Sheaffer Hunting Dog

I do not collect desk sets, though I have stumbled into a few from time to time. Previous restorations and articles over the last five years are as follows ~

Rube Goldberg Ink Delivery Machine – December 21, 2007

Fishing For A Desk Base – January 19, 2008

Gold Bond Stonite Desk Pen – December 17, 2008

Atlas Appliance Desk Pen  –  March 10, 2010

As you can see, the last time I restored one of note was almost two years ago.  For some reason (my guess is storage requirements) these are often overlooked in fountain pen collecting.  This one was found on a table at an antique mall for a pittance.   I had read about Sheaffer desk bases, which often featured animals, over the past few years and decided to bring this one home.  Unfortunately, no pen was available – probably snatched many years earlier by someone only interested in pens.  Imagine that…..more on a matching pen for this base later.

Anyway, there was little to do on this one, other than polishing the gold and cleaning the marbled base.  I left the dog alone, as the aging befits him(or her).  All that remained was to find out when this was manufactured and what type of pen would be a match.

Fortunately, I did not have to look very far.  Just recently I discovered two threads  by Roger Wooten – Sheaffer Desk Set Expert – at the Fountain Pen Board and at Fountain Pen Network that discuss various Dog bases.  These place this Hunting Dog base in the area of 1930.  Mention is made that these smaller bases do not often appear in Sheaffer Catalogs, but occasionally in advertisements.

As for a matching pen, it appears from the writing that a Sheaffer Lever Filling Desk pen from the same time period would be appropriate.  Several photos of these pens accompany the Fountain Pen Network thread.  I will now have to keep an eye open for a nice one (black)  to restore.

For much more information on these Sheaffer Sets, I would encourage you to check out this site.

Keep an eye out for these bases.  They often show up more than the pens!

The Ink Is The Thing

I like to use vintage inks in my vintage pens. I have a decent supply to vintage Skrip, Quink, and Carters Inks.  Some vintage bottles were photographed and discussed in these previous articles ~

Ink Spots –  January 23, 2008

The Story Your Ink Bottle Tells – November 3, 2010

Whenever I get the opportunity to pick up some full bottles of vintage inks, I jump at the opportunity.  Just such an opportunity arose last week and I snapped up these two bottles of vintage Waterman’s Ink.

It is not all that unusual to find vintage ink bottles, but to find previously unopened ones is more difficult.  I have seen advertisements for these inks in the 1940s and they are the famous Waterman “tip-fill bottles” that can be tilted to the side by themselves when filling to get deeper into the bottle as it reduces.  The same shape is used today by Waterman.

Below is a Waterman Timeline of Tip-Fill bottles that includes a current Florida Blue bottle on the far right ~

Other colors besides these two that were produced in the US were Permanent Blue Black, Permanent Black, Aztec Brown, Tropic Green, South Seas Blue, and Carnation Red.

If your hunts in the wild for Fountain Pens come up dry, keep an eye out for bottles.  They are hidden gems…