Sunday, November 3, 2024

Newest Acquisitions (Virtual "Show & Tell") ~ part 532

Hope you had a nice Fountain Pen Day last Friday (and a nice weekend, despite this rainy weather). Our next pen club meeting will be held on the evening of Saturday November 23rd at Buchan's Kerrisdale Stationery (details here), so be sure to mark that on your calendars!

Now, here's a brand-new write up about an interesting recent acquisition of Christopher's for your reading pleasure...  

He writes:
"Turning the clock back to the turn of the last century, it seemed that fine jewelers in cities like New York not only supplied writing instrument embellishments, but also manufactured beautiful fountain pens and mechanical pencils. One of these jewelers was George W. Heath, who worked with his brother Alfred. In the beginning, they made a name for their business producing superb gold and sterling fountain pen and pencil overlays. But, time went on, and in 1902 the idea of producing high quality writing instruments was just too tempting to pass up."

(photos courtesy of Christopher ~ please click on images to enlarge)

"The Heath company fountain pens are somewhat rare now, and to get one of their high-end pens both challenging and dear. Still, since I am always turning over stones in the vintage pen department, one such pen came my way, and I have to admit I was a very happy camper. This vintage Heath lovely ticks off all the boxes from stem to stern. So let me put forth the description...

Basically, this is a black hard vulcanized rubber pen with a 14K Gold filled filigree overlay, the effect of which is stunning. An eyedropper with a section that sports a medium writing flexible 14K Gold nib, sitting on top of an early designed feed. As short as the grip section is, the pen's slip-on cap is quite long and substantial. In fact, the pen posts at a lengthy 6 inches but, once capped, stands a good bit shorter at a pocketable 5 1/2 inches. As for the design of the gold overlay, it appears to be extremely Art Nouveau in its overall make up and very finely chased. At the top of this overlay on the barrel is the manufacture's branding and the pen model's name, Heath, Tribute Fountain Pen, with the city of origin, New York, below. The condition of this treasure is near mint, which in turn says a lot for those who used the pen before it came to me. Having said that, I will carry on the tradition by adding it to my vintage pen collection and when using it, respect its age and beauty."

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Happy Fountain Pen Day ~ Friday November 1st!

From the official website: "Taking place on the first Friday in November each year, Fountain Pen Day is celebrated by enthusiasts worldwide as a time to embrace, promote, and share the use of fountain pens."

How will you celebrate Fountain Pen Day this year? Of course, you'll want to /use/ your fountain pens ... but just in case you want/need an excuse to buy a new fountain pen, you might want to consider supporting these local merchants 😉 - Local Pen Stores (updated list). Have a great FPD 2024!

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

November meeting at Buchan's (on a Saturday night) !

(to the tune of the Bay City Rollers' biggest hit)

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night!
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night!
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night!
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night!
😄

November 2024 meeting info:

When: Saturday November 23 from 6:30pm to ???

Where: Buchan's Kerrisdale Stationery, 2141 West 41st Avenue, Vancouver,B.C  The store is located on the north side of West 41st Avenue, half a block west of West Boulevard (Buchan's official website/webstore: https://www.buchanst.com/)

Parking behind the store is very limited, but there's metered parking along West 41st (I think after 6pm it's $1/hour, max. 4 hr.stay)

No topics/themes for this meeting! Please feel free to bring any pen-related stuff you want to show other members/staff while you're mingling at this social event. Our thanks in advance to our generous hosts at Buchan's, who also hosted our October 2023 meeting!

Hope you can make it ~ No need to RSVP!

Thursday, October 24, 2024

October meeting photos - part 2 (Sherman's pics)

A few more photos taken at our October meeting at the VPL's Kensington branch last Saturday (part 1 of photos posted here) ...

(all photos courtesy of Sherman ~ please click on images to enlarge)
Vladan in the middle, flanked by Sherman and myself (Maja). In the background, you can see (left to right) Colin, brand-new member Lyndon (with glasses), David C, Mmina and Anson.

As I mentioned in part 1 of the meeting photos, Sherman and I did a little pen trade at our October meeting--I got the three nice Sheaffer and Cross ballpoints above, in exchange for the élysée fountain pen in the upper right corner of the photo...

Sherman's élysée 'Laque Lapis' collection, including the fountain pen I traded with him (and the matching ballpoint I gave him a few weeks ago), both on the far left

And here are some nice photos Sherman took of the fountain pen he got from me...
It's an élysée 'En Vogue (30 Line) Laque Lapis (1991), and it came in a nice metal box covered with soft felt--classy packaging for this classy German brand!

