W. A. Sheaffer Pen Company · Fort Madison, Iowa · 1912–present

Vintage Sheaffer fountain pens

Walter A. Sheaffer was a jeweler in Fort Madison, Iowa, when he patented a lever-filling pen in 1908. He turned his workshop into a pen factory in 1912 and incorporated the company the next year. Sheaffer's Lifetime pen arrived in 1920, and from 1924 a small White Dot marked every pen sold with that guarantee. The streamlined Balance of 1929 set the shape other makers copied. Then came the conical Triumph point in 1942, the Touchdown filler in 1949, the Snorkel in 1952 and the PFM with its inlaid nib in 1959. The Targa followed in 1976. The Fort Madison plant closed in 2008, and the brand now belongs to India's William Penn. If you're buying used, the 1950s Snorkels are the easy place to start, since there are so many of them.

How to identify one: A White Dot on the cap, or on the barrel of some metal-capped pens, marks a Lifetime model from 1924 onward. Caps and nibs read SHEAFFER'S, the inlaid nib units dropped the apostrophe after Textron bought the company in 1966, and the nib style dates a pen too, from open nibs to the conical Triumph point of 1942 and the inlaid nib of 1959.

6 pens we cover.