Saturday, September 12, 2009

Sheaffer Snorkel: The High Cachet Colors


Strange how I "fell into" Snorkeldom.

During my first seven years pen collecting I had purchased with intent perhaps only three or four of this venerable vintage pen from the 1950's, one which went head to head with the vaunted Parker "51", and which perhaps outsold that great pen, according to some.

Aside from the occasional basic pen mixed into some pen collections I'd purchased, I had not sought out the Snork. Then, in fairly short order I was presented with a couple terrific Snork-focused collections. What could I do... I bought them. I found particularly charming a bunch of the "tough" colors mixed into the collections. Six Snorkel colors are far harder to come by than the others, and while the six in turn can be stratified, all carry far more cachet than the five common colors and than the two intermediate colors.

During the subsequent three years I have more aggressively hunted Snorks. I've come to appreciate the series. I do not hunt them with completist goals, but do have ten or so gems in my personal collection, and dozens on the website.

The photo above probably is the only shot out there to show all six of the "tough" colors together, especially with all having matching plastic caps, which are a bit more desirable in this color range than are metal caps, even if the metal capped pens did cost more when originally sold. A scarce Demonstrator makes for seven pens in the image.

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