Not Quite

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Sheaffer pencils have a tendency to pile up in the museum. What makes them fun to collect is variety of . . . variations. Put two next to each other that you thought were identical, and you’re as likely as not to find that there’s some interesting detail that separate them.

For that reason, I’m never too quick to dismiss something I’ve run across as something I’ve already got in my collection. Every couple months or so, my "pile of probable duplicates" gets a little out of hand, as they await the day that I’ve got time to sift through them.

After the "mother lode" came in from Philadelphia, I was drowning in pencils and thought it would be an excellent time to thin things out a bit. Many in fact proved to be doubles, but this wasn’t one of them:

This is a later edition, from around 1960 or so. The upper barrel tapers from round to square, and the clip – with the large-lettered "Sheaffer’s" imprint, is the clip you’ll find on one of Sheaffer’s "dolphin" nibbed pens (named for the similarity of the shape to a dolphin’s head).

I knew I had one on hand, but when I put the two next to each other:

That’s not the camera angle. One clip is decidedly longer than the other:

Is there a reason?