I damanged my Shelter cartridge, next steps?....

I am late to the thread but, boy do I have a story. Years ago I bought a Benz Glider. Few weeks later, while dusting the tip went bye-bye. For a $300 fee I got a replacement. Few months later I did the same thing and paid another $300. I used it for a while and got spooked that it would happen again. I went to a dealer to trade it in on a wood body L-04 for the protection factor. At the dealer, I took the Glider out of the box to show him. He took one out to compare and placed them both on the counter. Well he placed them so close together on the counter that the magnets attracted to each other!! The sytlus in his new Glider was nowhere to be found. To this day, I live with that fear and will not own a "nude" cartridge.

So, to update on the Shelter issue - even though the cantilever is askew (both vertically and horizontally) and the suspension is quite loose, I reinstalled the Shelter on my OL Silver, and Teres 255 (just got the 255 platter, so had to let it settle into place). I seated the Shelter skewing to one side so that the needle could at least line up correctly with the groove. And, well, it's the darndest thing, but it sounds damn good?! The cartridge is aligled at about a 15 degree angle (in order to line the cantilever up straigt with the grooves), and the cantilever is way steeper into the groove vertically than it should be = maybe at about an additional 15 degree angle between the cartridge body and the cantilever (but, I guess because the suspension is loose, it ends up being pretty ideal angle when the tracking force is applied). So, I was very skeptical of getting anything close to real sound, but it sounds fantastic...Open question is, am I putting a strain on the records (over wearing one side of the groove?), although the channel seperation sounds perfect, with no etching present at all on my choice recordings. Also, I'm practically waiting for the needle to fall out or something, but so far, so good.Anyway, all told, I guess I'll continue to run the Shelter 'as is' until I hear otherwise - and am now less inclined to fork out $$ on a new/used heavy-hitter cartridge like an Airy 2/3 etc (which I've been considering). I did order a Denon DL-103 from the UK though, which didn't cost me much, and I guess will be a great comparison (and back up cartridge) to the Shelter. Anyway, thanks guys for the advice and guidance on getting through this problem. I'm a bit embarassed to see that the cartridge is still usable (that my diagnosis of fatality was off target, but I'm thrilled too ;-) Anyway, just wanted to post an update. Hopefully I'll be getting some more blissful hours out of this Shelter yet.

You cannot rely on this cartridge to have proper alignment at this time, John.
It could possibly be damaging your records to play it like that.

Just take some toothpicks and straighten the stylus out already. If you fail then deal with that issue. Your records are too valuable IMO.