Sheaffer Dry-Proof Desk Base with Pen
1940-45
About This Model
Sheaffer marketed desk bases from almost their earliest years. Like others, their bases were made of either onyx or blackened glass, and were either plain and sober or highly decorative with sculptured additions.
About This Pen
The Sheaffer desk bases were marketed for executives’ prestige offices and for home gifts, and their tagline was “Dry Proof”, for the pen’s secure fit in the trumpet. For Sheaffer, the celluloid era brought bases in black glass or onyx with black trumpets that matched their black Radite (celluloid) Lifetime pens. This Dry-Proof is model A-148: from the early 1940s, it is 3.5″ across and .5″ high, in what is called Pedrara Onyx, mined in the Baja peninsula of Mexico until the late 1950s. The trumpet is screwed into a brushed steel foundation in a modernistic shape. A small “Sheaffer” label sits on the rear left edge to remind one that it is the correct brand. The brand label is complete and present underneath, on the original felt.The pen writes a full, smooth and wet medium, which makes sense for an executive’s emphatic signature of approval!
Price:
$125 $100