1935 Grey Pearl Sheaffer Balance Feather Touch 5 - bouncy fine point

This pen combines some of my favorite things. Grey Pearl Sheaffer celluloid, a vacuum filler and a Feather Touch 5 nib.

I love a Grey Pearl vacuum filler. Just look at the marbling and transparency. This is my favorite Sheaffer celluloid.  Sheaffer offered this celluloid in lever filling pens but those barrels are opaque. It's the transparency that makes this celluloid truly amazing.

I believe the Sheaffer Feather Touch 5 nib is one of the best nibs ever. Some will argue that they prefer a Waterman 52, a Wahl-Eversharp or perhaps a vintage OMAS. Those are all wonderful flexible nibs. What I love about the Feather Touch 5 is that it is a soft nib rather than a truly flexible nib. It is not meant to be flexed. Yet, it provides subtle, lovely, line variation with normal writing pressure. It's an all-around nib that is suitable for jotting quit, sloppy notes or for writing a carefully controlled passage. I believe that every fountain pen fan must own a Feather Touch 5.

The only flaw with this pen is plating loss to the cap band. I also recommend the cap NEVER be posted on the end of the barrel. I make the same recommendation for all vintage pens. Nearly 90 year old celluloid cap lips are fine when capping their pen. The added stress of posting may cause them to crack and that would be a shame.

Length
Capped - 130 mm (5.125”)
Uncapped - 118 mm (4.6”)
Posted - DO NOT POST THIS CAP
Diameter
Cap - 13.2 mm (0.52”)
Barrel - 11.4 mm (0.45”)

Filler
Vacuum-Fil

Nib
Fine with lovely line variation