September meeting photos

Ten VPC members braved the rainy weather and came to the Terry Salman branch of the VPL for our pen club meeting on September 20th. The miserable weather didn't dampen their enthusiasm, however, and everyone brought some interesting things for our "Open Format" topic.

Without further ado, here are some photos from that meeting, starting with these group shots courtesy of Christopher's phone camera:

Going around the table (clockwise, from lower left): Stuart, Mindy, Alejandra's daughter, Christopher, Rene, Alejandra, Dana, Maja (me), Justin and Jerred

Rene brought in an interesting assortment of pens, both modern and vintage

That's Tony in the upper-left corner...

All in all, an entertaining meeting with a small-but-enthusiastic bunch of VPCers! Thanks to all who attended the meeting :)

Now some pen photos I snapped with my cel camera (apologies for the picture quality)
~Click on images to enlarge~

Christopher's vintage Parker 'Duofold Jr.' fountain pen in the desirable "Mandarin Yellow" colour, and a vintage Waterman fountain pen in highly collectible "Olive Ripple" pattern

A Sheaffer 'Imperial Sovereign', a lovely fountain pen that Christopher found for a bargain price

(L-R) Pelikan M200, four Kaweco 'Sport' pens (including a hard-to-find black and white marbled 'Sport Art' pen) and a Delike 'Alpha Resin' (a 'Sport' look-alike) in the "Maple Leaf" pattern--all owned by Mindy

A nice selection of black vintage fountain pens by an assortment of makers, including Conway Stewart, Salz, Swan, Summit and Whitney, brought in by Rene

Rene's Winkpens pen (a demonstrator pen with a glass nib that utilizes a ink converter that can be filled with a variety of liquids---e.g. coffee, wine, ink et al.) and a Pilot 'Kakuno' in the special "Kumamon" edition

Rene's beautiful Platinum 'Century 3776' "Yamanaka" Demonstrator Limited Edition fountain pen (only 3776 numbered pieces made)

Two vintage Wahl-Eversharp 'Skyline' fountain pens brought in by Rene. After consultation with an expert, it was determined that the bottom pen has a replacement cap and is not a 'Streamliner' (a less-common, lower-tier Eversharp model)

Vintage and modern ~ Rene's bright blue TWSBI 'Eco' and vintage Wyvern fountain pen in a woodgrain pattern. Below that is a Wahl-Eversharp 'Skyline', brought in by Christopher

A closeup of the engraving on the cap of Christopher's 'Skyline'. You can't see all of it, but the inscription says "Mother, Love Bob & Jim ~ Sept.19 '46"

A fine mini-collection of Sheaffer fountain pens belonging to Stuart. Among the pens are the 'Crest', 'Touchdown' and 'Balance' models (all vintage) and an all-black 'Taranis' (modern pen). Stuart also brought in his newest acquisition---a TWSBI 'Go' (not pictured)

Our topic was "Open Format" so we saw some unusual items, such as this Montblanc piston-removal tool created by VPC's own Tony using a piece of metal and a Dremel

Tony also brought in his TWSBI collection! (including some brand-new acquisitions)
The red, white and blue demonstrator is the special edition '580 Taiwan' that uses the colours of the Taiwanese flag (TWSBI being a Taiwanese manufacturer)

Alejandra' red Pilot 'Decimo', a slimmed-down version of the classic Pilot 'Vanishing Point' fountain pen, and a cute new notebook with a wild boar motif

Part of my (Maja's) Retro 51 writing instrument collection (photo courtesy of Justin) displayed in a new acquisition, a bamboo 16-pen display case made by Retro 51

Dana brought in some really nice inks in some really nice pens---(top to bottom) Sailor 'Sapporo' (aka 'Professional Gear Slim') Orange demonstrator, vintage striped Pelikan 400NN, Lamy 'Al-Star' and a mystery pen I will endeavour to ID after I post this! (photo by Justin)

Christopher's 'Skyline' by Wahl-Eversharp (photo taken by its owner)

My apologies to Justin and Jerred for not snapping pics of the items they brought :(
Justin brought in some very cool handmade pens---a Osrey (ebonite fountain pen made in India), a Hinze (American made) fountain pen and a pen handmade by the Birmingham Pen Company in the "Eye of Sauron" resin---as well as a Montegrappa 'Game of Thrones' fountain pen, a new Pilot 823 (one of the pens on my own Wish List---Santa, are you listening??), a PenBBS pen and one by Delike. Jerred brought in some pens I'd never seen at any of our meetings before---a Delta 'Monza', a Bexley 'Imperial' and a Hero 'Century 5' (a discontinued model with an integrated fountain pen nib).

Many thanks to everyone who brought in stuff for our topic. We will being continuing this topic ("Open Format") at our meeting on October 18---all details about that meeting are here in this post.

October meeting details

When: Thursday October 18, 2018 from 6:00pm to 8:30pm
(Don't worry if you're late---we usually start at around 6:30)

Where: the KITSILANO branch of the Vancouver Public Library at 2425 Macdonald Street (between Broadway and West 8th), Vancouver, BC
The meeting will take place in the community/meeting room on the lowest level of the library basement. This is where our club met in July.

Theme : OPEN FORMAT! We had sparse attendance for the September meeting (due to the rain, I suspect), so we're going to continue this theme in October :) Please bring whatever pen-related stuff you want to show that you haven't brought to a previous meeting and shown to the club. It can be pens, inks, pen accessories, etc. It's open format, so it's up to you what you bring! Oh and please try to limit it to 2 - 3 items per person, so we don't run out of time :)

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.

VPC Summer Dinner 2018 photos (part two)

Here is part two of our VPC Summer Dinner pics, in which we feature Ricardo's photos...

The Irish Heather's famous meat and cheese board (you select a combination of meat and/or fine cheeses plus condiments):

Sabrina's ready to sample the items she selected!

L-R: Glenn M, Justin (smiling at the camera), Stuart, Barry, Ray and Tony:

The Irish Heather's "Posh Grilled Cheese" entree made with Quebec brie, aged cheddar, carmelised onions and a buttered crust. Yummy!

Marey enjoying her Posh Grilled Cheese:

(L-R) Kelley, new VPCer Grace, and Jim:

Natasha (left) and Melodie:

An animated conversation between Melodie and Rene!

Several of our members are owners of the Platinum '3776 Century' fountain pen model.
Here are (L-R) Sabrina's, Melodie's and Jim's beautiful examples:

Another view of the Irish Heather's "Long Table", which can accommodate large groups very comfortably in a private room:

Barry K:

Melodie, Rene (hidden), Justin and Jim:

...and our 2018 VPC Summer Dinner draws to a close...(L-R: Kelley, Stuart, Maja, Jerred and our server):

Many thanks to the VPC members that came to the Dinner, and to Ralph, Ray and Ricardo for taking photos for our club's blog!

VPC Summer Dinner 2018 photos (part one)

We had our 2018 Summer Dinner at the wonderful Irish Heather Gastropub in Vancouver's historic Gastown district on August 16th. Eighteen VPCers showed up for some good food, and even better company :)
Without further ado, here are some photos that Ralph took that evening (thanks, Ralph!)...

Photo above: Seated in the front row (L-R): Rene, Kelley, Grace, Jerred, Ricardo, Justin. Standing (L-R): Sabrina, Natasha, Maja, Melodie, Jim, Marey, Tony, Stuart, Glenn M, Barry K, Ray and Ralph. (photo taken by our server)

(~Please click on images to enlarge~)

Stuart's reaction to his "Posh Grilled Cheese" dinner order:

(center) Longtime VPC member and connoisseur of fine Italian pens, Glenn Marcus, who has a great pen website with beautiful photography called Glenn's Pens:

Barry pointing to something in Maja's pen case:

Ricardo and his wonderful camera (I'll be posting Ricardo's photos from the Summer Dinner in a separate blog post--Update: I posted them here):

Our members enjoying the food (and pen talk)...

Ray snapped a few photos of some of the pens folks brought to show at the dinner (thanks, Ray!), like Jim's PENBBS '308':

Stuart's pen case with some old pens and newer acquisitions---a vintage Aurora '88', a Waterman 'Concorde', a Waterman 'Corinth', a Waterman 'Taperite Crusader' (hey, I sense a pattern! ;) and a small Wearever ringtop:

Kelley's fountain pens---I see a few Lamy 'Al-Stars', a Noodler's 'Standard Creaper' pen in the cool "Pumpkin Poltergeist" colour, a lovely purple Kaweco 'Sport', a Pilot 'Metropolitan', a Pilot 'Parallel' pen...

Ricardo enjoying the festivities...

Ricardo brought a couple of beautiful fountain pens (newer acquisitions) with him to the dinner---a Graf von Faber-Castell 'Guilloche Burned Orange' and a translucent brown Sailor 'Pro Gear Slim' (aka the Sailor 'Sapporo'):

Many thanks to the good folks at The Irish Heather for their warm hospitality, friendly & attentive service, and for accommodating our large group at their "Long Table" again this summer !

September meeting details

SEPTEMBER MEETING DETAILS:

When: Thursday September 20, 2018

Time: 6:00pm (or so) to 8:30pm

Where: Where we met in June --- 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 : OPEN FORMAT! Please bring whatever pen-related stuff you want to show that you haven't brought to a previous meeting and shown to the club. It's open format, so it's up to you what you bring! Oh and please try to limit it to 2 - 3 items per person, so we don't run out of time :)

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!

Photos from our July meeting!

Twenty-four VPC members (including newcomers Bruce, Candice, Colleen & Daniel) came to our July VPC meeting, held on July 19th at the Kitsilano branch of the Vancouver Public Library. I left my camera at home, but Christopher and Ricardo snapped some photos during the meeting for our blog (thanks so much, guys!).

First, four group pics, courtesy of Christopher...

It was a packed house that evening!

The rest of the photos were all taken by Ricardo, except where noted (~click on photos to enlarge)...

Ricardo's illustrated journal...

Our theme for July's meeting was "BUYER'S REMORSE & NON-BUYER'S REGRET"--ie. fountain pens you bought but later regretted buying (Buyer's Remorse) and fountain pens you didn't buy and regretted not doing so (Non-Buyer's Regret).

Though lovely, Julienne regretted buying the small Delta 'Capri' fountain pen on the right...

It's a beautiful writing instrument, but the smaller version (called the Marina piccola) was simply too small for her...

When the opportunity to buy its larger counterpart (the Marina grande) came up, she jumped on it...

...and now has a matching set that she doesn't want to break up :)

Buying pens that were too small for one's hand was a fairly common reason for buyer's remorse---June, Ruth-Erin and I (Maja) also regretted buying small fountain pens (Sabrina had the opposite reason--buying pens that were too large for her hands) Also, buying cheap pens just because they were cheap was another regret--Tony, Jim, June and I fell into that category! Some members regretting buying certain pen brands that they seemingly had no luck with--Monteverde in Ricardo's case, and TWSBI in Jerred's case---and some buyer's regret was simply from buying pens with previously unseen/unnnoticed flaws---e.g. Stuart's Sheaffer 'Valor' with barrel issues, Barry's vintage Waterman with cracked nib, Christopher's Parker 'Slim Maxima Vacumatic' that fell apart, Tony's Martemodena 'Federico' whose barrel came unglued, Rene's Parker 'Urban' with flow problems, and Kelley's wooden kit pen with nib issues.

As for Non-Buyer's Remorse (those pens that you wished you'd bought at the time but didn't) there was plenty of that, too--e.g. the special edition turquoise Lamy 'Safari' Sabrina regrets not buying, the turquoise TWSBI 'Eco' & 580 that Melodie didn't acquire, the green TWSBI 580 Ricardo passed on buying, the celluloid Montblancs Bruce R wishes he'd bought, the Delta pens Jerred regrets not buying before the company went out of business, et al. There were a few happy cases where the pens that weren't bought were eventually acquired later...like the Pelikan M200 Café Crème Special Edition that Dana found a year later... and my own two pens below---a Romet 'Asia' and a Franklin-Christoph 01 IPO :

(these two pics taken by Maja) I first saw both pens at pen shows---the Romet at the 2015 LA Pen Show and the Franklin-Christoph at a Portland Pen Show---but didn't buy them because there were so many other pens I wanted to see first. I got lucky in the case of the Romet, because I bought it the next day (story here)... but I had to wait a few years before I found the F-C again when a fellow pen club member was selling it. The Romet has a replacement Conklin 1.1mm stub nib on it, but I don't mind :)

Onto our secondary theme---NEWEST ACQUISITIONS now!

