The Eversharp Skyline

The Best in Streamlined Industrial Design: In 1941, the Wahl-Eversharp company introduced a new fountain pen called the Skyline. Strikingly modern in appearance, the Skyline was designed by Henry Dreyfuss (U.S. Patent Nº D132,663 for the body and Nº D132,664 for the clip), who also streamlined the steam locomotives of the New York Central Railroad’s famed 20th Century Limited. You do not need a very sharp eye to detect a strong resemblance between the locomotive shown here and the Skylines on this page!

Despite its futuristic looks, the Skyline was internally a relatively ordinary pen, although it had a breather tube that supposedly “flightproofed” the pen for the “Air Age.” A Skyline nib

The best feature of the Skyline was the justly renowned Eversharp nib; the company offered Skylines with everything from manifold accounting nibs as rigid as nails to italics with wonderful flex, and collectors today greatly prize Skylines for their writing qualities.

Many pens, the Skyline among them, were offered in a variety of sizes to suit the user’s hand, or sometimes to suit the user’s desired level of status. The Skyline came in three sizes, the Demi (about 4⁷/₈" long), the Standard (about 5¹/₄" long), and the Executive (about 5⁵/₈" long). Sizes varied somewhat; my two Standards are actually 5³/₁₆" and 5⁵/₁₆" long. Today, the Executive is the least common Skyline and is generally much higher in price than the other two models. The Skyline was discontinued in about 1950.

At the beginning of the 1940s, plastics technology underwent a revolution as polystyrene plastics replaced celluloid. Polystyrenes did not need to be machined and finished by hand; they could be molded with excellent quality and uniformity. But Eversharp’s use of those early polystyrenes for the Skyline, advanced though it was, proves to have been disastrous for the pens’ longevity. Eversharp’s early polystyrene is notorious for shrinkage, discoloration, and deterioration; it is not uncommon today to find that a Skyline’s inner cap, molded integrally with the cap derby, has partially crumbled away. (Not all inner caps do this; some of the plastic ones have held up well, and the very earliest Skyliners had inner caps made of hard rubber and screwed into their derbies.)

Another common problem with Skylines is illustrated by the posted pen above; observe that the cap covers about ²/₃ of the lever. The edge of the cap bears on the lever; it frequently wore away the gold surface, and many Skylines show severe brassing in that area.

The Skyline was sold in myriad variations, perhaps not as many as those of the Parker “51”, but certainly enough to give the “51” a good run for its money; and as with the “51”, most Skylines were made with plastic barrels. There were Skylines with plastic caps in plain or striped colors, with autograph bands, narrow bands, or no bands, and Skylines with stainless steel, sterling silver, gold-filled, vermeil, or solid gold caps. There were also Skylines that were entirely gold filled, vermeil, or solid gold. As the years passed, the more interesting plastics (made of celluloid) disappeared; eventually all plastic parts were polystyrene. A gold derby, as shown here, was a common trim enhancement on a plastic or gold-capped pen. The picture above and the ones below illustrate only a small sample of the many Skylines.

Because Eversharp plastics discolored so readily, it is difficult to find a true representative sample of their original appearance. For example, the blue shown in the following color table is very dark, but I have also seen several slightly different shades, and I have a Skyline in a color near to Royal Blue. Was there one blue, or were there two or more? The Modern Stripe (“moiré”) colors seem to have appeared very early in the Skyline’s career; they are celluloid, not polystyrene, and they have held their color much better than the polystyrenes. (Ironically, the Modern Stripe models, made of an older and less fashionable plastic, were considered economy models; the desirable Executive was never made in any of these colors.) The names of the solid colors are taken from 1945 advertisements.

The right column in the table illustrates some (but not all) Skyline cap variations. These caps appeared only with solid-colored barrels; i.e., the Modern Stripe colors had matching caps.


Skyline Body/Barrel Colors		Skyline Cap Patterns
Color	Name	Cap Color	Description

	Blue Modern Stripe		Green/Black Striated Celluloid
	Green Modern Stripe		Green/Blue Striated Celluloid
	Garnet Modern Stripe		Green/Red Striated Celluloid
	Brown Modern Stripe		Grooved Plastic (All six solid colors, Marine Green shown)
	Gray Modern Stripe		Grooved Gold Fill
	Jet Black		Grooved Gold Fill (Longitudinal)
	Navy Blue		Stainless Steel
	Marine Green
	Dubonnet Red
	Army Brown
	Silver Gray

Notes:

Army Brown was the color of the World War II U.S. Army officers’ dress uniform blouse (jacket). Contrast this color with the Army Brown that appeared on the contemporaneous Fifth Avenue; the latter was the color of the uniform trousers worn with the brown blouse; these trousers were commonly called “Pinks” because of the very slight pinkish cast to their color.

The information in this article is as accurate as possible, but you should not take it as absolutely authoritative. If you have additions or corrections to this page, please consider sharing them with us to improve the accuracy of our information.


This illustration shows a Dubonnet Red Demi with a honey-colored striped celluloid cap. The lighter portions of this cap are transparent, with the color on an inner layer.

This illustration shows a Dubonnet Red Demi in colors similar to the one above. The darker stripes on the cap are red. This red/green striped color combination was used with several different barrel colors.

This illustration shows a Jet Black Solid Color Skyline.

This illustration shows a Brown Modern Stripe Skyline with a gold-filled derby (probably made in 1943).

This Gray Modern Stripe Skyline, like all its Modern Stripe siblings, is made of celluloid.

The largest Skyline is the Executive.

The most luxurious Skyline, the Command Performance model, is of solid gold.


This 1945 Eversharp advertisement appeared in Life Magazine and featured pens priced from $75.00 to $5.00. The Skyline pictured was priced at $9.75.


This illustration shows a Dubonnet Red GF Cap Skyline with a gold-filled cap. This cap has grooves running around it. The Presentation model, a much less common variety, has widely spaced lines running the length of the cap.

Profile: The Eversharp Skyline