Vintage Sheaffer Balance Fountain Pen

Reading other blogs, such as Brassing Adds Character has opened up a new aspect of fountain pen collecting for me recently that I had not anticipated. Every time in the past, that I have looked at old fountain pens in glass display cases at second hand stores, I have been disappointed by what I saw. They are always a sorry piece of tattered junk. So, I was much intrigued when I read Rroossinck's review of the "vintage Sheaffer Balance" in his "Best of Class under $80" post.

I followed his links to vintage pen dealers and discovered to my disappointment that they were out of my price range. Next, I reluctantly followed his advice to check Ebay. I say "reluctantly" because I have never much cared for Ebay. I fear I may now be hooked. I lost the bidding for my first choice (the pen above on the green felt) because the automated snipe tool failed to work. I was watching the bidding online seeing no one outbid what I knew was my maximum bid when suddenly the bid closed and someone else won the bid with an offer slightly below my maximum bid. Oh, the agony of defeat! The sniping software service was itself sniped by constipated internet activity and could not submit my bid. So, as a wiser bidder, (Thank you to Jacqui for teaching me the ways of Ebay) I went to my second choice pen and followed the bidding without the use of the snipe tool. The result being that I won the bid on the vintage Sheaffer Senior Balance 14ct gold nib pen pictured next. The picture is not as clear as the first one above but the description indicated the pen was hardly used. We'll know for sure when it arrives in the mail and I will report on whether or not it was a good buy after all.