Sheaffer Sharp Points

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I received a pleasant surprise at the Raleigh Pen Show in June: Pat Mohan was ready to let go of his collection of Sheaffer Sharp Points, made in the late teens:

Between the examples from Pat and the ones I already had on hand, I think it is a simple statement of fact that this is the largest assemblage of Sheaffer Sharp Points in existence.  Therefore, I thought it would be useful, even though I have thoroughly explored the development of these pencils (see Volume 4, page 300), to present photos of them side-by-side.

The earliest examples are the ones with straight clip mountings and spikey, Winchester-inspired lettering like what you see on early Eversharps:

Note that there are three different cap styles here: the plain crown, the crown with nubs around the middle band, and the flared caps normally associated with later Sheaffer pencils.  When I picked up the gold filled one from Brian McQueen, I thought it might be possible that a later cap might have been substituted; now that two have surfaced, and the one from Pat is just amazing, with that engraving, I’m prepared to accept that the flared cap was in production earlier than I originally thought.

Next are Sharp Points with “bowler clips” and crown tops – all but two have tops with scroll work that closely resemble Eversharp pencils of the era; the bottom two have the caps with nubs around them:

Next are those with bowler clips and flared caps – since this is the configuration shown in Sheaffer’s design patent, it perhaps makes sense that these would be the most numerous:

Last are those which have a Sheaffer’s ball clip and flared cap.

Since the imprints are the only way these differ from the far more numerous, typical Sheaffer’s Lifetime pencils, I’m not sure whether these are as rare as they appear to be – maybe they are, and maybe I just haven’t read the imprints on as many Sheaffer’s metal pencils as I should.