Lady Sheaffer ‘S’ Logo Long Clip Fountain Pens c. 1967–1968

by Jim Mamoulides, December 6, 2024

Lady Sheaffer XI Black and Gold Tulle fountain pen c. 1967–1968

Lady Sheaffer gets a clip!

The original, clipless Lady Sheaffer fountain pen had a pretty good run, introduced March 20, 1958 with nineteen cartridge only fountain pen models in a wide variety of finishes priced from $10 to $110. The launch was supported with a big advertising and promotional campaign. Over the next few years some of the original models were phased out and in 1962 Sheaffer added two final new clipless models, each with an inset gold Stylpoint nib section. By 1966, the Lady Sheaffer line was due for a refresh.

Sheaffer introduced a broad new line in early 1966, the Stylist, that Sheaffer described as slim and having “sculptured styling,” meaning a more slender look than the earlier Lifetime line, introduced in 1963, which was itself derivative of the earlier Imperial and PFM lines. The new Stylist line signaled a change in the look of Sheaffer pens and included models across multiple price points and included all then current Sheaffer writing modes. The earliest ad for the new Stylist I found was from a retailer in the February 8, 1966 Minneapolis, Minnesota Star showing only the new Sheaffer Stylist ballpoint pen, probably a Stylist 202, which had a retail price of $1.98. In May 1966 Sheaffer began running national full page newspaper and magazine ads showing more of the Stylist line. The new Stylist line featured heavily in the May, 1966 Sheaffer catalog, appearing on both covers and ten of the interior pages.

Lady Sheaffer XIV Red and Gold Tulle and X Ivory and Gold Tulle fountain pens and ballpoint pens shown in a 1967 Sheaffer England brochure - Image courtesy of Gary Ellison

The Stylist has a long, slender, tapered shape, and a newly designed spring loaded clip stamped with a new ‘S’ logo, highlighted with white color fill on higher level models. This replaced the familiar Sheaffer White Dot, a major design change. The cartridge fill fountain pen’s cap and barrel have rounded flat ends, and a new and distinctive Stylist two-way nib unit decorated with a 'V' shaped arrowhead mark on the top side. Some fountain pen sections have a triangle or an arrowhead shape instead. Parker must have loved that! Those section marks are a topic for another article. Fountain pen users who wanted to bottle fill their new Stylist were offered an optional “Skrip” plunger type converter for an additional 95 cents. The clip functioned as the press button for the retracting mechanism on the Stylist Safeguard ballpoint pen.

Lady Sheaffer X Ivory and Gold Tulle fountain pen c. 1967–1968

The Stylist launch came alongside other big changes at Sheaffer. The company became a division of Textron on March 1, 1966. According to the announcement in the March, 1966 Sheaffer Review, Textron as of 1965, had annual sales of $850 million, profits of $29 million across 30 divisions, and 40,000 employees in 130 factories located in 31 states. The Textron purchase was proposed to Sheaffer in September 1965, approved by the company’s board the next month, and approved by Sheaffer stockholders on January 14, 1966. Given the timing, I believe the Stylist was already in the design and prototyping process in parallel with the Textron purchase and not as a result.

Lady Sheaffer gets a redesign

Back to the Lady Sheaffer line and how it fits into all these changes. With all that effort to reimagine and launch a visually new Sheaffer line, it’s no surprise that the thinking impacted the refresh of the Lady Sheaffer. The Lady Sheaffer fountain pen was redesigned for release in 1967 and followed the look of the Stylist in its cap and barrel shape, ‘S’ logo clip, and Stylist nib. Based on the July 1967 Sheaffer England price list, there were only four finishes, which were continued from the previous set of Lady Sheaffer finishes, and each was made as a fountain pen and a matching ballpoint pen, but no pencil. Lady Sheaffer ‘S’ logo clip pens begin to appear for sale in late 1967, and most retailer ads are found in England.

