I sat down to tie yesterday, and the pin holding the cam on my HMH Spartan sheared off - after 41 years and many thousands of flies. I sent an email to their website asking about availability of the pin for a vise that old. Within 2 hours the owner, Jon Larrabee, responded and had a couple of questions. Keep in mind, this is on Thanksgiving Day.

A deep dive into HMH history brought me back to his blog, where a still available 2014 post confirmed that I do in fact have a Spartan, and he does have the needed pin. This will net him a whopping $5 sale, although I’ll upgrade some other parts and may buy a new vise entirely and keep this as a backup.

At a time when it often takes multiple emails and phone calls to get any response at all (or not), Jon and HMH were a wonderful surprise. A great vise, and even better customer service.

Wayne