Sheaffer Sharp Points

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 5; copies are available print on demand through Amazon here, and I offer an ebook version in pdf format at the Legendary Lead Company here.

If you don't want the book but you enjoy this article, please consider supporting the Blog project here.

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.

How Many Tops?

This article has been edited and included in The Leadhead's Pencil Blog Volume 5; copies are available print on demand through Amazon here, and I offer an ebook version in pdf format at the Legendary Lead Company here.

If you don't want the book but you enjoy this article, please consider supporting the Blog project here.

Jerome Lobner had a Sheaffer Sharp Point up for sale recently, and I couldn’t resist for a number of reasons:

It’s one of the earliest Sheaffer pencils, with a straight sided clip mounting and an imprint which mimicks the Winchester spiky lettering:

Sheaffer later added ears to the sides of the clip mounting for greater stability, leading to the nickname “bowler clip” for the similarity to a bowler hat.  Here’s the new addition shown next to a Sheaffer Sharp Point with the bowler clip:

And a comparison of the two shows you the other reason I was interested in Jerome’s pencil:

See that top?  There’s absolutely no engraving at all on the crown of my new Sharp Point.  Of course, by the time the design patent for the Sharp Point was applied for, in April of 1919, the crown top had been replaced by the familiar Sheaffer bell top:

So how many styles of caps were there for the Sharp Point?  Well, including the new addition, there’s four that I know of . . .

Here’s my three straight clip Sharp Points.  The top example is the one that cracked that helped crack the case of David LaFrance’s involvement in the development of the Sharp Point (see the “Wahl, Sheaffer and the Race for Boston Series,” in particular the third installment at https://leadheadpencils.blogspot.com/2016/12/wahl-sheaffer-and-race-for-boston-part_28.html). 

The example on the bottom, with Sheaffer’s later bell cap, came from Brian McQueen after the article ran in the Pennant.  At the time I bought it, I thought the cap was a bit of an anachronism, since the Sharp Point still had crown tops when the bowler clip was introduced.  I didn’t care, because I was just happy to find a straight clip Sharp Point – the cap might have been replaced, but even if it was, it’s an early bell cap with no Sheaffer imprint, correct for a Sharp Point.

So there’s three early Sharp Points and three different cap treatments:

The usual variety, a smooth variety, and a bell top.  Add in the more Eversharpy crown tops seen on most bowler clip models, and that makes four.