Sheaffer Prelude Nib Material

[lancre]

I was watching sbrebrown's YouTube channel and his review of the Sheaffer Prelude, and he mentioned the pen changed from a gold nib to a steel nib at some point. He was reviewing what he considered a "vintage" Prelude and remarked on this.

 

I took a few pictures of my nib which isn't in the best condition, and I wondered if those of you with experience in these pens could comment on:

 

- the material

- whether it's plated and what with

- what the situation is with the nib; some of it's gold in colour and some of it is silver in colour. What happened?

 

 

[s_t_e_v_e]

It's a gold plated stainless steel nib. I was told by a retailer that Sheaffer uses 22K gold plating on their trims and nibs. They partially plate the nibs for the two tone effect. What you're seeing is plating loss which happens over time. If you use harsh abrasive cleaning/polishing agents on plated parts of a pen, the plating will wear off. How soon will depend on the thickness of the plating and how harsh the cleaning or polishing agents are.

 

The plating loss will not affect the functionality, it's just aesthetics.

Edited April 15, 2017 by s_t_e_v_e

[lancre]

Ok thanks for the information! It still writes nicely, I'll have to take better care of it in the future.

 

I only recently fished it out of a random pen box lying around the house and it had 5 year old ink still in the feed. I'd just bought a TWSBI Eco and thought I'd go around the house locating my old pens. I found 2 Cross ballpoints, a Parker Frontier and Latitude, and a Cross Sauvage, the Prelude, and 2 Lamy Safari fountain pens. I'd forgotten how much I'd bought over the years.

[PS104]

I suspect me and a couple of hundred will be in the same boat with you as we find long lost pens somewhere in the house.

Can only hope the boat is big enough

Edited April 16, 2017 by PS104

[fabri00]

It is one of the best steel nib never produced, to my opinion.