PenInHand - Musings on the Hobby
Sheaffer Sovereignty
by Jim
Mamoulides, December 14, 2005
The
White Dot Sheaffer Sovereign TM Touchdown in Pastel Blue
One thing that
is proven repeatedly in the pen collecting world is there is always
something new to learn.
I seem to have this experience frequently, often in the form of
friendly emails and calls from collectors telling me that something
in an article on PenHero.com is incorrect, needs augmentation, or
lacks some important new detail. This inevitably leads me on a hunt
for corroborating proofs, new data, and sometimes even a new pen!
Let this instance
be known as the "Case of the new TM".
I certainly thought I had been thorough in my research on the Sheaffer
Thin Model (TM) Touchdown pens,
including
gathering Sheaffer
catalogs,
repair manuals, advertisements,
and company
publications. I examined many example pens, inside and out,
and wrote what I thought would cover that line. It turns out that
I didn't have all the details, and despite all the work, it turns out there is
a TM model that had completely escaped my scrutiny.
Sheaffer
Snorkel Sovereign in Buckskin Tan
Andy Evans contacted
me with a fantastic new discovery: a new pen that looks like a regular
TM Sovereign barrel with a cap swap from the Snorkel Sovereign. The
new pen's cap has the same repeating line / wavy line / line pattern
found on the Snorkel model's polished stainless steel cap. The difference
is what caught our eyes: the Snorkel model cap does not have a White
Dot! This is a new species of TM!
A White Dot TM Touchdown Nobody
Expected!
Sheaffer introduced
the Thin Model Touchdown pens in 1950 as slender, stylish replacements
for the fatter Touchdown pens. The line ran through 1952, when the
Snorkel appeared, essentially a longer TM Touchdown with the Rube
Goldberg complex Snorkels filling system.
What's especially
interesting about this newly found Thin Model Sovereign is though
it has a very similar
look to the Snorkel Sovereign, there are key differences that make
it an interestingly different model and with a different positioning
in the Sheaffer line. The new pen has
two key differences from both
the
Snorkel
Sovereign
and
the
known
TM Sovereign.
First, there's
the cap. The known and more common TM Sovereign is a non-White Dot
pen with a plastic cap. The Snorkel
Sovereign has a polished stainless steel cap with an engraved repeating
line / wavy line / line design, a gold plated clip stamped "SHEAFFER'S",
and no White Dot. The new TM
Sovereign has the same engraved polished stainless steel cap as the
Snorkel Sovereign, but sports a plain gold plated clip and a White
Dot at the cap top. This is not a Frankenpen.
Sheaffer
TM Sovereign pen and pencil set in Persian Blue
Second, the
color isn't right. When I got the new pen from Andy Evans,
I immediately compared
it with a Persian Blue TM Sovereign I had in my own collection. It's
a very good thing Andy sent me a blue one because the new pen
is decidedly
lighter
than the plastic cap TM I have. The plastic cap TM Sovereign is the
darker Persian Blue that is seen on the earlier large Sheaffer
Touchdown pens and other Sheaffer TM models. The new pen is
the lighter Pastel Blue seen
on the later Snorkel pens. This probably puts the date of production
late in the TM timeframe.
Dare We
Say Transitional?
Andy Evans has
found other examples of the new pen in three colors, Pastel Blue,
Burgundy, and Green. The
fact that numbers of examples are being noticed by collector
friends now
looking for them gives an indication that this may not be a short
run or prototype model. Some observations lead me to believe
that the
new TM Sovereign is a late production version of the TM Sovereign
that appeared before the Snorkel line was introduced. I think the
key
to this is
the color of the plastic
barrel. Pastel
Blue is one of the basic Snorkel colors and would have been a later
addition to the TM line. I haven't seen any
other TM models in Pastel Blue yet, but this makes me wonder if they
may exist.
Sheaffer
TM Sovereign - both versions: (Left to Right) Persian Blue and Pastel
Blue
Why the White Dot
version of the later Snorkel Sovereign cap design? I believe this
was done to draw a stronger distinction between the TM Sovereign
and the TM Statesman. Initially, these two pens were virtually
identical, with the exception of the White Dot on the Statesman model.
Sheaffer may have introduced the engraved stainless steel cap to
better differentiate between the two models and to "upgrade" the
Sovereign to White Dot status. This upgrade would make sense as the
Sovereign design is clearly TM, while the more downscale Craftsman
and Admiral models hark back more to the chunky fat Touchdown look.
Now all "true" TM pens would be White Dot pens.
Detail
of Sheaffer Sovereign caps (Left to Right): Snorkel, TM late, TM early
I
believe the newly found TM Sovereign should be designated as the "late" version and the plastic cap version should
be called the "early" version until more information
can be found to establish production dates. I
actually don't like the term "transitional," as I suspect this was
an actual production model, and the Snorkel line itself is something
of an improved / upgraded TM Touchdown, anyway.
It's always fun
to find something new that makes you realize there's more things
to discover out there in the field. Keep hunting!
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Andy Evans of Andy's Pens for supplying the information and photos of the metal cap Sheaffer Sovereign.
Comments on this article
may be sent to the author, Jim Mamoulides
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