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This is a collection of Fountain Pen Articles, Fountain Pen Histories and Fountain Pen Essays that have been published either online or in obscure books or jorunals. Things that I found while doing research on other pen topics and I thought were too good to be lost to obscurity and should be put online where a Google search could unearth them easily for the fountain pen enthusiast and fountain pen researcher.. If you know of an article that should be placed here, please let me know.
Feel free to use this information as you like, but I would appreciate a mention for the Kamakura pens site if you publish an article, or book with information gathered here. Recently, I have seen people publish pen articles exclusively from my archive with out any mention at all and that always breaks my heart.
Any Comments? Please send an e-mail to: rd@kamakurapens.com |
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Found in Time Magazine Monday, Aug. 05, 1935
Pen Man
W. A. Sheaffer Pen Co. boasts the largest dollar sales of any
pen manufacturer in the U. S. When it was founded in a Fort Madison, Iowa
jeweler's shop in 1913, most fountain pens clogged, scratched, leaked
or had to be filled with a medicine dropper. Jeweler Walter A. Sheaffer
patented one of the first important improvements—a lever bar filling
device. With a capital of $35,000 he started manufacturing Sheaffer pens
in the back room of his jewelry shop.
Soon money began to pour into Walter Sheaffer's ink-stained hands. His crowning achievement was an $8.75 Lifetime pen, introduced in 1921. It was the first standard high-priced fountain pen launched on what had always been a low-priced market. Next Walter Sheaffer streamlined his pens. Then in quick succession he introduced the Sheaffer desk set with universal socket (which seals the tip of the pen and keeps it moist), the Feathertouch nib, the special Sheaffer pencil which "propels, repels and expels the lead," the Sheaffer Vacuum-Fil pen. By 1929 the company's gross sales had climbed to $8,000,000 and its profits, averaging more than $1,000,000, were ahead of those of one of its two rivals, Parker Pen Co. (The other, L. E. Waterman Co., has never published a financial statement.)
Depression was hard on the fountain pen business. Sheaffer had a $676,000 deficit in 1933. Common dividends stopped. Business improved the following year and for the fiscal year ending Feb. 28, 1935 the company announced a net profit of $442,000. Last week Sheaffer Pen celebrated Walter Sheaffer's 68th birthday by moving up from the New York Curb Exchange to the New York Stock Exchange, listing 162,355 shares of common stock on which the dividend ($1) was resumed last March. Said portly, affable President Sheaffer: "Business is satisfactory, very satisfactory."