Nabbed a rare Sheaffer Skyboy, a few lovely pencils, and bought a few pens from friends.

This month’s acquisitions include a mini Sheaffer flat-top, a Wearever flexy-nibbed pen in what can best be called ‘tiger stripe,’ purchased form a friend on FPN on Facebook. Locally, I found a trio of lovely mechanical pencils, and a really lovely and rather rare Sheaffer Skyboy.

Right: Mismatched Sheaffer pen & pencil set (pen is the Skyboy), a grey & cherry Majestic, a rose & black candy-stripe no-name, and a green marble Wearever. ON the left, is the fully restored Skyboy. Click the image to see it bigger!

The pencils are lovely; the pinkish one has a red lead, which is quite unusual, and all three (four counting the mismatched striated Sheaffer) are in beautiful condition, with really gorgeous colors. I don’t know how the Sheaffers ended up as a set; not only is one the Skyboy and the other is marked Sheaffer’s on the clip, but the pen is white-dot and the pencil is not. But both are lovely pieces, so I’m glad to have them!

The Skyboy is a bit special, however. Introduced in 1940, the Skyboy was marketed as specifically designed to perform under the harsh conditions of air travel, hence the name. History doesn’t say much about that ability, but it ws a nicely made pen, comparable with the higher range pens of the time. It’s a white dot pen, with a pretty good-sized Lifetime 14K nib, and not suprisingly for a Sheaffer, writes beautifully.

What makes these unusual is that the very next year, Sheaffer changed the Skyboy line from the firm ‘radius’ clip to the military over-the-top clip, meaning this particular model was made for only one year!

Look for all of these pens, a few Asian pens I decided to take a chance on, plus a new page just for pencils coming up soon. Also appearing in my next major update: a new Skyline just off the repair pile, a Wearver 2-in-one pencil/pen hybrid, also just restored, and some creative parts-swapping in the name of repairing the Arnold. And for some reason, I never got round to photographing, or even inking up my Visconti Renbrandt Callligraphy, so look for that one too!

And I have discovered an entirely new line of inks: Callifolio from l’Artisan Pastellier, and of course I had to grab a few. Trust me that the moment they arrive they will be opened and tested, with swabs appearing here soon after!