Lady Sheaffer IV Black and Gold Paisley fountain pen with later 18 karat gold short conical nib, c. 1968

A review of advertisements in 1968 leads me to believe the ‘S’ logo clip on the Lady Sheaffer was phased out with new Lady Sheaffer finishes released beginning in the fall of 1968. The new Lady Sheaffer pens have the same long clip adorned with the familiar Sheaffer White Dot at the top and the fountain pens have a short conical nib, similar to the first Lady Sheaffers. These new pens now have a three digit model number instead of Roman numerals. I was unable to find in any Sheaffer documents something tangible on when the decision was made to use and then drop the ‘S’ logo on clips (instead of the White Dot).

Identification Guide and Features:

The four Lady Sheaffer finishes, left to right: IV Paisley, X Ivory and Gold Tulle, XI Black and Gold Tulle, and XIV Red and Gold Tulle

The first Lady Sheaffer fountain pens with clips stand apart visually because of the tapered Stylist cap and barrel shape, long tapered clip with the Sheaffer ‘S’ logo with white fill stamped at the top, and Stylist two-way nib unit. Use of Roman numeral model numbers and the pattern names from the previous clipless Lady Sheaffer pens continued. An interesting oddity: there are four finishes listed in the 1967 Sheaffer England price list, in spite of the fact that a same year Sheaffer England brochure says there are five, though it only shows two, X Ivory and Gold Tulle and XIV Red and Gold Tulle, both of which are on the price list. The 1971 Sheaffer Service Price List only lists four, further supporting that number. This is a mystery as yet unsolved. Each of the four confirmed finishes is described in detail below.

It appears this version of the Lady Sheaffer with the S clip and Stylist nib unit was only offered for one year, from the fall of 1967 to the fall of 1968. There is a brief period where 'S' logo clip pens were offered with short conical nib units, replacing the Stylist nib unit, probably late 1968 into early 1969. Lady Sheaffer models with long clips with White Dots at the top and with short conical nibs begin appearing in the fall of 1968 and can be seen through the fall of 1969. One of the first of these new long clip White Dot Lady Sheaffers was the model 902 with a "scalloped" finish. The Lady Sheaffer XI Black and Gold Tulle can be seen in ads 1968 shown both ways, with the ‘S’ logo or the White Dot long clip showing that at least some of these were changed to conical nibs. It’s not clear if this happened on all four models or for how long. It could be simply by Sheaffer using up stock to clear it out.

• Brass cap and barrel with different finishes per model, each described below
• Black plastic nib section with one of three arrow designs on the top, a 'V' shape (appears in Sheaffer photos and probably the "correct" nib unit), a triangle, or an arrowhead
• Gold plated clip with white filled Sheaffer ‘S’ logo stamped near the top
• Cartridge filler with optional converter
• Pull off cap
• Hooded gold nib
• Available with fine, medium, or broad nibs
• About 5 7/16 inches long capped and 6 inches posted
• Unfortunately I was unable to find the US retail prices for these pens
• Packaged in clamshell box with Lady Sheaffer logo

Model numbers and pattern names:

Lady Sheaffer IV Black and Gold Paisley: As on the earlier, clipless Lady Sheaffer IV Paisley fountain pen c. 1958–66, the pattern is named for paisley, a woolen fabric woven with a pattern of colorful and minutely detailed figures, rendered as a dense, repeating etched gold wave pattern on a Jet enamel finish.

Lady Sheaffer X Ivory and Gold Tulle: This pattern is very similar to the Lady Sheaffer X Tulle fountain pen c. 1958–66. The pattern is named for tulle, a thin, fine net named for Tulle, France, where the fabric was first made. The pen has an etched gold net-like pattern on an Ivory enamel finish.

Lady Sheaffer XI Black and Gold Tulle: The pattern is very similar to the Lady Sheaffer XI Tulle c. 1958–66 with an engraved gold net pattern on a Jet enamel finish.

Lady Sheaffer XIV Red and Gold Tulle: The pattern is very similar to the Lady Sheaffer XIV Tulle c. 1958–66 with an engraved gold net pattern on a Mandarin Red enamel finish.

