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Sheaffer oversize Balance lever-filled set in Brown/Pearl  striated.

The Sheaffer Balance
Part II

Striated Radite and the Vac-Fill System
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

by Dethardt Baumann
with additional material from Bill Riepl
__________________________

We've already looked at the way the Balance allowed Sheaffer to enter the 1930s with a strong position in the market. The dramatic new style carried Sheaffer through the first half of the decade with great success. However, as time passed, there was still a constant effort to stay at the peak of innovation. A new filling system had been developed in 1934, and marketed in the WASP line (W. A. Sheaffer Pen), a secondary brand of Sheaffer.

This was obviously in reaction to Parker, who announced in 1933 a wonderful, new innovation, the vacuum filler pen, soon to become famous as the Parker Vacumatic (1933-1948). The Parker advertisements said, it was "a sacless pen that holds 102% more ink". Actually the Vacumatic was not sacless. It had a special rubber ink sac that did not hold ink, but acted as the flexible plunger mechanism. It was on Sheaffer one year later to keep Parkers promise of a truely sacless filling mechanism.

The Vac-Fill system, or plunger vac system used a thin plunger with a rubber gasket to create a vacuum, allowing almost the entire barrel to hold ink. Sheaffer continued to manufacture the lever filler concurrent with the new vac fill system, offering customers a choice.

There were several new colors available in these pens as well. What many consider to be one of the most attractive Sheaffers, the mother of pearl inlay, was made in both lever fill as well as the new plunger vac system. This pen has a black cap and barrel, with chips of pearl shell inlayed into the plastic. It's a very striking pen, especially in the OS version. If you want one of that size, however, prepare to pay a premium, it's a very desireable piece! The smaller versions are much more affordable.

The other new material offered was a striped plastic, available in several colors. This material, unlike that of the Parker vacumatic, was made with the stripes running vertically, instead of horizontally. On the Vac fill models, there were translucent stripes to show the ink level. In 1936, the first three colors launched were brown, Gray, and Rose. In 1938 Marine Green was added, and a year later, another red color, Carmine. Also in 1939 Sheaffer introduced their first metal capped pen, the Crest, the metal cap was shortly offered on many of the Vac fill Balance pens.

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Sheaffer oversize Balance Vac-Fill pens in Grey/Pearl and Red/Pearl striated.

These new striped Balance pens had a slightly different shape, a bit more streamlined at the cap top. It's not much in the earlier models, as time went by, it became a bit more pronounced. Suring 1935 both long and short versions of a new clips were introduced. These had no hump, but were radiused along the entire length with streamlined design and flat ball end. They were tapered to a point at the upper end with mounting ears and were no longer imprinted. A barrel with transparent section to show the ink supply was introduced in the Vac-Fill pens. 1936 the company adopted the transparent gripping section in lever-fill pens to show the ink supply, a fashionable feature at this time.
 

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Sheaffer Balance Lever-Filled Pen

There were still OS models, and several smaller sizes, later Sheaffer began to once again use a number system to denote the models, this time including the Lifetime versions. 275, 350, 500, 750, and 1000, with the numbers refering to the price of the pen. As with the earlier Balance pens, size will have quite a lot to do with the price, a small size balance in striped Radite can be among the most affordable of "brand name" vintage pens, while an Oversize model in the same color can rank right up there with high end celluloid pens from Parker or Wahl Eversharp.
 

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Sheaffer Balance Vac-Filled Pen

In addition to size, you will likely find a certain prejudice against the vac fill versions of the later Balance model pens. The plunger vac system is tougher to restore than the lever filler, and thus these pens are often overlooked by buyers. Meanwhile there are dependable repair persons in the US, who charge around $ 25 for restoring a plunger vac system in a pen. Once properly restored, however, the plunger vac Balance makes a very nice daily writer, the nibs are the usual Sheaffer nibs, mainly firm, but nice and smooth. The vac fill pens hold a large amount of ink for their respective barrel size, even the slim versions hold a ton of ink.

All in all, the Sheaffer Balance pen stands as one of the most successful of US pen designs. It's a favorite of collectors due not only to the fact that they are relatively easy to come by, but also because they are great writers, and practical enough to use daily.

Even today, Balance pens stand for their own. No other pen company came out with a new pen design as consequent as Sheaffer with the Balance line. When they were introduced in 1929, for instance Montblanc had to go for another 20 years to introduce their variation of the same theme. Sheaffers unique design was copied by many wellknown companies and their unforgotten success finally lead Sheaffer into reintroducing the line with the New Balance pen in 1998. With the New Balance II, this pen design lives on, being one of the most successful pens in the history of writing.

Reference:
Bill Riepl, The Sheaffer Balance, Stylophile'S Magazine
Fischler & Schneider, The Golden Age of Fountain Pens
A. Lambrou, Fountain Pens
Glen B. Bowen, Collectible Fountain Pens

All pictures shown are from Bill Riepl's and from my own collection