At first glance, Sherman thought he already owned this model, but when he examined the clip design, he saw that it was an earlier version of one he already had, so he gladly traded me for it. I couldn't believe that he didn't already own this particular model, as I had seen his entire amazing élysée collection at the CFPE picnic last month! (it's in the last three photos of this older blog post)élysée, sadly, went out of business in 2000. Fortunately, though, you can still find some of their elegant writing instruments for sale on the secondary market. For more information on the brand, check out N. Dean Meyer's excellent guide (to which Sherman contributed) here.

Above: All the wonderful writing instruments that Sherman brought to show at our October meeting

Sherman told me that his only new acquistion was a Leonardo stainless steel Bock Stub nib for the Leonardo 'Momento Zero' Turquoise-Green fountain pen he bought from fellow VPC member Skye last November. He mentioned that he's very happy with the new nib, which is his first Leonardo Stub. That pen can be seen (with the rest of Sherman's Leonardo fountain pen collection) in the photo above--it's the fourth pen from the left, on the bottom row. The pens in the lower right corner are Sherman's Pilot Custom 743 Black & Pilot Vanishing Point Matte Black fountain pens.


The attaché briefcase is one that Sherman has been bringing to our meetings ever since he joined our pen club in 2020 (note the spotless white cotton gloves that he wears to protect writing instruments he brings to sell or trade :) Sherman told me that his briefcase is from the late 1990s (which some might consider "vintage", esp. with the rise in popularity of soft-sided folio/satchel-style briefcases), but that it was still in such great condition that he decided to keep using it.

As we didn't have a formal "show & tell", our October meeting was a good opportunity to sell/trade inks --in bottles, ink vials or cartridges. Sherman said the clear box + prescription vials was his new set-up for his ink cartridges (and yes, those are all the cartridges he owns!).


At our "unstructured" meetings (casual get-togethers, like October's), our members are encouraged to bring writing instruments they want to show others, and they can be new pens or old, favourites or daily writers, singles or sets. For our October meeting, Sherman brought three sets of his "quads"---writing instrument sets of four-- to show us, starting with the Cross 'Classic Century' (aka 'Century I') Chrome set below...About this Cross set above, Sherman writes: "For the Cross Classic Century Chrome, there is a bit of a story.  My late Mom gifted the Porous pen (the top pen--a type of felt-tip pen--ed. note) to me when I went back to Hong Kong from Ottawa.  I did not like it that much at that time as it’s not the same as a rollerball (I was ignorant, for sure), but now, reminiscing about my lovely mom, I am passionate about it. Therefore, I sought the rest of the series, starting with the fountain pen."

Above: Sherman's élysée Parthenon (10 Line) Bi-Colour Platinum & 18K Gold quad set. He noted that the “rollingball” (élysée's term for "Rollerball") pen & mechanical pencil were swapped from the original fountain and ballpoint pens, respectively.

Some bottled ink Sherman brought to the meeting to trade (don't worry if you missed it--we'll be having another Ink Swap in December!)

And last, but certainly not least, Sherman's handsome Waterman Carène Black Sea Lacquer GT set!

Many thanks to Sherman for sharing his collection (and excellent photos of it) with us!


(~blog post by Maja~)

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

October meeting photos - part 1

Not even an atmospheric river could deter 24 Vancouver Pen Club members (and a guest from the U.S) from attending our October meeting at the Kensington branch of the Vancouver Public Library on Saturday October 19th!

It was a busy meeting for me, as we had a record-breaking NINE new pen club members (Carola, Catherine, Cynthia, Jenn, Kenneth, Lisa, Lyndon, Lynne, and Rebecca) and one visitor (Loren) in attendance for this casual Fall get-together. I remembered to snap a few photos, so here they are....

(photos by me, Maja ~ please click on images to enlarge)

Photo above: (left to right) Carola, Anson, Paul, Jerred, Loren, David C, Asifa, Sam, Kenneth (I think!), Lisa (seated, with toque), Amy (back to camera), Bruce, Rebecca and Esther (far right of photo).

We didn't have a theme for our October meeting, but I think everyone had a good time. It was the first time we used this VPL branch's meeting room. The room had a lot of windows, and if the weather wasn't so awful, we would have had excellent lighting for all the ink swatching going on
😁

Above: Brand-new member Carola and Anson. Anson brought along several wonderful examples of his own handmade Springfield Pens fountain pens (in his grey pen case above) and Carola brought a lovely assortment of modern fountain pens, including a cool handmade Skogsy Pens fountain pen (which I'd always admired, but had never seen in person).

