Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Next VPC meeting on Thursday November 19th!

Date: Thursday November 19, 2009.
Time: 6:00pm-6:30pm (time to get food and "meet & greet"); 6:30pm-8:30pm meeting.
Location: Perks pen store---5844 Cambie Street (@ 42^nd Ave.) in Vancouver, BC.

The theme for this meeting will be "SPECIAL NIBS", which means Stub nibs, Oblique nibs, Italic nibs & Music nibs. Many of you have been asking for this topic, so I hope we get a good turnout at the meeting!
Our secondary theme is always "NEWEST ACQUISITIONS", so if you have any new writing-instrument-related acquisitions such as pens, paper, ink, etc. please bring them along.

This will be the last meeting for 2009 as we do not hold meetings in December due to people's busy holiday schedules, but we will resume meetings in January 2010 (on the third Thursday of the month, as per usual)
.
Many thanks, as always, to Perks' owner Richard Clarke, for his gracious hospitality.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

BIG things in store for our next meeting!

Well, it's almost time for another meeting of the VPC, so here are the details:

DATE: Thursday October 15, 2009 (this coming Thursday).
TIME: 6:00pm-6:30pm (time to get food and "meet & greet"); 6:30pm-8:30pm meeting (approx.)
PLACE: Perks pen shop at 5844 Cambie Street (@ 42nd Ave.) in Vancouver, across from Oakridge Mall and conveniently located near the "Oakridge" Skytrain "Canada Line" station.
THEME : BIG pens .....so bring the largest pens from your collection. Don't have any? Then bring along your latest pen-related acquisition from this past summer or fall----some new ink, a new pen, some fancy new stationery, etc. If you don't have anything that fits these categories, come anyway---there will be lots of stuff to see and discuss!

*Update*-some photos from the October 15th meeting:





We had a good turnout---in total, 14 writing equipment enthusiasts showed up, including first-timers Leo C. from Edmonton and Loan's husband, Gordon. Thanks to all who attended!

Upcoming Seattle Pen Club meeting in Bellingham, WA

Our neighbours to the south in the Seattle Pen Club will be having their October meeting in Bellingham, Washington this month and the Vancouver Pen Club is invited to attend. Actually, anyone and everyone is welcome to attend *any* SPC meeting, so please pass this information along to anyone in the Bellingham/Seattle area who is interested.

The meeting will be held on Saturday October 17, 2009 at the Bellingham Public Market at 1530 Cornwall Avenue, from 10:00 am - 1:00pm (approximately). Meeting themes: (a) Pens connected with "9" years: 1909, 1919, 1929, etc. (or, as close as you can come, (b) because Hallowe'en is coming, bring along your most "blood red" pen or ink, or the same in a "pumpkin orange" shade. Snakes on pens would be nice and (c) the usual show and tell of new acquisitions and pens you'd like to sell or trade. Also, if you have ink you'd like to swap or sell, bring a bottle or two.

This is a great chance to meet some super-nice pen people and see some great writing instruments. Not to mention a chance to do some shopping in the U.S while the Canadian dollar is strong :)

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Delta Dolcevita?

Does anyone in the club have a Delta Dolcevita OS, Medium, or piston filler that they could bring to the October meeting? I've been pondering picking up one of the aforementioned next month but I haven't seen them in stores here so I've never had the opportunity to handle one, and with the OS's section being as wide as it is I'd like to make sure it's comfortable for me before I go plunking down a bunch of money.

Thanks.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Some photos from our September 2009 meeting

We had a good turnout for our September 17th meeting. A grand total of 10 members (including 3 newcomers--Loan, Bruce R. and Vikram, who was visiting from Seattle) showed up and a good time was had by all. Our next meeting will be held on Thursday October 15th at 6:30pm, at the usual place--Perks pen store by Oakridge Mall. Topic/theme: TBA.

Many thanks to everyone who attended the first VPC meeting of the season last Thursday, and to our host Richard Clarke, who generously donated a Cross inkwell set for our door prize draw (which was won by Vikram!).


