June 2018 meeting details

JUNE MEETING DETAILS:

When: Thursday June 21, 2018 from 6:00pm (or so) to 8:45pm

Where: Where we met in May --- the TERRY SALMAN branch of the Vancouver Public Library, 4575 Clancy Loranger Way, Vancouver (on the lower level of the Hillcrest Community Center) by Queen Elizabeth Park & Nat Bailey Stadium.
The meeting will take place in their Community Room (meeting room). Tips on how to get to the library via transit are in this old post.

Theme: Pens/Pencils made by 2nd-Tier and 3-Tier Vintage Pen Companies.
We last did this theme in February 2014 and I've had some requests to bring it back, so I hope it's a popular one!

So, what do we mean by 2nd-tier/3-rd tier vintage pen companies? Well, according to Richard Binder's excellent reference site, 'second-tier' is a "term applied to a pen of moderate or high quality from one of the lesser manufacturers...Among the second tier of U.S. manufacturers were companies such as Aikin Lambert, Chilton, Moore, and Morrison" whereas 'third-tier' is a "term applied to a pen of relatively poor quality, made with thin celluloid or other body material, with thinly plated furniture and almost always having an untipped steel nib... Many third-tier pens were made with remarkably beautiful celluloids. Among the third tier of U.S. manufacturers were companies such as Arnold, Majestic, Stratford, Travelers, and Welsh."

If you have examples of vintage fountain pens/pencils made by 2nd-tier or 3rd-tier pen companies, please bring them with you to show. Other examples of these companies would be Esterbrook, Wearever, Eclipse et al. (Note: "first-tier" vintage pens were those made by companies such as Parker, Sheaffer, Wahl-Eversharp,
L. E. Waterman and Conklin...but they are not the topic of our June meeting.
Also modern pens & pencils will not be included in this month's theme---it'd be too vast a topic---just vintage pens/pencils).

Our secondary topic is always NEWEST ACQUISITIONS (pen-related)---eg. new pens/inks/paper/pen cases/other accessories/etc, so if you have any you wish to show, please bring them with you. No need to RSVP for this meeting. Hope you can make it!

Great Attendance for our April meeting! (photos)

We had excellent attendance for our April 19th meeting, which was held at the Vancouver Public Library's Oakridge branch, with 26 members showing up (including three newcomers-Binal, Jamie and Ron) !

The topic for the evening was "Your 3 Favourite Inks" and I think everyone had fun seeing what other members brought (especially since there are seem to be so many new ink companies these days!)

René's current top 3 inks are featured in the photo below (Left to Right): Pilot Iroshizuku "Kiri-same" (Autumn Shower), Sailor Jentle "Rokyu-Cha" (part of their Four Seasons line of inks) and Montblanc "Leo Tolstoy" (a Limited Edition ink, in a sky-blue colour):

In addition to some lovely inks, we also saw some beautiful fountain pens, such as these three brought in by Dennis---a orange modern Conklin "Crescent-Filler", a demonstrator (clear) pen by SKB, and a green Delta "Vintage" model fountain pen
(~Click on images to enlarge~) :

Longtime VPC member Dave M always brings in some great vintage fountain pens from his collection to show us, and these vintage writing instruments by Eclipse (a U.S. pen company founded in 1903 that later had a Canadian subsidiary) are no exception:

A pen by another vintage pen company---Esterbrook. The example below is a transitional "J" model in blue from the 1940s, belonging to René:

Ruth-Erin's modern Conklin fountain pen with a very interesting nib---the "Duraflex" model with its black "OmniFlex" nib, which allows for some line variation when the user gently presses down on (ie. flexes) it while writing:

My (Maja's) pen case (L to R): three generations of Sheaffer "NoNonsense"/Calligraphy pens filled with my top three inks (Diamine "Oxblood", Akkerman "Shocking Blue", Sailor Jentle "Miruai") and some new(ish) acquisitions -- a Lamy "26P" model, a Lecai transparent Acrylic pen, THINK Confetti "Shag" pen, a Lamy "Aion", PenBBS Gradient "Hawaii", Martemodena "Techno" ballpoint, Martemodena "Freedom" pen, Shanghai M&G pen, and a Retro 51 "Betsy" rollerball (side note: I reviewed a few of these pens earlier on our club's blog :)

(photo below) René's very cool-looking hand-painted vintage fountain pen. The pen is marked "Secap" and "Made in Japan" but René is having problems finding any additional info on it, so if you have some info to share, please drop us a line at vancouverpenclub@gmail.com

More interesting vintage FPs belonging to René:

Several nice vintage pens in René's case were made by (so-called) 2nd-tier and 3rd-tier pen companies, and we'll be featuring those pen companies at our June 21st meeting :

Well, that's all the photos I managed to snap at the April meeting! Sorry for the delay in posting them here on our club's website.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention the most popular fountain pen inks among those who attended the April meeting! I jotted down the names of everyone's favourites and tabulated the results, so here they are (in no particular order). Drumroll please...

