It is good that Sheaffer Snorkels came in colors. I find just having the choice of a pen in one hue to be rather boringly monochromatic. In the wacky world of collecting there are always some items that stand out in rarity due to such things as size, material, pattern and other differentiating characteristics. With Snorkels color is an important variable (along with nib type and build material) in determining value.
There are two separate periods when Sheaffer messed with color choices for these pens. The early pocket pens were made in what I’ll call (not that it’s unique to me) the “pastel” colors. These were Black, Pastel Blue, Pastel Green, Burgundy, and Pastel Grey. All pleasant colors but as 1956 dawned the U.S. was awash with fancy named choices for the finishes on the cars, appliances, and furniture people wanted. When a Cadillac could be had in bahama blue why not your pen? It was with thinking like that a new range of crazy colors was added to the Snorkel lineup: Fiesta Red, Vermilion, Mandarin Orange, Sage Green, Fern Green, Peacock Blue, Periwinkle Blue, and Buckskin Tan.
I’ve got most of the colors above and keep my eyes peeled for when rarer examples like Mandarin Orange appear. Another one that’s hard to get one’s hands on is Peacock Blue. The problem is that pictures of blue Snorkels tend be hard to interpret as pastel blue and peacock blue could look alike depending on exposure, lighting, camera quality, etc. I’ve seen many a pen for sale that looked “Peacocky” and just turned out to be over exposed. In order to help the two or maybe even three people who care about this I will provide the number of a good therapist. Actually, I’ll just show a photo I took of two side by side so you can see the difference. It probably won’t help too much but you never know.