(Photo taken by Richard--From L-R: Vikram, Loan, Michael, Maja)


(Photo taken by Richard--From L-R: Ryan, Loan, Michael, Bruce)


(Photo taken by Richard--From L-R: Ryan, Loan, Ian (back to camera), Michael, Maja, Vikram). Not pictured: Bruce, Brian, Graham, Richard.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Start of a New (pen club) Season!


Our next meeting will be as follows:
Date: Thursday 17 September 2009

Time: 6:00pm-6:30pm (time to get food and "meet & greet"); 6:30pm-8:30pm meeting (approx.)

Location: Perks pen store---5844 Cambie Street (@ 42nd Ave.) in Vancouver, across from Oakridge Centre mall.


The theme for this meeting will be "AUTUMN PENS" (thanks to Graham for the suggestion!), so please bring any brown, yellow, red and/or orange pens (or combination thereof) you would like to show, and/or any new or old writing-instrument-related acquisitions such as pens, paper, ink, etc.

For the 2009/2010 meeting year, we will continue to meet at Perks on the third Thursday of every month from September through May (no meeting in December). Many thanks, as always, to Perks' owner Richard Clarke, for his gracious hospitality.

Looking forward to seeing all of you at our meeting next Thursday!
~Maja

Saturday, August 15, 2009

My latest...

Here's my latest acquisition, a Montblanc 146 with a 1.0mm Minuskin cursive italic that I got in a trade with another FPNer.


It's about what I was looking for - a broader italic in a body easier to hold for a long time than my VP. I look forward to showing it off in September!

(Apologies for the slightly-fuzzy picture - trying to handhold in room light.)

Sunday, May 31, 2009

However did I manage without one?





















Here's pride of place on my desk right now - a Parker desk pen, sent me by my good friend Glenn. (You can find him as Eccles, at FPN.) The base, unfortunately, isn't the original, which broke in transit, but with a little engineering this marble replacement fitted nicely to the pen holder. It's in perfect working order, a good writer (a 51?), and I don't know why these ever lost popularity because it's really the ideal way of keeping a fountain pen on your desk - always in place, and never rolling away under papers. Perry Mason had one of these in his office too, in those 1950s TV shows. What better recommendation? "Della, what was that phone number again? And get Paul Drake in here right away..."






Friday, May 1, 2009

VPC to Celebrate End of Third Season

Dear Pen Enthusiasts,

The third season of the Vancouver Pen Club is coming to an end. We will hold our last meeting of the 2008/09 meeting season with a party to which everyone is invited.

Date: Thursday 21 May 2009
Time: Six O'Clock pm
Location: Moxie's Classic Grill 1160 Davie Street in Downtown Vancouver's West End

You're welcome to bring a guest or two. Please rsvp to Tim Conklin at wordgauge7000@gmail.com by May 14th.

Friday, April 17, 2009

See VPC Photos as a Flickr.com Slideshow.

As some of you may know, I enjoy posting my photos on a photo sharing website called Flickr. If you click here, you will be taken to a slideshow of my VPC photos. I invite you to give it a try.

Mike Assaly Poses with Japanese Disposables




Derek Lepper (Left) and Maja Furlong (Right) are not the Japanese disposables referred to in the title.

Mike Assaly





Mike Assaly

Originally uploaded by Tim Conklin












These photos are from our January meeting where Michael Assaly gave a fantastic presentation on fountain pen designers. Thanks Mike.

Some of the Members from the April 16th Meeting


Maja's Pen Repair Toolset


Maja Furlong Demonstrates Pen Repair



We certainly enjoyed Maja's presentation. Thanks Maja.

Bill & Suzanne Spohn, Ian Dixon, and Mike Assaly

These folks were very interested in what Maja was saying at Thursday's meeting.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

A Photo of my Newest Acquisition


You will see this pen and the paper at Thursday's pen club meeting.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

April meeting details


Date: Thursday April 16, 2009 (this Thursday)
Time: 6:00 pm --"Meet & Greet" ; 6:30 pm --Start of meeting.
Place: Perks pen shop, 5844 Cambie St. (at 42nd Ave.), Vancouver, B.C.
(across from Oakridge Mall...same place as last month's meeting)

Theme: Vintage Pen Repairs (an informal talk on some vintage fountain pen repairs by me)

I won't be doing any demos with unrestored pens (too stressful!) but I will be bringing the tools I have used to resac my own lever-fillers, button-fillers, Touchdown fillers, and Snorkel-fillers, as well as examples of my own (restored) pens to show you how easy (or difficult, as the case may be!) it is to repair these common types of vintage pens. I do not have experience with restoration of Parker Vacumatics, piston-fillers or vacuum-filler pens (eg. Sheaffer vac-fillers) but if anyone else does and wishes to contribute his/her knowledge, he/she is most welcome to do so at the meeting!

