Sheaffer Pen Museum, Fort Madison, IA - Oddball Museums on Waymarking.com

The Sheaffer Pen Museum, Fort Madison, IA grand opening was June 17, 2011. It has very interesting displays and information.

Museum Mission Statement:
"The grand opening of the Sheaffer Pen Museum is taking place today and tomorrow, June 17 and 18. The Museum, located in Ft. Madison, Iowa, the home of the original Sheaffer factory, is destined to preserve the archives and memories that are uniquely Sheaffer."
source (visit link)

Days and Hours of Operation: We were there the day of the grand opening and normal hours weren't posted yet. Address: 627 Avenue G Fort Madison Fort Madison, IA Related Website: [Web Link] Price of Admission: 0.00 (listed in local currency) What is in the collection: Pens made by Sheaffer Pen Company going back to 1908. Walter Sheaffer invented the lever action pen filling device. Also on display is the machines to repair pens and conributions that Sheafer made to the war effort in WW II. It is a very interesting museum. Now we live in a world where pens are throw away and people use a keyboard more than a pen. Writing long hand is becoming a lost art. Informatin below is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheaffer "The company was founded by Walter A. Sheaffer, who designed in 1907 and patented in August 1908 a lever-activated pen filling apparatus. In 1912, Sheaffer used his life savings to start the Sheaffer company, which started with seven employees and operated in the back of a Fort Madison, IA jewelry store. On January 1, 1913, the W. A. Sheaffer Pen Company was incorporated with an initial investment of $35,000. In 1922, the company introduced its own line of bottled inks for use with its fountain pens. Called Sheaffer Skrip ink, it was intended to flow more smoothly and blend more easily than other inks. In 1924 Sheaffer produced jade green pens made of a material Sheaffer called Radite. Prior to that time most fountain pens were black hard rubber. The introduction of colored pens proved popular and by 1925 Sheaffer had captured 25 percent of the U.S. pen market. Sheaffer maintained this market share throughout the years of the Great Depression. The Sheaffer White Dot trademark first appeared in 1924 on the Jade Radite and Black Radite flat-top fountain pen. With the end of the Second World War, the U.S. could dismantle its huge and efficient war machine and return to a civilian peacetime economy. Of course, this took a bit of time, and in any case no one was sure exactly how well that economy would do. Consequently, most manufacturers played it somewhat conservatively, and it is therefore no surprise that the Sheaffer pens of the postwar period looked quite a bit like those made before (and in limited numbers during) the war. Changes were, however, on the way. [edit] Postwar innovations In 1948, Sheaffer discontinued the use of Radite (celluloid) in favor of a new synthetic cast resin that they called "Fortical." This meant the end of the quaint stripes and swirls of old-fashioned celluloid, but the new material promised to be more durable and scratch-resistant, and was much less expensive to manufacture. Also, in my view at any rate, the new material worked much better with bright or pastel colors, a characteristic that Sheaffer would exploit in the years that followed. The ever-faithful lever filler, the innovation that put Sheaffer on the map back in 1912, was also on its way out, although it would last into the early 1950s on a few models. The Vac-FIl system was getting a bit long in the tooth, and perhaps Sheaffer was getting too many warranty claims due to leaks and rotted pistons. In 1949, Sheaffer announced a new filling system, the Touchdown, which quickly replaced the Vac-Fil design. The Touchdown was actually a sac pen; the conventional rubber sac was concealed inside a metal capsule with holes strategically punched through its end and around its base; over this assembly was a nickel-plated tube fitted with an O-ring for an airtight seal. When the tube was retracted from the back of the pen and then pushed back in, it created high pressure inside the pen that deflated the sac and forced out any ink remaining inside; then, as the pressure equalized, the sac returned to its normal shape and drew in a load of fresh ink. [3] In 1938 Sheaffer introduced the world's first pen with a plastic body and a fitted metal cap, a year later known as the Crest. Other well-known models include the Balance, the PFM, the Sheaffer Targa, the TRZ, the Connoisseur, the Prelude, the Javelin, the Snorkel, the Touchdown, and the Nostalgia."

Visit Instructions:
Post your own original photo as proof of your visit.
Tell us about your visit. What item in the museum did you like the best? What did you like the least? Would you recommend others visit the museum?

Recent Visits/Logs:

There are no logs for this waymark yet.