• Pilot Iroshizuku "Kon-Peki" and "Kiri-Same"
• Sailor "Miruai"
• Diamine "Ancient Copper"
• Waterman "Serenity Blue"
• Lamy "Dark Lilac" (sadly, a limited edition colour that is very hard to find now :(
• Rohrer & Klingner "Alt-Goldgrün"

Many thanks to all came to the meeting in April! Meeting info about the June 21 meeting is here in this blog post !

Keep Calm And Carry A Fountain Pen

I took a couple of shots of one of my recent eBay acquisitions - a fountain pen made by the Shanghai M&G Stationery company in China- and decided to try some quick photo editing (~click on images to enlarge~)

Its hooded steel nib writes smoothly and the pen fits comfortably in a pocket, so it's a great little pen to carry with you on trips :)

Photos from our April and May meetings will be posted in the next few days!

May 2018 meeting info!

MAY MEETING DETAILS:

When: Thursday May 17, 2018 from 6:00pm (or so) to 8:45pm
(the library closes at 9:00pm, so we have to leave the room by 8:45pm).

Where: the TERRY SALMAN branch of the Vancouver Public Library at 4575 Clancy Loranger Way, Vancouver (on the lower level of the Hillcrest Community Center) near Queen Elizabeth Park & Nat Bailey Stadium. The meeting will take place in their Community Room (meeting room). Tips on how to get to the library via transit are in this old post.

Theme: NIB TUNING-presentation by VPC member Jerred!
Many of you have requested this topic, so we're fortunate that Jerred agreed to do a presentation on it (complete with visual aids). Thank you, in advance, Jerred for your time and effort!

Our secondary topic is always NEWEST ACQUISITIONS (pen-related)---eg. new pens/inks/paper/pen cases/other accessories/etc, so if you have any you wish to show, please bring them with you. No need to RSVP for this meeting. Hope you can make it!

Seattle Pen Club meeting in Bellingham!

The Seattle Pen Club will be having their April meeting in Bellingham, Washington on Saturday April 21 in the Bellingham Public Market's Meeting Room from 10am to 2pm---Market address: 1530 Cornwall Ave, Bellingham, Washington, USA (map on this page)

The SPC meets in Bellingham twice a year to make it easier for pen folks in northern WA and Vancouver, BC to attend. It's free, the SPC folks are super-friendly, and they always bring some interesting pens to show :) No topic or theme for this meeting--just a casual get-together with pen talk around a big table, so bring some new/favourite pen-related stuff to show everyone.
All Vancouver Pen Club members are welcome to attend (attendance isn't compulsory, of course) and no RSVP's are required!

Don't forget our own Vancouver Pen Club meeting this Thursday April 19 at the Oakridge library. All details are here in this post. Hope you can make it!

Barry's antique sale find

It wasn't photographed at the March meeting, so I asked him to send me a quick pic...

It's one of the new acquisitions Barry K brought to that meeting----a Parker '51' fountain pen and mechanical pencil set in burgundy, ca. 1949, purchased at a local antique sale...

And how much did Barry pay for this lovely set?
A mere $ 30.
(well done, Barry!)

April meeting information (and Ink Swap!)

Date: Thursday April 19, 2018
Time: 6:00pm to 8:30pm.
Place: The Community Room (Meeting Room) of the Vancouver Public Library's Oakridge branch (at the back of Oakridge Mall), 650 West 41st Avenue, Vancouver
(ie. where we had our March meeting).

Topic: YOUR 3 FAVOURITE INKS....and our twice-annual INK SWAP!

We did this topic back in 2010 (!) but given how many more ink companies there are now,
I thought it'd be interesting to reuse the topic after Carmen suggested it (thanks, Carmen!).
If you can, please bring inked pens (ie. 3 pens filled with your 3 favourite inks) to the meeting. They can be cheap pens, and if you don't have 3 favourite inks, you can bring fewer than that :)

Ink Swap---this is completely voluntary, so if you don't want to trade any old inks, you don't have to. If you want to participate, please bring inks that you want to get rid of and hopefully someone will have something in trade that you like (buying & selling inks is ok too, so I'd suggest bringing cash if you're looking to buy ink).
Ink cartridges are fine for the swap....and the ink bottles do not have to be full.

Our secondary topic is always Newest Pen-Related Acquisitions, so if you have a new pen/ink/pen case you'd like to show us, please bring it with you. Hope to see you at the meeting! Any questions/concerns, contact us at vancouverpenclub@gmail.com