Our secondary theme is always "New Acquisitions", so if you have any new pens/paper/inks to show, please bring them along. Hope to see a good turnout!

Edit: I added a photo Richard took of me giving my "little" (1 hour!) talk on vintage pen repair. As you can see, we are very fortunate to have the use of Richard's wonderful Perks pen store for our meetings; it is an elegant setting with an abundance of good lighting, wonderful pen displays and plenty of counter space (of which you can never get enough, when it comes to pen club meetings!). Many thanks, as always, Richard for being such a great host.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Greetings from Paris

Dear Pen Enthusiasts,

I'm in Paris right now enjoying a week of holidays before returning to Vancouver. The weather is great. I'm doing all of the usual tourist things. Today is a big day because I'm going to Cassegrain to buy some nice expensive French stationery. I'll drop a postcard in the mail. See you all at the next meeting. Cheers! -- Tim

Sunday, March 22, 2009

March 19, 2009 VPC meeting



We had a good turnout at last Thursday's meeting at Perks pen store---three new members showed up, and we had many nice green pens to admire (as evidenced by the pens displayed on the counter in the photo above--> click on photo to enlarge)
From L-R: Ian, Brian, Maja (myself), Richard (in mirror's reflection---he's the one taking the photo), Mike, Barry, Charles, Bill K and Glenn. Missing from photo: Bill S. & wife Suzanne (who had to leave early). Many thanks to all who showed up; I hope we get an equally good turnout for the April meeting. Please check the website for further details early next month.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Top O' the Mornin'! (VPC March meeting announcement)


Our next meeting will be held this coming Thursday---details below:

Date: Thursday March 19th, 2009
Time: 6:00 pm --"Meet & Greet" ; 6:30 pm --start of meeting.
Place: Perks pen shop, 5844 Cambie St. (at 42nd), Vancouver, B.C.
(across from Oakridge Mall...same place as last month's meeting)
Theme: Green pens & green inks (in honour of St. Patrick's Day).
If you have any eco-friendly/"green" paper (ie. the Staples "Eco-Friendly" paper reviewed by Graham in a recent blog post here), please feel to bring that, too. Among other pens I will be bringing is my green English Parker Duofold (pictured above).

Our secondary theme is always "New Acquisitions", so if you have any new pens/paper/inks to show, please bring them along. Hope to see a good turnout!

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Buy, Sell & Trade!


If any VPC members have any pens/ink/paper/other writing instrument-related items they would like to buy, sell or trade amongst themselves, please post your item(s) in the Comments section of this post.


I've set up a permanent link to this post in our links list (on the far left of the homepage), so check back frequently to see what new items are added...or better yet---sign up for free email alerts to new blog posts or comments (online form is on our homepage, above the big red Perks logo)

**Please note: this is a VPC club members-only area and any spam and/or solicitations from non-members will be removed immediately. Thank you for your cooperation!**

Monday, February 16, 2009

Exchanging and test-driving inks

Pop quiz! Who can spot the difference between the two vials in the photograph?

Ok, so obviously one has a blue cap and one has a white cap; the one with the blue cap has markings indicating the volume in mL as well as a tapered bottom to accomodate filling even when the ink levels are low; the one with the white cap has a label indicating the brand and colour (the one on the left, incidentally, is Noodler's Blue Upon the Plains of Abraham, made for Sleuth & Statesman in Toronto. When are we going to get a custom ink from Noodler's for Perks, eh? ;)

What won't be obvious to anyone except for me and perhaps a fellow in Cambridge, ON, is that the vial on the left cost over $11.04 to cross this great nation of ours, while the vial on the right, a mere $1.38. That's right, if you were to participate in an ink exchange within Canada, sending a single vial could set you back over $11 (and that's not including the cost of the padded envelope). Strangely, it costs less to send the same vial to the States.

