June meeting photos - part 1

We had a good turnout for our June meeting, held at the Terry Salman branch of the VPL on June 21st. It was game night at Nat Bailey stadium (which I completely forgot) so I apologize for any parking issues members might have had!

Nonetheless, seventeen VPC members (including a brand-new member, Melodie) showed up that night, along with a special guest from London, Ontario---John Parnell, one of the founding members of the very active London Pen Club (who meet weekly!).

Group shot: Back row (L-R) Melodie, Tony, Natasha, Barry, Ricardo, Jim, Jerred, Justin, Christopher, John Parnell, me (Maja) and Stuart. Front row (L-R) Julienne, Dana, Kelley and René. Not pictured: Alejandra and Bill M.

Top group photo taken by Tony's daughter; bottom group pic taken by Melodie.

Our topic for June was "Pens/Pencils made by 2nd-Tier and 3-Tier Vintage Pen Companies" (description of the topic posted here) and I remembered to snap some photos (apologies for the picture quality), so here we go....

(~Click on photos to enlarge~)
Here are a couple of nice examples that René brought in for our meeting theme---a marbled blue British-made vintage Conway Stewart '12' lever-filler (made of casein) and a lovely no-name fountain pen. There's a veritable wealth of information about vintage CS writing instruments here .

Jerred's vintage Platignum fountain pen (top), Barry's Mabie-Todd 'Swan 100/60' fountain pen (middle pen). Jerred also brought in a new acquisition, a glossy black Niole fountain pen with an urushi lacquer finish made in Japan.

Esterbrook was a well-known 2nd/3rd-tier American pen company that produced affordable but well-made fountain pens. Dana brought in two examples---a cute pastel Esterbook 'CH' and a red Esterbook 'J' model. Dana's newest acquisition was this vintage striped Pelikan 400NN (with a great OB-oblique broad-nib!)

Monogram fountain pen made in the late 1930s - early 1940s, brought in by Jim. Monogram was a brand of vintage writing instruments made for the Rexall drugstore chain by several different companies. There's an interesting post about this particular model here, which claims that it was made by Moore, a highly-regard vintage maker of pens.

Stuart brought in several nice examples for our topic, including this brown (or "root beer", as some call the colour) Esterbrook J pen and a pale blue Wearever 'Pennant'.The company promoted the 'Pennant' in ads with the tagline "World's Largest Fountain Pen Manufacturer"! (good article on the 'Pennant' models here)

A multi-coloured Penco 'Pen Jr.'fountain pen belonging to Stuart. According to this source, Penco was a 2nd/3rd-tier sub-brand of Parker (a 1st-tier manufacturer). Some other Parker sub-brands were: Writefine, Safford and others.

A mix of old and new! (top to bottom) Jerred's Alster fountain pen (vintage brand from Germany), Natasha's gorgeous new OMAS 'Bologna' and Stuart's pearl Wearever & Esterbrook J in the grey "icicle' colour. According to Esterbrook.net, Esterbrook made these pin-striped (and harder-to-find) versions later in production.

Newest acquisitions is always our secondary topic and here are two examples that vary wildly in price-Justin's black Wing Sung 618 & Julienne's new Delta 'Dolce Vita' Chatterley Luxuries LE in the beautiful Mahogany colour. I'm sorry I didn't photograph it but Justin also brought in his new Moonman 'Wancai Mini' (a v.cool small FP) & a Franklin-Christoph '45'.

One of Stuart's newest purchases---a British-made Parker 'Duofold'. The pens were made in England and can often be found with really nice nibs. I have a few myself, and I think they're one of the most-underrated Parker pens :) Another of Stuart's new pen-related purchases was a vintage 'Lady' Sheaffer fountain pen (not pictured).

An Epenco (not to be confused with Penco) fountain pen owned by René. Epenco was a sub-brand of the Eagle Pen and Pencil company. There's some good info on this sub-brand here (under "Eagle").

Melodie's beautiful leather pen roll made by The Superior Labor. The roll was made in Japan and is hand-stitched. The line is carried by Wonder Pens in Toronto.

