Background
Walter Sheaffer was born on July 27, 1867, in Bloomfield, Iowa, United States. He was the son of Jacob Royer and Anna Eliza (Walton) Sheaffer.
Hillcrest Memorial Park
Old Sheaffer´S fountain pens
Businessman chairman inventor president
Walter Sheaffer was born on July 27, 1867, in Bloomfield, Iowa, United States. He was the son of Jacob Royer and Anna Eliza (Walton) Sheaffer.
Walter Sheaffer educated Bloomfield public schools.
In 1888, at age 21, Walter Sheaffer began working at his father's jewelry store in Bloomfield selling watches. After his marriage, he added the sale of pianos, organs, and sewing machines to his watch business. Then, in the spring of 1906, Walter Sheaffer tried his hand at a new endeavor, chicken breeding. Although he was quite successful and won many prizes, in late 1906 he traded the farm for a jewelry store in Fort Madison. Ultimately, that choice led to a new style of fountain pen and the birth of a small empire in Fort Madison.
In August 1908 Walter Sheaffer received a patent for a lever filling device for a fountain pen. The new device eliminated the need to refill a pen with an eyedropper. After additional refinements in his filler design, and adding a clip, he risked his life savings to enter the pen manufacturing business in 1912. His first pens, marketed through the Conklin Pen Company in Kansas City, sold quickly. On January 1, 1913, Walter Sheaffer and two partners incorporated for $35,000 and made a $17,500 profit that year. The success of the pen company prompted Sheaffer to reincorporate after buying out his partners. One of them, George Kraker, started his own pen business and filed a lawsuit against Walter Sheaffer for patent infringement. After several years in the courts, Walter Sheaffer won the suit. By 1917 production had grown to include mechanical pencils and led to the opening of a larger factory in Fort Madison.
Beyond creating the self-filling pen, the Sheaffer Pen Company developed other specialties that further increased business during the 1920s. Sheaffer expanded into the gift market by pairing a fountain pen with a mechanical pencil. In 1920 he introduced a pen with a lifetime warranty. The popular "lifetime" pen, featuring a distinctive white dot, sold for $8.75, when most fountain pens sold for approximately $3.00. To accompany the high-quality pens, Walter Sheaffer developed a line of moderately priced pens, including the "Craig" model, named for his son, and the "Wasp," for Walter A. Sheaffer Pen. In 1922 a company chemical engineer, Robert Casey, developed a fine-quality ink called Skrip. Until 1924 pens were made from brittle black rubber. Walter Sheaffer perfected a pen barrel and cap made from pyroxylin plastic instead. Called "radite," the unbreakable plastic allowed Sheaffer to market sturdy pens in different colors, first jade green, and then red. In 1927 the company opened its first of many foreign factories in Canada. Sales of Sheaffer pens and gift sets continued strong, even during the Great Depression. The fiscal year 1932- 1933 was the only year in that decade that the company showed a loss.
In 1936 Walter Sheaffer stepped down as president of the Sheaffer Pen Company to serve as chairman of the board. His son, Craig, was company president from 1936 to 1953 and led the company's shift to war production, including telephone plugs, auto-tune heads for the Collins Radio Company, and bomb and artillery fuses, and back to pens. For its wartime military production, the Sheaffer Pen Company was awarded the Army-Navy E Award. On June 26, 1945, a Sheaffer pen was used to sign the United Nations charter.
Walter Sheaffer married Nellie Davis, February 8, 1888 (deceased). Children: Clementine (Mistress Harry East. Waldron), Craig Royer.