Find of the weekend: Sheaffer Cartridge Pen

I went to the antique mall in town yesterday for the first time in awhile (for those of you at the type-in, think a bigger, more cluttered and varied sort of Deluxe Junk, with lots of books and kitchen stuff in addition to furniture and what-have-you).  It's called Finders Keepers.  Love that place.  They occasionally have typewriters, but this time, the only ones there were electric.  One of the electrics had a really interesting san sarif typeface, but it was still electric, plus $69.  Not my thing.  However, I did make my first ever in-the-wild more-or-less-vintage pen purchase: a Sheaffer "Cartridge Pen". I figured it was an acceptable risk, since there wasn't a filling system likely to need restoration. It's a lower end pen, nothing fancy, but still...cool!



The cap is a bit tarnished, but otherwise it seems in decent condition. Friction fit cap.



It has a conical nib, which the nice folks over at Fountain Pen Network inform me is a "Triumph" nib:


(Please ignore the capitalization weirdness in the title of that thread.  Ugh!)  It has a little tip-up at the end, which I'm told is normal.  And it's a pretty nice writer--fine, but fairly wet, and very smooth if you hold it at just the right angle (something I'm still learning to do).


The cartridge missing from the box slot on the left was still inside the pen. I rinsed the pen, added a little water to the cartridge, popped it back in, and the little guy fired right up! It was a little scratchy, though, so I refilled a cartridge (via syringe) with Noodler's Blue-Black, which works better.  Eventually I may try to find a converter for it, though I'm not sure modern Sheaffer converters will work.  I have a feeling they may be too long.

One of the reasons I suspect this was early as cartridge pens go is that the instructions include info on essentially using the cartridge as a converter in an emergency--apparently assuming most folks would have easy access to bottled ink, but not necessarily to cartridges!


All in all, not bad.  For twenty dollars, I may have overpaid compared to some on-line sources...but hey, instant gratification!