Born in Bloomfield, Iowa on July 27th 1867.Walter was the first of five children born to the union of Jacob Royer and Anna Eliza (Walton) Sheaffer.
Jacob had settled in Bloomfield in 1854 after failing to find his fortune in the California gold rush, he established a successful jewelry business and with the continued success of his business he was able to invest in a local insurance company. The timing of the Bloomfield Insurance Co decision to unite with the Great Western Insurance Company of Chicago was unfortunate. Shortly afterwards, the Chicago Fire of 1871 wiped out the company’s resources, making stockholders like Jacob doubly liable. In 1873 Jacob was forced to dispose of his jewelry store in order to pay his debts.

These events left a lasting impression on W A.Sheaffer.

Walter had to begin work very early in life and did completely finish high school. His first job was as a devil in a printing office earning one dollar a week. From there, when he was twelve years of age, he worked in a grocery store for the summer. This enabled him to buy clothes for the winter.
The next summer he started a peanut stand and saved himself a large amount of money to see him through the winter. Walter spent freely and his money didn’t last out the winter, this was a lesson he never forgot.

In 1880,Jacob started another jewellery business. He took a young nephew, who had been orphaned, into the store with him. Walter sought employment elsewhere, his first job was as a clerk in a Centerville jewelry store; he was paid $15 a month with board and lodging. His bed was a shelf under the counter in the store. He next worked for his uncle in Unionville; Missouri. After learning the retail jewelry business in Centerville and Unionville. Walter became a partner with his father in the Bloomfield store.

When Walter joined his father in Bloomfield the store was in debt. The store was under intense competition at the time from mail order companies and larger outlets like Sears. Montgomery Ward mail order catalogue were selling the Elgin and Waltham watches and other jewelry lines at around the same price the Sheaffer’s could buy in at.
W A.Sheaffer turned around the fortunes of the family business by selling fine watches made by the Hamilton Watch Company, who did not sell to mail order companies.
The 17 jewel Hamilton line watches sold between $14 and $45.The 7 jewel Elgin and Waltham watch sold at $3.95,Walters plan was to create a desire in a customer to own the best watch.
His sale techniques worked and the Bloomfield store gradually pulled out of the red.

The Sheaffer’s laid a foundation for their future success in the merchandizing the finest fountain pens.

On February 8th, 1888,Walter A.Sheaffer married Nellie and they had two children Clementine and Craig.
The small jewelry store was now supporting two families so Walter took on a piano and organ business to help with the strain on the store. A piano was place in the centre of the store and customers could look at the piano while shopping for or having items of jewelry repaired.
Walter would take the piano to customer out in the country in the evening and if he didn’t make a sale would have to haul the piano back to town. This could be a trip of 15 to 20 miles; in those days there were no automobiles, no paved roads, indeed no gravel roads.
W. A.Sheaffer would go to great lengths to seal a deal, like helping a farmer to husk corn for two hours if he agreed to give him the time to show him the piano afterwards.
But by combining the two businesses, he was able to make the business a success.

W A.Sheaffer Pen Co

W A.Sheaffer was running his successful jewelry business in Fort Madison in 1907 when he came up with the idea of making a lever filling fountain pen.
Most pens at the time were ink droppers, Conklin made the most successful self-filling pen in 1907, but Sheaffer believed he could improve on the cumbersome design of the crescent filler.
He set about designing a self-filling fountain pen in the back of his jewelry store and came with the idea of a lever and pressure bar system to deflate the rubber sac, with the lever fitting smoothly into a recess in the pen barrel.
This design was patented on August 25th 1908, it was not until 1912 that Walter patented an improved design and went into the pen business full time. 