Above: Two more brand-new members --Catherine (left) and Rebecca (middle)-- sitting with longtime member Dana!

Dana brought along some great fountain pens to show --(left to right): a Kyuseido 'Kakari FS Titanium' fountain pen, six lovely Pelikans, a couple of black Pilot fountain pens, a PenBBS 456 "Lemon Cookie Sandwich" fountain pen, a Pilot 'Vanishing Point' and a fountain pen by Franklin-Christoph.

Sherman arrived late, but I had a good time chatting with him....

...and we even did a little pen trading! (see photo above)  I filled a couple of gaps in his amazing élysée collection (more on that in part 2 of the meeting photos) and I got three very nice modern ballpoints from him in exchange --a black Cross 'Townsend' (upper left), a dark green Sheaffer 'Award' and a chrome Cross 'Century II'  (I just noticed my inadvertent "shadow puppetry" in the photo above --it looks a shadow dog on the far left lol)
Vladan (left) and Colin had a good time at the meeting. I traded some Blackwing wooden pencils with Colin and we both filled gaps in our respective Blackwing collections :)

 

Many thanks to everyone who braved the torrential rain to come to our October meeting! Sorry I didn't have time to take photos of everyone's pens, but part 2 of the meeting pics --courtesy of Sherman-- will be featured in the next blog post tomorrow. I hope you can make it to our next meeting (in November)--details will be posted here on our website soon!
Cheers,
~Maja.

Monday, October 21, 2024

Newest Acquisitions (Virtual "Show & Tell") ~ part 531

Many thanks to everyone who came to our October meeting last Saturday! I'll post some photos in the next couple of days, but in the meantime, enjoy this write-up about Christopher's newest vintage find!

(photo courtesy of Christopher ~ please click on image to enlarge)
Christopher writes:

"Being mainly based in Western Canada, British vintage pens do show up in my neck of the woods. Case in point, a superb Parker 'Super' 17 Duofold, new old store stock in a very attractive presentation box, Circa 1964. What is interesting about this particular vintage pen is its overall makeup. And allow me to add that unlike its Super 17 Duofold predecessor from two years prior, it sports a hooded 14K Gold nib and at the end of the barrel, a gold tassie with matching (to the overall jet finish cap, section and barrel) jewel. This is an injection molded pen, but I think the quality of the plastic the Parker Company used makes up for any lack of quality. Plus, this writing instrument really sits well balanced in the hand. The fittings are 14K Gold filled and the slip-on cap sports a very wide gold banding. Also, the cap clip was a new design, in that there are more tapered feathers at the top end, but the overall length of the arrow is shorter. All in all, a very well-designed vintage pen. 

This brings me to the filler, which is definitely aerometric with a transparent ink sack. As for dimensions, this pen posts at 5 ¾ inches but caps back to 5 ½ inches. There is very conservative branding on the barrel in cream that reads, "17 Super" with, further up the barrel, an M for a medium nib. There is also a reference to the pen's place of manufacture -- 'Made in England'--  at the Parker Newhaven plant, and the 1958 released Parker double 'P' back-to-back with an upwards arrow and center halo logo etched into the barrel as well. This logo was, in fact, designed by the Dynamics Company of Chicago.

This brings me to the superb British made presentation box. It has a cream satin insert card to secure the pen. But the covering material on both the inside and the outside of the box lid is an attractive small, pebbled cream offset with small black dots. Also, on the outside of this box top is the Parker name in scripted gold. The bottom of this box is reversed in design with an overall small, pebbled jet covering with small light blue dots. On the top left corner there is L4, which could be the British Parker model of this particular pen container. The box overall is extremely well made, and the fit of the hinged top is superb.

Big points for this UK treasure which has already found favour in my vintage pen collection."

Our thanks to Christopher for sharing this handsome vintage Parker fountain pen with us! For more information on the Parker '17' fountain pen line, check out this informative article - link.

Thursday, October 17, 2024

Next meeting -- this *Saturday* !

Date: SATURDAY October 19, 2024
Time: 11:30 AM to 2:00PM
Location: The Branch Meeting Room of the Vancouver Public Library's KENSINGTON branch, 1428 Cedar Cottage Mews, Vancouver, BC (map).

