Sheaffer ---> At Cross

[npt3]

http://www.providencejournal.com/business/content/20140821-a.t.-cross-picks-up-sheaffer-pen-unit-from-bic.ece

 

[inkstainedruth]

Huh. Interesting story -- thanks for posting the link. I don't have any Cross pens and only a few Sheaffers -- but a friend of mine (who may or may not be on FPN) has starting collecting vintage Sheaffers.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Ernst Bitterman]

I'm confused.

 

Isn't A.T. Cross the part of the company that divested of its pen-making wing (which went out into the world under the guise of Cross Accessories)? If so, doesn't this mean that A.T. Cross will be in competition with... Cross pens?

 

I'l be very happy if someone tells me I'm entirely wrong.

[blINK]

I'm confused.

 

Isn't A.T. Cross the part of the company that divested of its pen-making wing (which went out into the world under the guise of Cross Accessories)? If so, doesn't this mean that A.T. Cross will be in competition with... Cross pens?

 

I'l be very happy if someone tells me I'm entirely wrong.

I need to brush up on my research but I believe Cross did spin off the accessory business under the name Costa. Like sunglasses and all of that. But I also think that the writing instrument division was kept separate by the (venture?) capital group that originally purchased the company (Clarion). I think both divisions are under the Cross umbrella but operate separately from a financial standpoint. Clarion announced today that they bought the Sheaffer unit from Bic. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Will they continue to produce Sheaffer pens or will ithe brand be absorbed under the cross umbrella? Who knows. I would think that a sizeable portion of the money paid was for the Sheaffer name and brand tradition. I can't imagine too much proprietary or intellectual capital being involved in pens and pencils at this point.

 

Again, this is from an admittedly foggy memory so please forgive me if I am completely wrong.

Edited August 21, 2014 by blINK

[pajaro]

I can't wait for the Cross Prelude.

[kpyeoman]

Interesting. I'm curious to see what Cross will do here. I'm really hoping that the language of Sheaffer being "folded into" Cross is that of the reporter, and not the intent of Cross. To me, that would indicate that Sheaffer would be pretty much discontinued? That would be really, really sh*tty news...

 

Perhaps Sheaffer will move higher end....kind of like the Buick vs. Chevrolet/Chrysler vs. Dodge model? More pens along the lines of the Legacy Heritage and the Valor replacement?

 

Or will it be business as usual like Waterman and Parker being separate entities, sharing few aspects except common ownership?

 

Why is this conversation only taking place in the Sheaffer forum? Shouldn't this merit a broader discussion/announcement under "First Stop?"

[Florida Blue]

So A.T. Cross now owns Sheaffer. A very interesting development.

 

I will be quite interested to see what Cross does with Sheaffer since most pen enthusiasts seemed largely disappointed as to what Bic did to Sheaffer (and probably rightly so).

[Batman]

Well Clarion is a private equity firm which is very different from Bic which is a stationary conglomerate. I highly doubt anything good will come out of this acquisition. They will probably continue milking the low end pens that have been successful like the 100 and 300. The future of the inlaid nib seems to be in jeopardy from my point of view. I really hope I'm wrong.

[perth]

Well, as long as those Bic ballpoint heretics don't get their nasty hands on the Sheaffer brand anymore...

 

I've never used or tried a Cross fountain pen before, but I'm quite interested in how they'll handle the brand.

[Xand3]

So A.T. Cross now owns Sheafer. A very interesting development.

 

I will be quite interested to see what Cross does with Sheaffer since most pen enthusiasts seemed largely disappointed as to what Bic did to Sheaffer (and probably rightly so).

Im actually pretty worried for the future of Sheaffer. Cross cuts corners to the extent that It can hardly produce a quality pen for its own namesake, Cross. Where that will leave Sheaffer, I have no idea. But at least they made pens of reasonable quality under BIC.

 

I would never buy a modern Cross. I will likely now never buy (another) modern Sheaffer. I just dont trust AT Cross. RIP Sheaffer...

[Jerry Adair]

How can you say that "Cross doesn't make a quality pen? What makes a quality pen? I lived in Providence for 13 years and actually got on the floor in Lincoln. I am a manufacturing/sales/engineering guy with some 6 sigma credentials and their processes were excellent. Please enlighten me as to why, specifically, they make/made a less than satisfactory pen. BTW Frank Dubiel before he passed had spent a lot of time both on the floor and in the Cross archives and was preparing to write a piece on Cross with thier permission.

Jerry

[RMN]

Jerry, there are some people who begrudge Cross' decision to move production to China.

 

 

D.ick

[Jerry Adair]

Dick

I agree with that but to say that thie quality suffers without giving me specific issues is just not reasonable. All I ask is to point out specifics, finish, fit, design, condition.

BTW I spent a great deal of time in your country in the city of Venray. Xerox had a plant there and we were a major supplier of motors for their machines. They were sistered with Welwyn Garden City in the UK. Probably visited more than 10 time beautiful country and delightful people and great restaurants. I recall going to Schiphol to fly to Copenhagen and we went under a bridge and rather than a car passing overhead it was a small sailboat. That was a first for me.

Jerry

[Xand3]

I firmly believe that no self respecting pen company would ever manufacture and sell a product as poorly made or designed as the Cross Aventura or Dubai.

 

Maybe it's not fair to judge a brand by it's lowest end offerings, but on the other hand I find Sheaffer, Pelikan, Lamy, Platinum, Sailor, Faber Castell, etc all manage to put out cheap offerings (oftentimes made in China, I have no problem with this) without compromising the integrity or image of the brand. Yet at this price point, modern Cross just produces junk.

