Crane Stationery used to be one of those brands you’d see in high-end gift shops, often next to luxury pens and fancy notecards. For people who love formal correspondence or just nice paper, the name carries real weight. The company’s been around since the 1700s—older than most towns in America. But the last few years have been anything but steady for Crane and anyone keeping an eye on the fine paper business.
Ownership: Too Many Hands, Too Quickly
Thinking back to just 2018, Crane Stationery was bought by Mohawk Fine Papers. That sounded like good news at the time. Mohawk was known for high-quality paper and seemed a natural fit. But, times change fast.
Right at the start of 2024, news broke that Mohawk itself had been sold through a foreclosure process to Fedrigoni, a paper giant out of Italy. The acquisition wasn’t your usual merger or buyout—Fedrigoni got Mohawk after a tough time with Mohawk’s lenders, so you can imagine there wasn’t much stability.
That alone would make anyone working for Crane anxious. But then, in just a few short months, Fedrigoni sold the Crane Stationery business to a company called WP Strategic Holdings. WP tried to restart Crane’s operations. However, in July 2024, only months later, Crane went through another merger—this time joining up with Decree-Crane Special Papers NA LLC. The new parent company landed under the control of Raleigh businessman Robert Buhler.
If you’re someone who worked at Crane, this rapid-fire list of new owners has probably felt like an endless game of musical chairs.
Operations Shrinking with Each Change
All these ownership changes have real effects on the ground. Let’s take a look at jobs. At its strongest, Crane Stationery’s workforce was close to 200 people, most of them experienced paper makers and printers.
When the North Adams, Massachusetts, plant closed in 2020, the situation changed overnight. That plant wasn’t just big—it was where most Crane Stationery paper got made. Closing it meant nearly 200 people lost their jobs that year. Some were offered transfers to the Cohoes facility in New York or even remote work roles, but not everyone took up the offer. For many, that was the end of the line with Crane.
By the summer of 2024, the employee count had dropped to around 72—a third of its old size. The company, which once owned its production sites, was now just leasing space in Cohoes, just outside Albany. That’s where the last of Crane’s operations lived, tucked inside the bigger Mohawk (now Fedrigoni) complex.
Repeated Layoffs and Factory Shutdowns
Layoffs and plant closures weren’t just a one-time thing for Crane. Every new owner seemed to bring uncertainty about who was staying and who was going. One of the toughest moments came in February 2024. In an abrupt move, about 75 more Crane employees were told—without warning—that they no longer had jobs. Some only found out when they arrived for work and couldn’t log onto their company computers. The Crane Stationery website even went dark around the same time. There wasn’t a big announcement. Employees and customers just tried to piece together what was happening.
For someone on the receiving end, that kind of abruptness is extra stressful. There wasn’t much clarity for weeks. Customers looking to buy wedding invitations, personal stationery, or business note cards couldn’t even find information on the website. The blackout suggested real trouble.
Pandemic, Market Shocks, and Financial Struggles
So how did things get so shaky so quickly for Crane? There’s a lot behind it. The bankruptcy of Papyrus—the greeting card and stationery chain—hit Crane’s bottom line hard. Papyrus was one of its biggest distributors, so after Papyrus went under in 2020, Crane lost a huge slice of its steady orders.
At virtually the same moment, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down offices, weddings, and graduations. Folks just weren’t buying fancy personal stationery. Demand fell, and for old-school companies like Crane, that kind of drop is tough to recover from.
Like a lot of other legacy print-related businesses, Crane had bills it couldn’t easily pay. The old strategies—scaling back shifts, moving people around—only got them so far. As a result, jobs vanished and plants closed. Customers noticed too, with delivery slowdowns, fewer product choices, and less reliable service.
Legal Fights and Open Questions
All this would be hard enough, but the newest threat to Crane Stationery’s future actually comes from the legal side. After the chaos of the buyouts, the companies involved have not agreed on the final purchase price. This includes disagreements about debt, how much inventory was changing hands, and several other numbers that really matter in these transactions.
That argument turned into an active court case by early 2025. The issue is, until a neutral accountant reviews everything, nobody knows exactly how much the new owners owe the sellers, or vice versa. In other words, Crane’s fate is stuck while lawyers and accountants sort it out.
That legal mess makes planning tough. Business partners want clarity before signing new supply deals. Prospective clients—think hotels, big corporations, even government agencies—get nervous about signing contracts with a firm whose legal and financial situation is up in the air. Employees, already weary from the past few years, see headlines and rumors instead of clear updates.
What Operations Look Like Right Now
At the moment, there’s still activity in Cohoes, New York, though the pace and volume are a shadow of the early 2000s. The company continues to fill some online orders, but it’s a much smaller operation. You’ll still find some Crane cards and envelopes available at selected retailers and a few online platforms, but the variety is nowhere near what it was even five years ago.
Anyone who has tried to reach customer service recently can attest to spotty communication. Some buyers have reported long waits or unclear answers about orders—another byproduct of a shrinking staff and frequent management changes.
For fans of the brand, this situation is discouraging. Most folks would rather see Crane back on stable ground, hiring again, and bringing out their familiar watermark papers and high-end cards. But the practical side of things looks shaky.
Are They Actually Going Out of Business?
So, to answer the main question: Is Crane Stationery going out of business? Officially, no. There has been no public filing or press release saying the company is shutting its doors for good. But looking at the facts—multiple ownership changes, steady layoffs, plant closures, and open legal disputes—it’s fair to describe the company as being in survival mode.
There are people trying to keep the brand alive through the new “Decree-Crane” entity, so there’s hope for a comeback. However, until the legal issues get resolved and customers and staff know what to expect from the new owners, nobody can say the future looks secure. Suppliers, retailers, and industry watchers remain hesitant.
If you’re browsing for updates on legacy brands in the business world, you can sometimes find more details and commentary at places like Blue Business Mag, where paper and stationery trends are tracked pretty closely alongside other niche manufacturing stories.
The Bottom Line for Crane Stationery
People who care about beautiful paper, or have memories tied to Crane’s invitations for their biggest life events, are watching all this unfold and hoping for the best. What’s clear is that today’s Crane Stationery is a much smaller, less predictable company than it was just a decade ago.
With fewer staff, fewer products, ongoing legal arguments, and a blur of new owners, it’s a tense time for the business. While there’s no obituary written for Crane Stationery yet, the company sits at a crossroad. The outcome depends on legal negotiations, new investment, and whether customers return if stability is restored.
For now, Crane Stationery is still technically open, still delivering what it can, but its future depends on how all these financial and legal threads are tied up. If anything changes—good or bad—you can expect industry news sites and business observers to jump on it, because few companies have been up and down as much or as quickly as Crane has in the last five years.
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