This didn't really sit right with me, and it didn't sit right with dimeotane on the Fountain Pen Network, either. So he decided to do something about it. After I chose one of his inks to try out, he sent out the vial (plus an empty one for me to send back with one of my inks, as I'm fresh out of vials) taped with a bit of painter's tape and placed in a zippered baggie, sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard, and stuck in a plain lettermail envelope with three 46 cent stamps (the cost for oversized/irregular mail up to 100g is actually $1.18, but that's ok). And the vials arrived intact, not a drop spilled and not a tear in the envelope. Now it's my turn to send back his choice of ink (Noodler's Eternal Brown, in case you were wondering) and the little experiment is complete!

Of course, this got me thinking, sending out samples of ink is all very fine and well, but I'm pretty sure that the local members probably have a good selection of inks as well. So I'm going to post a link to my ink list on my profile, and if anyone wants to try any of my inks, I'll bring them along to the next meeting. I'll be updating my list as I get more inks, and I invite everyone else to post their list and participate as well!


February meeting details

Date: Thursday February 19th, 2009 (this Thursday)
Time: 6:00 pm --"Meet & Greet" ; 6:30 pm --start of meeting.
Place: Perks pen shop, 5844 Cambie St. (at 42nd), Vancouver, B.C
Theme: Ephemera (in this case: pen store displays, posters, print ads, pamphlets, catalogs, etc.)

Our secondary theme is always "New Acquisitions", so if you have any new pens/paper/inks to show, please bring them along.
Hope to see a good turnout! :)

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Quo Vadis Trinote Agenda Planning Diary

Well, this review is terribly overdue, but a few months back, the lovely folks at Quo Vadis put out a call for reviewers for their diaries and planners. I signed up, but thought I'd gotten overlooked or forgotten in the crowd of eager volunteers as I saw the reviews start to roll in, while my own free planner was nowhere in sight... Turns out our good friends at Canada Post and possibly Canada Customs (and I suppose, the busy Christmas season) were to blame, as I did eventually receive my Trinote, several weeks after the postmarked date. That's life, I suppose. Anyway, I've had a chance to use the Trinote planner for a few weeks now, and here are my impressions.


First of all, the Trinote comes in a few different cover options- I received the black soya, but there's also colourful vinyl and " Club" covers, as well as Chelsea and Nappa leather. The covers are reusable/refillable, so if you were to buy the (presumably more expensive) leather covers, you can just buy the refills or a (possibly cheaper) vinyl covered planner in subsequent years. I'm not sure about the availability of the different cover options in Canada (or at least the Metro Vancouver area). Trinote is offered at Staples, at about $27 CAD, but I think I only saw the vinyl option in black. I have seen other Quo Vadis planners at Chapters with some of the more colourful covers, but I can't recall seeing the Trinote there. The soya cover is lightly textured to mimic leather, and is stitched all the way around. There's a nice thickness to it, and it doesn't have the stickiness that vinyl typically has.


At 18 x 24 cm (or 7.25 inches by 9.5 inches), the Trinote is a bit big for a purse, but would probably fit comfortably in a briefcase or laptop case as it's not too thick. Although I have been carrying it around in my backpack, I think it's really more of a desktop size for me. When I did carry it around with me, I found it too cumbersome to pull out while on the go.


Here you can get a sense of the size relative to a Lamy Safari, a Pelikan M200, and a pocket Moleskine diary.


One interesting thing about the planner is that there's a little blurb that tells you how to effectively use it. Honestly, it's somewhat intuitive, but it's kind of nice to see it in writing, all the same. Of course, it's another matter entirely whether you actually follow the "rules"...





The layout of Trinote really works for me. You get the week across a two page spread, with space for notes and special reminders (who to call, fax, e-mail, things to do, expenses), and daily priorities.

Most important for me is the vertical daily layout, broken down into quarter hour segments. A lot of planners only go down to half hour or even only full hour segments, but I work for a consulting firm where we need to bill our time accordingly to our clients and projects, and sometimes I really do just spend 15 minutes on one thing before having to jump to another project. Admittedly, trying to squeeze in some detail like who I did the work for, and what I did into that bit of space isn't the greatest, but it's better than nothing, and it's usually just a few key words to jog my memory when I'm inputting my hours into the system.


