Sheaffer launched the Snorkel in 1952 to win back people who'd switched to ballpoints. Unscrew the blind cap and a thin tube slides out from under the nib, so only the tube goes into the bottle and there's no nib to wipe afterward. Richard Binder calls it the most complex filling system ever fitted to a fountain pen, and it's a sturdy one. It ran until 1959, when the bigger PFM took the filler over. Under the tube sits an older Sheaffer idea, the Touchdown filler of 1949, and once you understand that, the rest of the pen makes sense.
How the Touchdown filler works
Sheaffer introduced the Touchdown in 1949, slimmed it into the Touchdown TM in 1950, and replaced it with the Snorkel in 1952. The rubber sac sits inside a close-fitting metal tube that protects it. A second metal tube, the Touchdown tube, slides in the barrel on an airtight seal and is fixed to the blind cap. Pull the blind cap out and a partial vacuum builds until a small hole in the tube slides past the seal and lets air in. Push it back down and that air is trapped and compressed, which squeezes the sac flat. Near the end of the stroke a dimpled groove passes the seal, the pressure lets go, and the sac springs back and draws ink in. Binder sums it up as a sac filler with the single-stroke action of a plunger filler.
Binder's steps for filling a Touchdown go like this.
- Unscrew the blind cap.
- Hold the pen over a sink or a rag and pull the blind cap out to extend the Touchdown tube. Keep every part of the pen out of the ink while you do this.
- Dip the nib and part of the section into the ink.
- Press the blind cap down smoothly until the tube is home.
- Wait 10 seconds, lift the pen out and screw the blind cap back down.
What the Snorkel adds
The Snorkel uses the same pump. Unscrewing the blind cap also releases a small tube from inside the feed, just beneath the nib, and only the tip of that tube goes into the ink. A secondary feed runs the length of the tube, and slits at its end line up with the feed so ink reaches the nib. Binder suggests pushing the blind cap gently toward the barrel while you unscrew it, so a sticky tube extends fully, and turning it until you feel a soft click. Screwing the blind cap back down retracts the tube. Leave the ink on the outside of the tube, because it helps restart the flow to the nib.
Touchdowns and Snorkels look almost identical from outside. A Touchdown has no tube under the nib. It also has a clear Visulated band in the section near the thread ring, knurling pressed into the blind cap, and a slightly shorter barrel. The Touchdown Tuckaway, a pocket pen about four inches long capped, only had this filler in 1949, its last year.
The parts that wear
Binder lists four places a Snorkel has to stay airtight. They're the point holder gasket, the O-ring, the threaded joint between barrel and section, and a gasket on the screw that holds the Touchdown tube to the blind cap. If any of them leaks, the pen won't fill properly, and after this many years most Snorkels need a new sac, O-ring and seals.
- The sac. Rubber hardens with age. An ossified sac can stick inside its metal protector, which makes getting the section out hard work.
- The point holder gasket. Binder describes old ones as worn or partly ossified, and a full restoration replaces it.
- The O-ring. It has to be an exact replacement. A standard off-the-shelf O-ring gives a sloppy fit.
- The Snorkel tube. Dried ink can clog it, and clearing it takes care so the fine feed inside isn't damaged.
- Metal inside the barrel. Leaks that went unnoticed can rust the parts inside.
Snorkel model names and nibs
Every Snorkel has the same filler, and the model name tells you the trim and the nib. Sheaffer fitted two kinds of nib. The Triumph point is the conical nib Sheaffer introduced in 1942, wrapped around the feed with an upturned tip. The open nib is a conventional nib on a separate feed. Here's Binder's model table, from the top of the range down.
- Masterpiece: 14K gold cap and barrel (9K gold Barleycorn on the British version), 14K two-tone Triumph point.
- Triumph: gold-filled cap and barrel with vertical lines, 14K two-tone Triumph point.
- Autograph (black only) and Signature: plastic cap and barrel, 14K two-tone Triumph point.
- Crest: plastic barrel, gold-filled cap with vertical lines, 14K two-tone Triumph point. Sheaffer's service manuals call it the Crest Deluxe.
- Sentinel: polished stainless steel cap, 14K two-tone Triumph point.
- Valiant: plastic cap matching the barrel, 14K two-tone Triumph point.
- Clipper: polished stainless steel cap, palladium silver Triumph point.
- Statesman: plastic cap matching the barrel, palladium silver Triumph point.
- Sovereign: stainless steel cap with grouped lines, 14K two-tone open nib.
- Saratoga: plastic cap, 14K two-tone open nib.
- Admiral: plastic cap, 14K open nib.
- Special: plastic cap, palladium silver open nib.
Palladium silver nibs arrived with the Snorkel. A gold-colored Snorkel nib with no karat mark is plated palladium silver. Some nibs, open and Triumph alike, carry an etched grade code of one or two letters and a number, such as M4 or FX5. It's on top of an open nib and underneath a Triumph point. Sheaffer also made flexible, stub, oblique and three-tine music nibs.
Caps, barrels and nibs swap freely between models, so check that the nib matches the name. A silver Triumph point on a pen sold as a Snorkel Crest means a swapped part, and so does a two-tone gold one on a Snorkel Statesman. Two dating tells help too. Snorkel tubes were solid 14K gold for about the first year, and a black section on a colored barrel points to 1952 to 1956, where a section matching the barrel points to 1956 to 1959. The PFM of 1959 kept the Snorkel filler in a bigger body with an inlaid nib, so everything here about seals applies to it as well.
What a restored Snorkel looks like in a listing
A good listing names the parts that were replaced. Look for a new sac, a new point holder gasket and a new O-ring. A pen described only as "serviced" or "tested" tells you much less. Then look for proof that it works.
- The water test. Binder's test is to fill the pen with water, aim it somewhere harmless, pull the Touchdown tube out and push it down quickly. With every seal working, the pen shoots a stream about six feet. A short video of that is the best evidence a seller can give you, and a weak dribble means the seals need work.
- The Snorkel tube. Look for a photo with the blind cap unscrewed and the tube out. It should be straight and should pull fully back under the nib when the cap is screwed down.
- The Touchdown tube. With the blind cap pulled out, the metal tube should be clean, with no rust or crusted ink from old leaks.
- The nib. The nib type and color should match the model name in the list above.
What to ask the seller
- Which parts were replaced, and was the O-ring a proper Snorkel replacement?
- Has it been filled with water and squirted, and how far did the stream go?
- Were any joints glued? Binder says shellac belongs only where the design calls for it, and sealing the connector ring to the section and barrel makes the next repair harder.
- Does the tube extend and retract smoothly every time?
An unrestored Snorkel can still be a good buy, and some still fill straight from the box. Read the listing as a pen that will probably need a sac and seals, and see which filling systems fail for how Sheaffer's fillers compare with the others.
