Jim M could probably help me out with this. I purchased a beautiful modern Legacy from a registered Sheaffer dealer. Unfortunately the nib turned out to be a real gusher, so I sent it back to BIC Canada. The pen was returned with a new nib, nice converter, and a business card from one of their quality control people - indicating they take much pride in their pens. Good so far.

I excitedly ripped open the package and inked it up .... guess what ... same thing. New nib ... same thing. In fact you can even see some space in the tines, and upon looking at the nib and comparing to other Legacy's I've purchased you can actually see the difference in the nib construction.

I'm just disappointed. $200 US plus for a pen that I really enjoy writing with - and expecting the same performance as my other Legacy's. Is that asking too much ? Now I must send the pen back to BIC Canada and hope the same thing does not happen again - this nib was not tested before sending. the nib unit has 'M' on it. Perhaps it was mis marked as a broad.

Please Sheaffer - if you're reading - let's keep up the quality control and customer service that you promise on your business cards. I've enjoyed many of your pens in the past.

thanks for reading Sheaffer.

Dear Bill,

I think your best bet is to call Sheaffer in NA. The number is 1-800 FINE PEN. They are having a lot of transition problems and they need to hear about this.

We have made nib exchanges ourselves for our own customers based on this same issue and have brought this to their attention.

Cheers,

Jim Mamoulides
www.PenHero.com

I sure hope they get these transition problems straightened out. Seems like it's been once big transition problem since 1997 when Bic bought Sheaffer. It has truly been straight downhill since then, to my great regret as a Sheaffer fan.

Not to bemoan the point, but Sheaffer had a great line of pens before Bic took over, but Bic got rid of most of them. They were experts in pen manufacturing, but Bic "outsourced" that and shuttered the factory. And Sheaffer's customer service was exceptional, but Bic choose to close down the repair department. At the same time, the product did a disappearing act.

Recently I was in New York and checked out a few pen shops. The very few Sheaffer models I saw were on the closeout racks. Meanwhile, there were tons of pens from manufacturers I've never heard of. And Sheaffer keeps plugging along with the same models in the same finishes, etc.

I hope Hampton Haddon can turn it around. It's just so annoying!

Dave

Hi,

I fear that this will come out sounding ungenerous and mean-spirited - and it's certainly not intended that way - but I find myself wondering when the goodwill thus far extended by the fountain pen community will begin to erode.

Uninspired product, spotty distribution, customer-service snafus...it's not feeling like a recipe for success. As I've said before, the attention to vintage-pen support is a very positive thing, but it's just one element of the comprehensive strategy that's sorely needed.

There have been posts here hinting at wonderful new Sheaffer models to come. A little targeted information leak might be a sound tactic right about now. The Gift Collection fountain pen looks perfectly nice, but one hopes there's something more in the pipeline. (Funny how a rumored new product with a robust waiting list can mask other issues....)

And I also wonder - if any folks with official Sheaffer connections happen to be looking in - what the current Sheaffer nib-exchange policy might be. Is it as liberal as the one prevailing before the Fort Madison closure?

Cheers,

Jon

well I called the US toll free distributor and gave me the name Carmen Hamilton to contact at Bic World. The first rep, not to her discredit had trouble speaking English. So I'll email Carmen and let her know what's going on. You'd just think they'd get it right the first time around. Thanks Jim and Dave

agree Jon - new models and talk of new models are great - but let's get the present customers satisfied with high end pens that are already in their hands. I don't mind buying new Legacy's and would certainly look at something new but .... you hold your breath. I just wish they inked the pen up and tried it before they sent it out. I'ts about a month turnaround - next time I order it'll be Penhero - I believe Jim tests the pens before he sends them out.

Bill

::raises hand:: Mine is eroding. I've been a Sheaffer fan since I got my first cartridge pen in a Christmas stocking when I was nine years old. I have an Agio, three Preludes, five Fashion models, a TRZ and a lot of those handy cartridge pens that you can't kill. But when I buy a pen these days, it's ::shudder:: a Chinese brand like Kaigelu or Picasso.

Why? Because they're good writers. The -$50 Picasso writes more smoothly than any of my Preludes. The same with the Kaigelus even though I know the workmanship is inferior to the classic Sheaffers.

My point is this: I would buy Sheaffer, but there is nothing they're offering that sparks my imagination, so I'm playing elsewhere. Yes, I've gotten a few duds from Hero and Hanaloi (or whatever that's called). But when I have to go to Chinese pens in order to find something new and exciting... Sheaffer, are you listening?

When I read here that $200 Sheaffer pens have nib problems, why should I look at the upscale Sheaffers?

Then again, maybe BIC just wants the company dead. When Sheaffer wants to phase out steel nibs because making them wears out the tooling machines (as was mentioned on another thread here) and put gold nibs on every pen... gold is not necessarily better. It's just more expensive.

And Sheaffer is now made in China, is it not?

All of this begs the question, "Sheaffer, please give me a reason to stay loyal after all these years. Because I'm just not seeing it. And I WANT to see it."

Hi,

I completely understand your feelings. As I know I've said elsewhere, I don't see an awful lot that's inspiring in the current Sheaffer lineup.

I should clarify, though, my statements about steel nibs wearing out tooling. That issue arose strictly in connection with the rumored revival of the Targa, in response to a question about the likelihood of the new pen being offered with steel nibs as well as gold ones. I'm sure Sheaffer means to continue to offer steel nibs as well as gold ones.

I was disappointed to hear that a steel-nibbed Targa was unlikely, and I'm even more disappointed, now, to hear that the new Targa may not materialize at all. Whether the next great Sheaffer is a revived classic or an entirely new design, we badly need there to be a next great Sheaffer. (Heck, I think I'd settle for a new Cartridge Pen...!)