The red pen in the middle of the photo is Melodie's beautiful new Nakaya'Naka-Ai' fountain pen, lovingly handmade in Japan. The Nakaya is flanked by three other beautiful writing instruments---a Parker 'Sonnet' Brown Rubber Lacquer on the left, and two Pelikans (an M805 in Ocean Swirl pattern and an M400 in white tortoise)

More pen cases filled with great pens! This is Jerred's 24-pen vinyl case made by Artist's Loft, filled with some wonderful new acquisitions-- a colourful array of fountain pens made by PENBBS.

This Chinese company has become a fast favourite with some of our members (including myself) with its brightly-coloured acrylic fountain pens in a wide variety of styles.

René's 48-pen case filled with some great 2nd and 3rd-tier vintage pens!
Upper row, from left to right: Esterbrook CX-100 (student pen), Esterbrook J transitional (version 1), 2x Estie J pens, Esterbrook LJ icicle, Wyvern No. 7, Wyvern Perfect Pen No. 81 (1930s version), Wyvern 60C, Wyvern Envoy, Wyvern 404, Wyvern Perfect Pen No. 81 (1950s version), Conway Stewart 12.
Lower row, from left to right: Mabie-Todd Swan 100/60, Mabie-Todd Blackbird, Mabie-Todd Swallow, Waterman Aikin-Lambert Skywriter, Conway-Stewart 388, Moore L-92, Bayard 561, Nova (no model name), Sager Inkmaker (WWII version of the "trench pen"), Uhu Primus, Newark Pen Company Secretary.

Upper row: "Cardinal" (no maker identified) promotional pen, Pioneer, Burnham No. 49, three Arnolds, Osmiroid (?) (no model name), no-name, Streamline (no model name), Foreign (1920s "cheap Chinese pen"), no-name French vintage pen, Spors (crescent-filler).
Lower row: Universal ink-o-graph, Pioneer (no model name), Burnham B48, Mayfair (no model name), no-name, Epenco (Canada, no model name), Wearever (dolphin-nib clone), Wearever (taperite clone), Wearever Zenith, Wearever flat-top, Eclipse Hooded Knight, franken-pen (Waterman body, ?? cap).

Many thanks to René for bringing in so many examples for our topic. I didn't individually photograph the Arnold pens he brought to this meeting, but there's a great photo of them here in this post that Ricardo took at our March meeting.

And speaking of Ricardo...He took some photos (much better than mine!) during our meeting, which I will post a bit later, along with some pics from Christopher and July's meeting photos. Apologies for taking so long to post my own photos!

Many thanks to all who came to the June meeting! It was a pleasure meeting John and chatting with him about our London counterparts :)

Don't forget---there is NO regular meeting this month, just the VPC Members' Summer Dinner on August 16th (tomorrow night)--info is in the group emails I sent to members.
Regular (themed) meetings will resume in September, most likely on our usual third-Thursday of the month (venue and theme: to be announced in a couple of weeks). Very late addition:
I forgot to photograph the 2nd- and 3rd-tier writing instruments I brought so I snapped a couple of quick pics of some of them at home (~click images to enlarge~):

Some of the Wearever writing instruments I own (L-R) Wearever 'De Luxe 100' and matching pencil, three more De Luxe 100s, a 'Supreme' model ca. 1950-51, a 'De Luxe' "Mother of Pearl" (which is a button-filler model, ca. 1940-43), a 'Pioneer', and a 'Lady Fair' (which looks remarkably like a Lady Sheaffer Skripsert model!)
There are some very good Wearever articles (with great photographs) on Penhero.com--the one on the 'Supreme' (which the author called "The poster child of cheapie pens" lol) is here, and the 'De Luxe' "Mother of Pearl" fountain pen here.

Assorted 2nd- and 3rd-tier writing instruments of mine (please ignore the Parker Duofold Jr pencil on the far left---it's a 1-st tier!) Left to Right: woodgrain flat top by Diamond Point, Marxton (sub-brand of Eclipse), no-name combo fountain pen/pencil, Vis-O-Ray (made by Eclipse, I believe), Epenco in gold 'snakeskin', Epenco fountain pen & pencil set, small Diamond Point lever-filler, unmarked mechanical pencil of high quality. Epenco made some fountain pens and pencil using very cool plastics, so even though I don't collect them per se, I have a few in my collection :)