 

Their higher end pens as well just seem, from my perspective at least, absolutely bland, soulless, and overpriced. More expensive and durable iterations of the Aventura and Dubai in my eyes. I understand that this may just be one persons opinion though, so make of it what you will.

[KBeezie]

Doesn't matter to me anyways seeing as I don't bother with a Sheaffer that's not vintage anyways (their modern offerings just don't appeal to me compared to what I can get from their competitors). But it doesn't really surprise me if they're just being passed around, eventually the name won't mean much in the modern sense.

[blINK]

eventually the name won't mean much in the modern sense.

 

A sad but excellent observation. This reminds me of the Thom McAn shoe company. At one time the largest and most successful shoe retailer in the US. Then styles shifted away from dress shoes to sneakers and casual footware and slowly they closed their stores and went out of business. The Melville Corporation ended up selling the name off. Now KMart sells awful plastic shoes with the Thom McAn name on them. Really sad to see. Hopefully The capital firm that owns Cross will have more respect for the Scheaffer brand.

[Ernst Bitterman]

I've always thought that Sheaffer was getting a much better handling from Bic than Waterman and Parker have got from Newell-Rubbermaid, precisely because Bic is in (broadly speaking) the same business as Sheaffer; stuff for writing. N-R appears to be more in the line of "stuff for selling", with less sense of the difference in marketing pens versus storage bins or disposable flashlights. My hope is that the version of Cross that now has its hands on Sheaffer is the one that focuses on writing, because then there's some hope that Sheaffer can keep doing what it's doing now. The current offering are, so much as I've had contact with them, at least reasonably good.

 

The Aventura is a bit of a dog, but I don't think it's something Cross should be pilloried over (we may look back at the durability of the Parker 21, the sensible filler of the Pelikan Level or the stunning beauty of the Sheaffer Stylist; everyone makes mistakes). The worry is that the new owners won't have their priorities on straight; I haven't touched a Cross pen above the Aventura since the splitting of the brand, so I don't have a sense of how the current management is balancing "make good pens to maintain brand reputation" and "shake money out of people on the basis of brand reputation."

 

However, if the Cross that bought Sheaffer is not the Cross that stuck with pens (which a comparison of the above-linked article and this one seems to indicate)... well, that's probably trouble however one looks at it. Regret at losing the pen wing? Misapprehension of the global appetite for sun-glasses? It suggests a little bit of flailing in the boardroom, and it was flailing in the boardroom at Waterman in the 1940s that did for that company's original manifestation.

 

Troubling news, overall. Exciting in unwelcome ways.

[Florida Blue]

 

The Aventura is a bit of a dog, but I don't think it's something Cross should be pilloried over

 

I agree. The Aventura and it's siblings, the Bailey and Dubai, are not the same as Cross' standard offerings. You will notice that they are only available at Staples and not on Cross' website or at dedicated pen retailers. They are cheap, economy models produced for Staples only. That being said, they serve a purpose as an entry level pen for a person who has little or no experience with pens. They are pens that are easily accessible, that someone can touch and see in person in a world where most pens are bought online because so few B&M pen shops exist.

 

I own three Chinese-made Cross fountain pens: an Apogee, a Suavage and a Townsend and they are all great pens that I bought new for excellent prices. For a gold-nibbed pen, Cross fountain pens are actually quite affordable compared to modern Sheaffer, Parker, Pelikan, Waterman etc. I paid only $82 for my Apogee on closeout and $136 for my Sauvage on sale, both from authorized dealers. I bought a Cross ATX for a good friend in medical school who saw it at Paradise Pen and feel in love with it. So Cross is capable of making a good pen. The new Peerless looks quite good and I suspect the new nibs are being made by Sailor in Japan as they have a "Zoom" nib option for the Peerless.

 

I am cautiously optimistic and I hope that Cross can breath some new life into both Sheaffer and their own brand of pens.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Florida Blue

[frenchguy86]

Dick

I agree with that but to say that thie quality suffers without giving me specific issues is just not reasonable.

 

As a not user of Cross product(even if I tried many times to find one that would work for me), sometimes it's not the quality the problem but the offering.

The lower tier gets bad review so I will never buy any of them.

And in the higher tier there's simply to much of a gap in price within the series for me to understand the placement of the product in itself: having the Apogee, Century II, Townsend offered in steel, 23k GP, 18k, dual tone and 18k over a very wide price range within the collection makes me not understand the product placement in itself. What's their flagship if every collection as 100$ to 400$ pen inside them? excluding the precious metal 700$ pens in the Townsend range...

 

Sorry for being so judgmental and I recognize I might be mistaken in my understanding of their products, but having Sonnet-like offering in all of the collections is a big turn off for me...

 

ps: sorry if what I wrote was hard to understand, English isn't my first language.

Edited August 22, 2014 by frenchguy86

[Jerry Adair]

Soemtimes I think it's not my first either. My point was that every company has and will continue to make cars, boats, clothes that are not up to past standards. Cross is a company that has probably tried to be something for everyone a noble task but unattainable. I use a Cross every day an 18kt gold filled roller ball of the old design. It has served m for more than 20 years without fault. And as a former Rhode Islander I feel the need to defend the state and its manufacturing base.

Don't be sorry I understand. I lived in Paris for 5 years on and off and your English is excellent compared to my French

Jerry