The Upper Crest of Sheaffer Society

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A few weeks ago I introduced a tipless Sheaffer Crest, with a barrel that screws directly onto the mechanism, and the new find led me into a discussion of different variations of the breed:

The discussion, though, omitted a couple important ones – two of the most important ones, in fact.  By chance, both came my way in recent weeks, the first at the Baltimore Pen Show:

It looks very similar to what I showed you earlier, but with an important difference.  See those alternating grooves running around the center of the cap?  That can only mean one thing:

The cap and clip are 14k gold.  And so is the tip:

The imprints are slightly different, too.  “Sheaffer’s” is stamped on the lower portion of the cap, while the regular Crest series has no manufacturer’s marking on the cap:

And while the regular Crest pencils have an entire Sheaffer’s imprint on the lower barrel, the 14k model has only “Made in U.S.A.” stamped on the lower barrel – a difference due to the fact that it would be duplicative to have the Sheaffer name on both the upper and lower barrels:

I’ve harbored an aversion to buying solid gold pieces, since I prefer to buy things for their historical rather than intrinsic value.  Apparently I’ve gotten over that, since I didn’t hesitate a bit when this one came along in an online auction shortly after Baltimore:

This one has those same alternating horizontal and vertical grooves:

It’s as clean as they come, and it’s marked 14k all over the place:

“Gold-capped” and “sterling-capped” Sheaffers first appear in the company’s catalogs in 1937, with the sterling caps used only on the striated gray barreled pens and pencils – I’ve seen a set, but the price was more than I could pay at the time.  The “Crest” name first appears in the 1938 catalog in connection with the metal-capped lines. The “Masterpiece Ensemble” in all 14k gold first appears in the 1939 catalog:

Interestingly, there’s no mention that the pens or pencils could be had with 14k caps and striated bodies.  They do, however, appear in the 1940 catalog; the all 14k version was now known as the “14k Masterpiece” and the 14k cap only was known as the “14k Crest Masterpiece.”

Note there are two other variations shown in the 1940 catalog: an all-platinum version and the “Honor” pens and pencils, the latter of which was a special engraving available on both the 14k Masterpiece and Crest Masterpiece sets.

Nope.  I don’t have either of these to show you.