Since we had such good attendance for our meeting, we saw a lot of new acquisitions, such as Rene's dazzling new Platinum 'Century 3776' "Kumpoo" Limited Edition fountain pen:

My (Maja's) LIY 'Future' fountain pen in the "Blue Coral Sea" colour (right) and the exotically-named "Blue Enchantress" colour (left) belonging to Jerred:

Another new acquisition of mine---an orange 'Ink' fountain pen made by Karas Kustoms in Arizona:

My particular pen is made of shiny aluminum and comes with an aluminum section. You can choose another type of section (copper, brass, tumbled raw aluminum or black) and there are 19 nib options, depending on material (steel, gold or titanium) and nib width. My particular nib is a smooth-writing Fine steel nib:

A lovely Visconti 'Homo Sapiens' in the limited edition "Jade" colour, owned by Ruth-Erin:

This LE is limited to only 188 pieces worldwide:

Not a new pen, but a new acquisition--Ricardo's Visconti "Opera Club" fountain pen in the hard-to-find "Cherry Juice" colour. The pen was originally purchased as a rollerball and then converted to a fountain pen with the new nib-section unit Ricardo ordered:

Group shot (L-R): Bruce T (one of our brand-new members), Christopher, Stuart, Julienne, Melodie, Maja.

I'm sorry we didn't photograph them because Bruce showed us an amazing lot of vintage writing instruments he won in a local estate auction. They included a Wahl-Eversharp 'Fifth Avenue' fountain pen in the "$64 Question" Special Edition (with solid 14KT gold caps and barrel ends!), a Sheaffer 'PFM', a Parker '75' set and a Sheaffer 'Triumph' fountain pen. Bruce also brought another classic vintage fountain pen---an oversized Wahl-Eversharp 'Doric' that belonged to his father.

Continuing with new pen-related acquisitions....

Two beautiful piston-filling pens by PENBBS belonging to Dana (left pen) and Jerred (I think...):

Well-made, beautiful...and affordable!

Some cool Pilot fountain pens! Pilot 'Vanishing Point' (far left) with two Pilot 'Decimo' pens next to it. The Decimo came out after the VP and is a slimmer, lighter version of it:

Brand-new member Candice came with plenty of beautiful fountain pens to show...

...but I think my favourites were her colourful Sailor 'Pro Gear' and Sailor 'Lecoule' pens in the foreground:

Candice's shiny Waterman 'Kultur Reflectics' fountain pens (with matching nail enamel!)...

...all with a lovely iridescent finish that changes the colour of the pen, depending on the light source:

Two gorgeous Visconti pens--Ricardo's Visconti 'Opera Club' (left) and Rohit's Visconti 'Opera Master' Luna Limited Edition (made for Goulet Pens--only 188 pieces made worldwide) :

The 'Opera Master' is a larger pen and uses Visconti's "Double Reservoir Power Filler" system which allows you to transport fountain pens safely during airplane flights (ie. avoiding ink leakages) and also provides an extra reservoir for extended writing sessions.

Melodie's Platinum 'Century 3776' fountain pen in the "Nice Lavande" colour:

JetPens.com's description of this colour: "Inspired by the beautiful fields of lavender that blossom across the French Riviera in early summer, this pen features a transparent purple body complemented by rose gold trim."

Our pen club meetings have a "show & tell" format, where we go around the table and people talk about what they brought for the monthly theme and/or new acquisitions (pens/inks/accessories/paper, etc), which is always our secondary theme (but no worries if you don't have anything to bring for either theme, though!)

Pens are passed around for others to see and/or use (but please ask the owner first :) and, honestly, time seems to fly because we're having a good time...and before you know it...the meeting's over!

Thanks, as always, to everyone who came to the meeting! (whether you brought stuff for the themes, or just yourself :)
Details about the September meeting will be posted later this week...