If it doesn’t look like much, that’s because like so many other weird Sheaffer variants, it looks just enough like what you’d normally expect to see. I picked this one up because I just liked the look of it, even though I was sure I had several just like it at home. Then I put it down. Twenty minutes later, I was back. "He wants it. He wants it not. He wants it. He wants it not."
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Says Daniel Kirchheimer:
ReplyDeleteNotes on Sheaffer's model symbols:
As a rule, Sheaffer coded pen/pencil models during the Balance era by using the model symbol for the black version of the item (if it was plastic). For example, the pen that was to be named the Craftsman around 1938 had symbol 3T; to specify a specific color, a color prefix was added, and the absence of any color prefix meant black, so the black pen was also 3T, a marbled Marine Green pen was H3T, and so on.
Same for pencils, except that an explicit color code was usually added for black -- L. The absolute entry-level pencil (the plain-jane Sheaffer Jr.), in fact, carried simply the code L for the item -- there was no component of the code that independently specified that model -- so the black pencil was just L, the marbled black-and-silver Grey Pearl pencil was just A, and the red-veined marbled Grey Pearl pencil was just M. Note that confusingly, when using descriptive names for the colors, Sheaffer used "Grey Pearl" for both the black-and-silver material (color code A) and the red-veined material (code M), though during the overlap of those two colors (roughly mid-34 through the end of '35) the red-veined pens were only available as lever-fillers and the black-and-silver pens were only offered as plunger fillers (which is why there are listings for two different pencils under the Grey Pearl color column in the '35 catalog and an explanatory note); when a lever-filler in the black-and-silver Grey Pearl was finally added, the red-veined color was dropped entirely.
Now, when Sheaffer added the utility pencil to which you refer, plain old L was already taken, so it appears that Sheaffer simply doubled up on the color code letter to form the model symbol, giving us LL. By the time a Gray Pearl color was added as an option for this pencil, which as you note seems to first appear in the 1938 catalog, the red-veined Grey Pearl (code M) was long gone, and, confusingly, Sheaffer was using "Gray Pearl" for yet another color -- the striated silver and black (color code P), and Sheaffer listed items of both colors (A and P!) on the same line in catalog listings. In any event, if the utility pencil in the new color was actually the marbled black-and-silver Grey Pearl (A), and Sheaffer was coding this model by doubling the color code, we would expect it to be coded AA; if, on the other hand, the pencil was in the new striated Gray Pearl, we would expect the symbol to be PP. But, instead, it's neither -- it's MM, and M is the color code for the long-discontinued red-veined Grey Pearl. So what's going on?
Here's my deduction: the pencil is not the striated Gray Pearl, or it would have been coded PP; also, Sheaffer tended not to use newer colors for low-end items. The red-veined Grey Pearl was long gone, so the color must have been the marbled black-and-silver Grey Pearl that was still in use for bottom-end pens and pencils. Why, then, isn't the pencil simply coded AA?
Because Sheaffer had already used the AA code for a different pencil -- the all metal (nickle-silver or whatever) slim dollar pencil seen at the extreme right on page 9 of the '35 catalog.
So, I think Sheaffer said, "F it -- just use MM, and we'll all know what it means."
--Daniel