Sales continued to increase and the larger and stronger companies began to take notice, it wasn’t long before Sheaffer were confronted with patent litigation. One of the most crucial moments arrived when Brown and Bigelow of St. Paul sued for one million dollars.
Sheaffer representatives were confident of victory but W A. Sheaffer knew that even if he won the suit, it would cost him a lot of money and time away from the business.
Sheaffer was convinced he could save both companies a lot of time and money, if brown and Bigelow could be persuaded to drop the suit.
After several rebuffs, Sheaffer finally managed to set up a meeting with Mr. Bigelow,and after a strenuous battle succeeded in having the case dropped.
In February of 1917 the Fort Madison Plow Company was purchased and converted into the most up to date pen factory. This enabled Sheaffer to start manufacturing its own gold nibs, who had previously been shipped in from other other parts of the country.
In 1920 the Lifetime pen was introduced, the lowest priced one selling at $8.75.This was around three times the price of its competitors products, but the pen was a success and became the best selling pen in America.

Sheaffer introduced its own brand of writing fluid called Skrip in 1922;it was a number of years before Sheaffer started to refer to Skrip as ink. This is thought to be because of the bad reputation of early acidic ink formulations.

In 1924 after extensive research Sheaffer introduced a new celluloid material called Radite.The first colours developed were in solid black and marbled jade green, it was in the same year that the famous white dot was introduced on the pens.
In 1926 Sheaffer stopped production of the hard rubber pens and started to stamp serial numbers on the Lifetime nibs.

With trends changing in the late 1920’s to a sleeker design of pen. Sheaffer developed a streamline pen with tapered ends in 1929 called the Balance. It was at the same time that a more flexible Lifetime nib was introduced.

During the Depression Sheaffer sales held up until 1931 when sales dropped off sharply. Employees worked a three day a week as the situation continued worsen, then finally production stopped completely. That was the day when President Roosevelt declared a holiday, which closed all banks across the nation.
Production started again within a week when the two main banks in Fort Madison reopened.

The first plastic body pens with metal caps were introduced in 1937 within the Lifetime range. The barrels were made of Radite and the caps were either gold plated or made from silver.
Later in production these pens were called Crest.

In 1938 W A.Sheaffer resigned as President and became chairman of the board of directors. His son Craig succeeded him as president, and the company continued to prosper under his leadership.

During the Second World War there was a drastic reduction in the production of writing instuments. The company manufactured airborne communications plugs, bomb and artillery fuses and an automatic radio-tuning device for the armed forces.

Early in 1942 the company began to remodel a former paper mill in Fort Madison, which subsequently became Sheaffer’s second production plant. In the same year, a new pen called Triumph was made with a circular wrap-around nib.

After the war ended, Craig Sheaffer was determined to make up for lost ground; his program included new products, new plant facilities and equipment, and a new merchandising and sales program.

A short film was produced by Sheaffer and shown to dealers to explain what work Sheaffer people had been doing during the war and why regular products were in short supply.

 W A.Sheaffer passed away on June 19,1946.The Legacy, which he left behind, was one that most men dare only to dream about. I’m sure he must have been content with his life’s work and leaving his company in the capable hands of his son Craig.

In 1947 Craig Sheaffer reported the pre-war prices were being maintained on most company products despite rising costs. With customer reaction being favourable, Sheaffer continue this policy as long as they were able. The main problem was keeping up with customer demand. A particularly significant manufacturing improvement was the installation of equipment for molding pen caps and barrels. This provided both a major decrease in product cost and a substantial increase in product uniformity and quality.

One thing that happened during the war was destined to have a marked and lasting impact on the writing instrument market. This was the introduction of the ballpoint pen. Orginally developed in Europe, produced in Argentina and picked up by the U.S. Air Force pilots, the ballpoint was found to meet the military’s need for a pen with a leak resistant ink supply suitable for use in high-flying aircraft. After the war, the ballpoint was rushed onto the consumer market amid great fanfare and was eagerly snapped up despite high prices.

The first Sheaffer ballpen was made and sold in 1946,Other important developments by Sheaffer in the forties were the inner spring pocket clip, the Triumph pen with its conical sheath-type nib, the touchdown filling mechanism, and the Fineline line of popular priced products.

In 1949 Sheaffer dedicated a new softball field at its Employees Park, located just outside Fort Madison, with tennis courts, hiking trails, and facilities for camping, picnicking, and other outdoor activities.

