it's kind of amusing that a lot of musicians have viewed this post. Apparently, the original handles were breaking all the time. As far as I can tell, the only difference between the old ones and the new ones is, the old ones used a brad while the new ones use a screw. If these are prone to break, maybe it would be a good idea to take them apart and reinforce the screw posts with some kind of epoxy dough. That's great that the plastic insert fits the old hardware if you want to keep things as original as possible. I figure, once again you could fill the screw holes with JB weld or some other epoxy and set the brad into the glue before it hardens.