Cheers,

Jon

Jon, I'd settle for some cartridge pens, too, as well as little things like ballpoint refills in broad, more than two colors of rollerball refills, gel pens, some neat popular priced products -- instead of the warmed-over, cheapened-down retreads that have been coming out of Sheaffer for the past few years.

There are so many opportunities Sheaffer is missing out on. Certainly it's practically a ghost brand in the USA. And I remember when it was very well-known.

Dave

Hi Dave,

You know, it's strange. Sheaffer now exists only as a "brand" as opposed to a company: a truly depressing thought, but there it is. Since there is no Sheaffer factory, one might reasonably say that every "Sheaffer" product is an assemblage of parts from various sources. Take the Valor as an example: German design, Italian resin, and a nib from Iowa (until recently, that is).

The thing is: existing as a phantom brand that is affixed to pens made by other companies can create opportunities as well as challenges. So how is it that Sheaffer seems not to able to make a virtue of this necessity?

Case in point: Conklin. Today's Conklin brand has no direct connection whatsoever to its predecessor. If its owners had felt like "reviving" some other make, the new Conklin could as easily have been the new Carter or the new Chilton.

Yet Conklin is able to market a pen like the Mark Twain Crescent Filler, which alludes quite successfully to the iconic original without being a slavish copy. Or a pen like the Nozac LE, which incorporates such historically warranted features as a Word Gauge and a vacuum filling system. The smart money says that the former is produced by Stipula, and it's no secret that the latter was manufactured by Visconti. Neither pen is simply a rebrand of an existing model, however; each is distinctly different from other Stipula and Visconti offerings.

Well...why can't Sheaffer hook up with such a partner? If you're already sourcing barrels and caps from Italy, why not go further? The name "Sheaffer" is synonymous with "lever filler." Delta, last I heard, makes a few of those. Why not engage that company to help produce a new oversized Sheaffer lever-filler that updates the design of the great flattops? That Visconti vacuum filler is awfully close to the 1930s Sheaffer system; how about asking that fine maker to help produce a modern remake of the striated vac-fil Balance? (Put in my order for an aqua blue - I can't believe that color never got past the prototype stage.)

It's simple, really. Sheaffer: you are no longer a pen maker. Sad, yes. But that status gives you license to seek out pen manufacturers and enlist their help to produce wonderful pens that meaningfully evoke your history.

As it is, we've got the worst of both worlds: a rootless "brand" sourcing its products worldwide...but saddled with a parochially narrow product line. I would happily buy a new "Sheaffer" vac-filler, knowing full well that it was made by some other company, if its design and performance honored Sheaffer tradition.

Oh well...random musings, that's all.

Cheers,

Jon

Interesting in the abstract, but I am not sure it is possible or practical in the current situation or economy.

I don't think the BIC organization has any fountain pen men around that are the equivalent of what was in the States in the 1900s.

If a nobody company like Conklin can do it, then Sheaffer/Bic ought to be able to. The Bic people must think there is more money to be made the way they're doing it, and that's about all they probably care about.

Dave

Consider........

(1) Modern Conklin is a contract shop. They look around for who can build a project to their spec and write it up.

(2) BIC is a multinational with a great number of inhouse manufacturing assets. They can do it in house for a better margin than contracting it.

(3) BIC purchased an asset. Turns out is was only the Sheaffer brand. The question of whether they can do anything with it is still open. Presently there is nothing in the current line that I find attractive, but they have some time left.

Hi,

I agree with your comments, for the most part. I'm not sure, though, how to reconcile the notion of BIC's reluctance to contract pen production with the often-repeated rumor - seemingly from well-informed sources - that the Valor barrels and caps are produced under contract by Aurora.

The implicit assumption in my ramblings was that someone at BIC might have some interest in producing a Sheaffer that is {a} significantly different from current offerings, {b} meaningfully connected to Sheaffer history, and {c} sufficiently newsworthy to generate renewed enthusiasm in the fountain pen community. To say that such an assumption is unwarranted, on the basis of BIC's conduct to date, would be an exercise in understatement.

Cheers,

Jon

Missed the information on the outsourceing the holder to Aurora. IMHO, that, the penholder, is the least important part of a fountain pen. But that is another story.

Have no handle on where BIC is going with the Sheaffer brand. All I have heard so far is sales talk and rather disappointing product. They still have time and it will be interesting to see where it goes.

BIC is a big organization run by "professional management." Generally these people care not a whit about history, fountain pens or anything past the "quarterly bottom line." Like many of the old fellows have said about what killed the American automobile industry. They fired all the car people and hired professional managers. My favorite was Ford where the cars were designed by accountants. I think the fellow who ran GM for a while (or in to the ground if you prefer) was an accountant.

I am following the Sheaffer brand with intense interest but my wallet is closed. YMMV.

Well I raised hell with Bic Canada about my nib exchange (twice) if you recall - got a hold of the right people in Toronto and they kindly sent my an apology and two new nibs to try - a fine silver, and medium gold for my Legacy. They were extremely appologetic - Steve Singh and Carmen Hamilton are the people to get a hold of. They had that pen back to me in 2 weeks. Even though the pen is silver, I'm taking the medium gold nib. So they understood the problem and admitted "it was not properly adjusted at the final stage of nib production" - so horray - I have something to write with. I'm not giving up on Sheaffer - but if your not happy with your Sheaffer and if new I have the Canadian address in Toronto. Thanks to Pen Hero for helping me on this one.