An explosion in the basement of the company’s new office building in the spring of 1950 caused a near disaster. It was fortunate that the explosion occurred in the office building, if it had happened in the old plow works building, it would probably been destroyed.
This incident prompted Sheaffer to replace the old plow works building and contracts for anew main plant were signed in 1950.Constuction was completed in 1952 and the plow works building, after more than three decades of service to the company, were razed to the ground to make way for an employees parking lot. Sheaffer employees wrote messages to their counterparts of the year 2001.The documents were placed in a tube and sealed in the walls of the lobby of the new building.

In November 1951, the 50 millionth Sheaffer pen came off the assembly line.

 Developed in great secrecy and launched in 1952 with the greatest promotional campaign in the company’s history, the new snorkel pen created a major sales surge.

In 1961 the company suffered a severe lose with the death of Craig Sheaffer
 , Son of the founder. Craig was then Board Chairman a position he had held since 1954.

Sheaffer introduced a new updated line of Lifetime pens in 1963 to commemorate its 50th anniversary. These were the first pens to carry a guarantee for life since 1947.

In  1964, John A. Keenan was elected company president. This was the first time in Sheaffer’s history that someone from outside the Sheaffer family had held this position. Walter Sheaffer II, then president moved up as Board Chairman.

1966 brought a major change in Sheaffer’s history with the sale of the company to Textron Inc., a manufacturing company with headquarters in Providence, Rhode Island.

The Targa By Sheaffer line was introduced in 1976 in the same year Sheaffer merged with one of Textron’s other divisions, the Eaton paper Company of Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Sheaffer Eaton continued to devote close attention to its Sheaffer writing instrument line, in 1981a new contemporary line called TRZ was introduced.

During 1983 Sheaffer initiated distribution of several writing instruments imported from its Japanese distributor, Sailor Pen. A new line called Sentinel appeared in 1984 with the “S-Dot” imprint on the pocket clip.

The new Connaisseur pen was announced in 1985 based on the Twenties flat end styling, originally only made in a black acrylic finish. Sheaffer England later developed the range further for the European market, these Grand Connaisseur pens in Laque and Metal finishes were not offered in the U.S. during the first few years of production.

Textron sold its Sheaffer Eaton division in the summer of 1987 to Gefinor (U.S.A.) Inc, an affiliate of Gefinor S.A., a Luxembourg investment banking company, with it’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The company sold off its Eaton typewriter paper and At-A-Glance book lines and acquired Crownmark a company that made key rings and jewellery. In January of 1989,Sheaffer Eaton moved its corporate headquarters and administrative offices to Lincoln, Rhode Island, the location of its newly acquired Crownmark Division.

The modern Crest model was introduced to the line up in 1992 with a tubular nib in 14K solid gold, the Crest pens first appeared in a 1989 Sheaffer UK catalogue with a steel nib, these pens may never have made it out of the factory to be sold.
Classic Pens Inc and Sheaffer UK came together again in 1993 to produce the Crest CP3 Pushkin Limited Edition of 500 pieces .The hallmarked Sterling Silver pen was given a unique finish for the crest range in a solid barleycorn pattern.

The Floral Etched Nostalgia pens made a brief appearance in 1992,made of Sterling Silver and Vermeil and engraved with a floral pattern onto a solid cap and barrel, unlike the original overlay Nostalgias.

The W A Sheaffer Commemorative was introduced in 1996 this Lever Fill fountain pen was made in a Limited Edition of 6000 pieces and had the profile of the early pens made by W A.Sheaffer.

Sheaffer was sold again in 1997 by Gefinor to the U.S. subsidiary of the French manufacturer Bic.The sale was complicated by a counter-offer by a group of Sheaffer executives, they claimed to have first refusal of any buyout.
Bic took the case to court and up its original offer believed to be just short of $50 million by $2 million and the sale eventually went through.

A Balance Demonstrator fountain pen was also made in a limited edition of no more than 100 pieces, . This pen was only made available to selected Sheaffer dealers placing very large orders.