Friday, January 27, 2017

National Handwriting Day

Well, National Handwriting Day (which always falls on January 23rd) has come and gone, but I'm really glad I had the chance to put these two beauties to use on that occasion---a Sheaffer ballpoint desk set with a lovely onyx base, and a gorgeous Signum 'Nova' fountain pen in Cinnamon, both very recent acquisitions (~Click on images to enlarge~):


You don't need to use a fancy desk set or write with an expensive fountain pen; this Pelikan 'Style' fountain pen writes smoothly with a well-made steel nib and cost <$22 USD (and I love how the white trim complements the black pen body):

Many thanks to Pendemonium for the Sheaffer desk set, longtime Pentrace & Fountain Pen Network member "ArchiMark" for the Signum, and eBayer "thestationerystore" for the Pelikan!

Thursday, January 26, 2017

New venue for February 2017 meeting! (meeting # 100 !!)

I can't believe our club is coming up to meeting #100---wow, times flies! Anyway, here are the FEBRUARY MEETING DETAILS:

When: Thursday February 16, 2017 (ie. we're back to our usual third Thursday of the month)

Where: the TERRY SALMAN branch of the Vancouver Public Library at 4575 Clancy Loranger Way (on the lower level of the Hillcrest Community Center) in central Vancouver (near Queen Elizabeth Park). The meeting will take place in their Community Room (meeting room).

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

Theme: ESTERBROOK writing instruments (including fountain pens, desk pens, ballpoints, pencils and dip pens)....and INK SWAP! (the ink swap is 100% voluntary, and partially-filled ink bottles & ink cartridges are acceptable for trade). This will be our 100th VPC meeting and we've never done Esterbrooks before, so I will give a short talk on the topic (I'm not an expert, just a fan) illustrated with some photos. As usual Newest Acquisitions is our secondary topic. There is excellent info on Esterbrooks here:
Profile of the Model J series family of pens.
Profile of the Dollar pens.
Full Esterbrook model history site.

HOW TO GET TO THE LIBRARY:

For those of you taking transit, take the #33 Bus (which says "29th Avenue Station/UBC" on it) that leaves from the SW corner of Cambie & King Edward (ie. directly across the street from the Canada Line "King Edward" Skytrain station) and that bus will take you right to Hillcrest Park, where the Hillcrest Community Center (and library) is located. The bus leaves every 10 minutes during rush hour. The library stop is only 3 stops away---ie. after leaving the Cambie & King Edward stop, the next stop will be Cambie & 27th, then Cambie & 29th, and then the Hillcrest Community Center stop (where you should exit). For those of you driving, there is free parking at the Hillcrest Community Center (oh, and there's a nice snack bar at the Center :)
Hope you can make it to the February meeting! No need to RSVP, and if you don't have any Esterbrooks or New Acquisitions to show, please come anyway!

Monday, January 16, 2017

Recent Acquisitions

A lovely bright red Waterman 'Ici et La' fountain pen from my good friend Glenn in Australia, and a glossy black Italix 'Parson's Essential' (fitted with a great Medium Stub nib) from MrPen in the United Kingdom!
(~ click on images to enlarge ~)

Friday, January 6, 2017

November 2016 meeting photos (finally!)

We had good attendance at the November meeting, held at the Oakridge branch of the Vancouver Public Library; 14 members (Maja, Bruce, Ralph, Glenn M, Harry, Jerred, Christopher, Peter, Stanley, Stuart, June, Bart and newcomers Jenny and Sandra) were on hand to show their new acquisitions and black fountain pens (the latter being November's theme).

Without further ado, here are some of the pens we saw (apologies to those whose pens I forgot to photograph!)~ ~ ~ Click on photos to enlarge ~ ~ ~

Jerred's nice collection of black fountain pens, and two recent acquisitions on the right (a clear Wing Sung 698 and a blue LingMo 'Lorelei' model). The black pens are (L-R): Levenger 'Facets', Waterman 'Charleston', Pilot '912', Rotring 'Esprit', Pilot Custom (model FK-700R), Pilot Seremo (model FCM-500R), Delta 'Markiaro' and Duke 116 (Carbon Fiber):
The first half of Stuart's black pen collection---the black fountain pens are (L-R) TWSBI 'Eco', mystery pen , Sheaffer 'PFM', Sheaffer 'Valor', Sheaffer '100' in the "Friends of Winter--Pine" design, Sheaffer Snorkel (or Touchdown ??), and a Sheaffer 'Taranis'---and some newer acquisitions:
Part two of Stuart's black FP collection (black pens from L-R are: Waterman 'Expert', Kaweco 'Dia2', mystery pen & Montblanc 146) and some cool recent purchases, including a Faber-Castell 'E-Motion' fountain pen in Parquet Resin Brown--a pen model that has a wonderful steel nib (I own one, too!):
Ralph's fine examples of both vintage (Sheaffer PFM in the foreground, Sheaffer Targa in the box on the left) and modern MB Boheme in the box on the right) black fountain pens :
An interesting "Frankenpen" (pen made with parts from various pen models/manufacturers) that Harry brought in. It was put together by a friend of his and sports a vintage Parker 'Duofold' Streamline cap and barrel, a Soennecken clip and a nice vintage Wahl-Eversharp nib:
Here's that W-E nib...
Bruce's collection of black fountain pens---Italian beauties by Visconti (an 'Istos Aracnis' Limited Edition, a 'Divina', and a Limited Edition 'Australis' in the Opera Master design) and OMAS (old-style 'Paragon'), with a couple of German classics by Montblanc (a '146') and Pelikan (an M800) and a Bexley 'Americana' thrown in :)....
Part of my (Maja's) black fountain pen collection (hey, I've been collecting for more than 15 years :)
More black fountain pens of mine...
My parents' vintage Kaweco fountain pens in my Mom's old pen case (she kept that small photo of my Dad in it):
Glenn Marcus' great black fountain pen collection--part 1:
Part 2 of Glenn's collection:
Our secondary topic is always Newest Acquisitions. Here's a hard-to-find older Visconti ink that Bruce managed to acquire recently:
A Sheaffer Triumph that Christopher found in an antique shop, a great vintage find:
Christopher was kind enough to send me some photos (of pens he brought to the meeting) to post on our site: