Old School Pens - vintage & modern fountain pen sales

As you browse this site it will become obvious that of all the pens we have for sale and in our collection, the Sheaffer Snorkel is the clear favourite. The are a number of reasons for this, but what it all boils down to is an appreciation of a truly innovative design that is quirky in appearance, but unbelievably reliable in operation. If you have never seen one of these pens before, they come as a considerable surprise because the filling mechanism is so different from anything else on the market. Let me try to explain it to you.

To fill the pen you turn the end of the barrel, which is actually a separate knob, anticlockwise and from the underside of the nib a slim tube will start to extend. This is the snorkel. Keep turning the knob until it clicks, which indicates that the snorkel if fully extended. Dip the tip of the snorkel - not the nib - in the ink and then pull the knob up. The knob is connected to a stainless steel tube about 8mm in diameter, this being the piston that will compress air in the barrel. Once the tube is fully extended, push it all the way back down again whilst keeping the tip of the snorkel in the ink. You’ll see bubbles of air being expelled when the piston is pushed down and when the piston is all the way down, the pen will start to fill with ink. Keep the snorkel in the ink for about 8 seconds to allow it to fill fully. Turning the knob clockwise will retract the snorkel.

The beauty of this system is that there’s no need to wipe surplus ink off the nib after filling, which is why Sheaffer’s designed it.

So how does it actually work? Extension of the snorkel is accomplished because the piston has a thread on the bottom which matches one on another steel tube inside the pen. One acts as the nut, the other as the bolt, turn the nut, the bolt moves. Pushing the piston down compresses air in the barrel, which at this stage is airtight because there are two O-ring seals in the pen, one around the snorkel and the other around the piston. The latter one is located in a recess just inside the top of the barrel and if you look carefully at the piston you’ll notice a shallow groove near its top. When the piston has moved sufficiently far down the barrel, this groove travels past the barrel O-ring seal and the pen is no longer airtight.

As the air inside the pen is compressed it squeezes the rubber ink sac and expels any air out through the snorkel tube, which is why you see the bubbles in the ink. As soon as the piston groove goes past the O-ring, the air pressure is released and the natural elasticity of the rubber ink sac sucks the ink into the pen, just like a pipette

.Although this all sounds very complex, filling a snorkel pen is relatively straight forward, and because the nib doesn’t need to be dipped in the ink, it’s less messy than a conventional pen. For the benefit of the curious and those who have one of these pens but don’t have the instructions, I’ve placed a copy of the original instruction sheet that came with every pen on the site. Either click on the link here and here, or right click on the links and do a Save Target As. Please be aware that these are large files, about 1MB each.

Sheaffer made the Snorkel Thin Model (TM) from 1952 until 1959 and it was marketed in the form of a number of different models. The table below shows the principal range, in price order (cheapest first) with a brief description of the features of each one. Apart from the solid gold Masterpiece, the pens were sold in five main colours; black, burgundy, pastel green, grey and aqua (blue). There is some colour variation within these categories (I have three shades of green pen) and there are a number of rare colours including pink, white, bright red, periwinkle blue, flower yellow, bright orange, and chocolate. These rare colours command high price premiums amongst collectors, as do the scarce Salesman’s Demonstrator models which are constructed entirely of clear plastic

The table below identifies all of the Snorkel and Touchdown models ever produced by Sheaffer. As far as I am aware - and I’m pretty certain - all of the information given in it is correct and has been checked against one of the definitive works on the subject, “Fountain Pens of the World”, by Andreas Lambrou. We take extreme care to correctly identify all of the Snorkels and TD’s that we sell, unlike many other sellers who regularly list pens as the wrong model.


	The Pen For Men (PFM)
In 1959 Sheaffer introduced a new range of snorkel pens with a very distinctive style including the newly patented inlaid nib. Made in a large size they were intended for men and called (with a slight lack of subtlety!) the Pen For Men, more usually abbreviated to PFM. The PFM is widely regarded as one of the best pens ever made and is highly sought after by collectors. Five models were marketed:- PFM I - plastic barrel and cap, steel clip, palladium silver nib PFM II - plastic barrel, stainless steel cap, palladium silver nib PFM III - plastic barrel and cap, gold filled trim, 14k gold nib PFM IV - plastic barrel, stainless steel cap, gold filled trim, 14k gold nib PFM V - plastic barrel, gold filled cap, 14k gold nib Not listed in the table is one pen, the existence of which was doubted by many - the solid gold PFM Masterpiece. Well, for all of the doubters out there, one does exist, and I've had the privilege of examining it! The pen - designated the PFM VIII - was recently sold at auction for over £3600 and was described as being 9k gold, hallmarked London 1962 and with a fine barley overlay and plain faceted ends. The overlay was actually produced by jewelers S J Rose. My impression of the pen was that it was a massive writing instrument of considerable weight and almost unlimited style! Did I bid for it? Yes, but as it far exceeded the pre-sale estimate I was nowhere near the final selling price............... These pens are NOT to be confused with the very much cheaper Imperial range, which look very similar, if narrower. All PFM’s are snorkel fillers, no Imperials were ever produced as snorkels. However, there can be some confusion, as many Imperials were made with the Touchdown filling system where the end of the barrel unscrews to reveal a piston tube very similar to the snorkel model, but the giveaway is that there is no snorkel tube under the nib. For some reason, probably to do with marketing strategy, Sheaffer pens have never been as popular in the UK as they were in America, which is a great pity, given their superb build quality and innovative design. In the late 1960’s and early 70’s the Imperial range was much more popular in the UK, and many examples can still be found.