Meeting themes: New Acquisitions, Ink Swap (including ink vial samp
les!) & Socializing 😀 (~ no "show & tell" for this meeting ~ ink swap is 100% voluntary ~)

Hope you can make it! (no need to RSVP in advance). Any questions? Please contact us at: vancouverpenclub@gmail.com

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

New stuff! (from the Vancouver Pelikan Hub & Buchan's)

Happy October! Here's a quick shot of some very recent acquisitions -- a bottle of Pelikan Edelstein "Lapis Blue" ink and a Pelikan notepad from last Friday's Pelikan Hubs event in Vancouver (both were gifts from Pelikan to registered Hub attendees), a bottle of KWZ "Brown-Pink" ink I won as a Hub door prize 😀 (courtesy of Nikaido; the Vancouver Pen Shop also donated inks), and a Lamy Safari "Pina Colada" fountain pen & bottle of Pelikan 'Royal Blue' ink I purchased at Buchan's Kerrisdale Stationery just before the Hub lol.

Our Hubmaster (Vladan) did a great job organizing the Vancouver Pelikan Hub (thank you again, Vladan!). He posted photos from it here on the official Pelikan Hubs Facebook group, and our fellow Vancouver Pelikan Hub attendee Sherman posted his own pics here on the Canadian Fountain Pen Enthusiasts Facebook group (they're both private Facebook groups, so if you aren't on Facebook, you can view Sherman's photos on Dropbox here and the photos I took on my Instagram here).

I met a lot of nice folks at this year's Vancouver Pelikan Hub who weren't in our pen club. If you're one of them (or if you didn't attend the Hub, but would like to join our club :), you're very welcome to attend any of our pen club's meetings--just drop in (no RSVPs required) and see what we're all about! Our next meeting is on Saturday October 19 at the Kensington branch of the Vancouver Public Library from 11:30am - 2:00pm (full details in this post). Hope you can make it!

Best wishes,
~Maja

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Some photos from our September meeting!

Thank you to everyone who came out to the Vancouver Public Library's Terry Salman branch last Thursday for our September meeting! It started out a bit chaotic --the building's fire alarms went off shortly after the meeting started, so we had to evacuate the library. It was a pleasant evening, but some of the people waiting outside with us had to leave the community center's swimming pool in their bathing suits :( After we were allowed back in, our pen club meeting resumed, and things went very smoothly.

We had a total of 15 people in attendance (including three brand-new members --Allan, Rosa, Vincent) for the meeting, whose primary topic was
"Underrated Fountain Pens" .  I snapped some photos of the stuff our members brought, so without further ado, here they are!

(all photos by me, Maja ~ please click on images to enlarge)

Newcomer Vincent brought along this wonderful Pilot 'Custom Legance Marble' celluloid (or Pilot-branded Namiki Impressions) fountain pen. I forgot to snap a photo of it, but Vincent also brought in his Pilot 'Heritage 91' with #5 nib, as one of his choices for underrated fountain pens.

New member Rosa brought her own gorgeous fountain pen, this Pelikan 'M600 White Tortoise' in the above photo (actually, I'm not sure if it's a M600 or M400, but the nib on it wrote very smoothly when I tried it). The third newcomer at our September meeting -- Allan--- actually attended our August meetup at the Vancouver Pen Shop, but he hadn't joined the club yet. Allan mentioned being a big fan of the TWSBI 'Eco' fountain pen.

Speaking of TWSBIs ... VPCer Oscar brought along his TWSBI 'Vac700R' Kyanite (above) as an example of an underrated fountain pen. Oscar also had high praise for his beloved Pilot Custom 823 fountain pen.

Paul brought these two Pilot 'Metropolitan' fountain pens (above) for our primary topic, as well as a couple of cool new acquisitions ---two Livescribe Smartpens!

Stuart brought along three examples of underrated fountain pens---(L-R, above) his Cross 'Apogee', Sheaffer 'Taranis' and Faber-Castell 'e-Motion' pens...

... and Jerred brought his Online 'Vision' "Nature Style Rosewood" (far left) as his example of an underrated fountain pen model. Jerred mentioned that Online fountain pens (which are German-made) are available in a wide variety of nib widths, another reason to give this overlooked brand a second look.

Our secondary meeting topic is always "Newest Acquisitions". The white fountain pen in the middle is Jerred's new Jinhao '10' (the newest member of the "Pilot Vanishing Point Fan Club" 😂), while the shiny black ebonite fountain pen next to it is another new purchase of his.

Above: David C. brought this Parker '21' (a model I was thinking of bringing!) for our primary topic. He also brought in an all-plastic fountain pen that strongly resembles a Parker 'VS' (but it might be a 'VS' clone--David's not sure), and a later version of a Wearever 'Pacemaker".


