are non-lifetime (no white dot) pens with the same type of Feathertouch nib?

 

If you can shed any additional light or straigten out my misunderstanding, it would be helpful.

 

Thanks.

...Lee

Daniel is referring to the 1937 catalog as seen below.... Lee, it also seems that Sheaffer thought it was confusing as they dropped the combined terms shortly thereafter.

I was referring to various materials dating from 1931 through the early 1940s.

 

Neither the 35, 36 or 37 catalogs show any serial number anywhere but that was typical for Sheaffer. They generally didn't illustrate serial numbers in their catalogs.

Though I haven't yet made a study of top-numbered Feathertouch non-Lifetime nibs, top-numbered Lifetime nibs can be dated to mid-1935 through the early 1940s based on my research, and they were made in large quantities.

 

--Daniel

Edited June 1, 2007 by kirchh

[david i]

At quick peek amongst my couple hundred sheaffers, I have one Feather Touch Nib on Slender Balance that has a serial number/code on it. It is a slender non-lifetime Rose Glow with NO price code imprint on barrel. That and Catalog appearance for Rosie would tentatively date the pen to about 1937.

 

The Serial Number indeed is up high on this one.

 

d

Edited June 6, 2007 by david i