Performance

Since the pens shown in this article were on loan to be photographed for a Pennant article, I was not able to try any of them out. I can say if you've ever written with a Sheaffer Stylist fountain pen, then that would give you a feeling for how these pens would write. It’s the same size and nib type.

Taking out a Stylist I have, I tried it out. The two-way nib is very firm and writes an even smooth line with a slightly pencil-like feel on paper, medium one way and fine inverted.

Lady Sheaffer Lady Sheaffer XIV Red and Gold Tulle fountain pen with later palladium silver short conical nib, c. 1968

Like the earlier Lady Sheaffer pens, the engraved surfaces of these pens are very tactile, but likewise many suffer from less than perfect execution of the finish, and they can show chipped paint or plating loss. Examples that initially look very clean may on close inspection show sloppy plating and color fill or tiny bubbles in the paint. As with the earlier Lady Sheaffer pens, these were not made with high precision given the premium price at the time.

The clips are robust and secure, an improvement if you want a pocket pen with these finishes. The finishes are derivative of the earlier Lady Sheaffers, so if you like that, it’s a bonus.

If I wanted to use one, I’d probably opt for using Sheaffer Skrip cartridges rather than the “Skrip” plunger converter. That converter was not very reliable and is more a collector’s item than useful.

Since they were probably made only one year, this line of ‘S’ logo clip Lady Sheaffers are quite uncommon, but like the earlier clipless Lady Sheaffers, do not command high prices. There are only a small number of collectors that focus on these pens. Even with only four pens to acquire, a complete collection of this line will be a challenge, with the ballpoint pens being even more difficult to find.

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Acknowledgement

Thanks to Gary Ellison for providing pens to photograph and much of the known information on these pens. His website sheaffertarga.com is an essential resource for Sheaffer collectors.

Reference Article on PenHero.com:

Lady Sheaffer 1958–1964: A Gallery, by Jim Mamoulides, January 23, 2023

Reference Article in the fall 2022 Pennant:

"Late Production Lady Sheaffer Pens c. 1967-1989" by Gary Ellison, Pennant, the magazine of the Pen Collectors of America, fall 2022

References

Advertisement, Aldershot News, Aldershot, Hampshire, England, June 14, 1968, page 5

Advertisement, Daily Mirror, London, London, England, December 1, 1967, page 7

Advertisement, Daily Mirror, London, London, England, December 5, 1967, page 4

Advertisement, Daily Mirror, London, London, England, December 12, 1967, page 7

Advertisement, Daily News, New York, New York, May 22, 1966, page 1404

Advertisement, Lothian Courier, Bathgate, Lothian, Scotland, December 1, 1967, page 40

Advertisement, The Daily Telegraph, London, Greater London, England, November 8, 1968, page 58

Advertisement, The Daily Telegraph, London, Greater London, England, November 22, 1968, page 31

Advertisement, The Daily Telegraph, London, Greater London, England, December 6, 1968, page 70

Advertisement, Evening Telegraph, Derby, Derbyshire, England, December 7, 1967, page 7

Advertisement, Evening Telegraph, Derby, Derbyshire, England, June 7, 1968, page 1

Advertisement, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii, December 18, 1968, page 27

Advertisement, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Honolulu, Hawaii, December 18, 1968, page 25

Advertisement, The Duluth News Tribune, Duluth, Minnesota, May 15, 1966, page 59

Advertisement, The Minneapolis Star, Minneapolis, Minnesota, February 8, 1966, page 19

“Sheaffer Becomes A Textron Company” Sheaffer Review, March, 1966, W. A. Sheaffer Pen Company, Fort Madison, Iowa, page 1

Sheaffer brochure, undated, England, 1967

Sheaffer catalog, January 1963

Sheaffer catalog, May 1966

Sheaffer catalog, undated, August 1967

Sheaffer price list, England, July, 1967

Sheaffer Service Price List 1971, England