Sheaffer Repair center

[Ron Z]

I was noodling around through some pictures on my computer and ran across this picture. Richard Binder and I were invited to visit the Sheaffer repair center in the old factory before it closed in Feb. 2008. We got to spend time poking into all kinds of things in the repair center, saw the nib center, and parts of the old factory. Most of it was empty and the power off, but what we saw was really cool. A month later it was closed, with a lot of parts sent to the distributor in Philadelphia, which was the service center for about 6 months. We helped them unpack and sort the stuff that was sent.

The whole experience was cool, and quite the eye opener. It was great to have time to talk to the repair people and fill in blanks in our knowledge about how the pens were made and repaired. WE were repairing the Sheaffer plunger fillers, and one person who had worked there for 28 years had never repaired one. I came away with a Persimmon orange Prelude, and one of the Chased Connaisseurs - picked the pen, picked the nib off of the shelves. We were able to meet the engineers, and I was able to call them with any questions I had until the company was sold to Cross.

This is a picture of Richard and I, sitting in the fountain pen repair station....