At the meeting, Grant told us that he brought the oldest and newest (by manufacturing date) pens in his collection --- the vintage Conklin 'Crescent-Filler' (ca. 1909) above...

...and this modern Conklin 'Crescent-Filler'. Grant (who's a big vintage pen fan) later told me that the modern Crescent-filler has been his daily writer for over a month! He commended Conklin for resurrecting their crescent-filling mechanism with this model, rather than using a cartridge/converter filling mechanism.

Above: David's Parker '21' and a new acquisition belonging to James--a handsome standard-sized Parker 'Vacumatic' "Burgundy Pearl" Lockdown-filler that he bought at the recent San Francisco Pen Show.

Above: At the pen show, James also acquired this exquisite red ripple ebonite Safety Pen. It's next to Stuart's cool mid-century modern Parker desk set, which consists of a cube-shaped base made of solid aluminum and a ballpoint desk pen.

Shona didn't leave the SF Pen Show empty-handed, either (although she and James said it was a very busy show, with a lot of vendors selling out of some items by Sunday) - at the pen show, she acquired this stunning Sailor x YouSTYLE 'Professional Gear Slim' "Hamachidori" Limited Edition. Hamachidori is the Japanese name for the plover, a small wading bird, seen in gold on the pen's cap and barrel.

More new acquisitions! These are Asifa's beautiful new Lamy 'Studio' "Royal Red" fountain pen and her vintage brushed stainless steel Parker '180', a dual-sided fountain pen; both pens were gifts/trades from her friend (and our fellow VPC member) Renz!

The pens on the far right are two Cross Century Classic (or Century I) fountain pens that I brought in for our primary topic, while the rest are my newer acquisitions (L-R): Radius 1934 'Settimo' "Cielo Blu", Cross 'All-American' "Courage", a Karas Pen Co. "INK V2" in white Delrin, a red Jinhao 51A with a 0.7 mm factory italic nib (a great deal for under $3 CAD shipped!), an Ensso 'Bolt' capless fountain pen, a Retro 51 rollerball "Harriet Tubman" edition, a Cross 'Clic' ballpoint/stylus, and a vintage Sheaffer 'Reminder' ballpoint I got from Paul in July. The ink sample above is the official 2024 SF Pen Show ink---Colorverse's "San Francisco Bay" -- which I got from James & Shona (thank you both again!).

The eye-catching green, yellow and white fountain pen above my pen case is one that I purchased from fellow VPCer Anson during our meeting, a kitless fountain pen he made himself under his Springfield Pens brand! 😊 On his official website, Anson called the pen "Green Beach", but it's made of a polyurethane resin called "Aspen Valley". No matter the name, it's a gorgeous, well-made fountain pen with the Springfield Pens hummingbird logo engraved on it  ---a lovely touch. Thank you again, Anson, for this very special fountain pen!

Rene, as usual, brought in lot of interesting fountain pens for us to see! In the top row of the photo above are his vintage Wearever 'De Luxe 100' fountain pens, one of Rene's under-rated fountain pen models. For a modern example of an underrated model, Rene brought in some Sheaffer '100' fountain pens, including the "Friends of Winter" special edition line (not shown in photos).

There are also some Wearever sub-brands (such as Arnold, in the top row above) in Rene's pen case, as well as some Parker look-alikes (in the bottom row, above). Rene also showed us his newest acquisitions--a green Rotary fountain pen, a Gold Starry (?), an Eagle in a wonderful blue and gold plastic, a Parker Challenger, and a Wearever 'Pioneer' - that he acquired at the CFPE picnic earlier this month.

Many thanks to everyone who came to our September meeting, whether you brought in lots of pens to show, a few pens, or no pens at all -- the main thing is that you brought yourself and your enthusiasm for our hobby!

We look forward to seeing you at our October meeting on Saturday October 19th from 11:30am to 2:00pm at the Kensington VPL branch, which is a brand-new venue for our club---full info in the previous blog post!

Best wishes for a happy Autumn,
~Maja

Saturday, September 21, 2024

October meeting info (*New date & time! New venue!)

Date: SATURDAY October 19, 2024
Time: 11:30 AM to 2:00PM
Location: The Branch Meeting Room of the Vancouver Public Library's KENSINGTON branch, 1428 Cedar Cottage Mews, Vancouver, BC (map).

Meeting themes: New Acquisitions, Ink Swap (voluntary) + Socializing
😀
(no "show & tell" for this meeting!)

This will be our very first meeting at the VPL's Kensington branch, so I hope you can make it! (no need to RSVP in advance)
Any questions? Please contact us at: vancouverpenclub@gmail.com