An example of my work week. I attempted to make use of the priorities as well as the "See-Do" sections.

If you squint, you might be able to make out that I had VPC (Vancouver Pen Club!) written in on the 15th- I didn't actually manage to make it to the meeting though. Nor did I attend the a meeting I had written down for the 14th. Does that mean I should have crossed them out? Perhaps...




In amongst the miscellaneous bits of information that planners and agendas often have (maps, phone codes, international holidays, min and max avergae monthly temperatures around the world?? then again Moleskines have things like international shoe sizes, so who am I to say...) the Trinote also has a removable phone book tucked into the back pocket of the cover.






I don't imagine I'll get much use out of it, but I just wanted to draw your attention to this cute little bit of detail in the notes section: a wee little fountain pen motif.

...which begs the question, just how fountain-pen friendly is this paper? Quo Vadis advertises itself as having "absolutely fabulous paper", and apparently it is by Clairefontaine. I've been a Clairefontaine fan for a few years now, and Trinote boasts the bright white, silky smooth paper that I've come to expect.



I think it's a lighter weight paper than in the notebooks I've used in the past, though, as I've experienced some bleed through, as evidenced here.* (I had to turn off the flash to show the bleed through, which is why the paper doesn't look white here).

Note that I do have a preference for wetter pens (this was written with a Richard Binder 0.7 oblique cursive italic VP nib), but even with a drier pen I've noticed some bleed through. I've had very little feathering, although one time I tried to write with a gusher of a flex nib and that did feather quite a bit.


My overall impressions of the Trinote is that the layout and formatting really jives with the way I think and work. Whether it's helping me be better organized is debatable, but really, it's just a tool to do the job, I have to actually put in the effort myself! The paper is a bit on the thin side, but the bleed through is tolerable for me, especially since I'm using the planner mostly to keep track of my time and what I've been working on. If I were getting this kind of bleed through on a journal or notebook, I think I would be more put off.* I'm not a big fan of the reminder section on the right hand side- I either never use it, or else I have to many things in the "See - Do" section. Happily, I've found that a standard Post-It fits nicely in that area without overlapping the vertical formatting of the daily schedule, and let's face it, Post-Its reign supreme in my world, so I tend to jot things down on the yellow stickies and move them along week to week as necessary. I'm also not a big fan of the corners that you're supposed to tear off to keep your place in the planner. I always seem to forget to tear them off, and I would prefer a ribbon bookmark attached to the cover, especially since the covers are reusable. Heck, I might end up stitching a bit of ribbon on there myself.

Another thing I find peculiar is that it's a thirteen month planner, running from December to December. The problem I have is that you're going to be duplicating December, whether you continue to use refills of this planner, or like in my case, you're moving from a different planner brand to this one. I didn't even touch December 2008 in my Trinote because I was still working away in my old planner (and ok, also because I didn't get the Trinote until January, but still). And next year, if I get another Trinote, I'll be neglecting December in either this book or the new one. It just seems kind of wasteful, doesn't it? Finally, the daily schedule runs from 8am to 9pm, so if your day starts or ends beyond those times, then you're out of luck. Personally, I would prefer that the day went a bit shorter (say until 7 or 8pm) but that there was more vertical room per hour and thus more room to write.

So I guess the question is, would I buy this planner for next year? It's debatable. While I like the smoothness of the paper and fact that my hours are broken down into quarters, I'm not sure that it's enough to justify spending close to $30. Then again, I've spent several times that amount this year already on pens that I may never use, so maybe I need to rethink that argument! I do think that I'll buy another Quo Vadis planner next year, even if it's not this one. I might go for something smaller that I can carry around with me in my purse or pocket, if I can find one that still allows for 15 minute breakdowns.

Would I recommend it to someone else? Yes, if paper quality and organizational tips are important to you. Just make sure that your schedule is reflected in the daily formatting, or else it won't be of much use to you!

Thanks again to Karen Doherty and Leah Hoffman at Quo Vadis/Exaclair for giving me this opportunity!

February 16 Update:

Regarding my issues with bleedthrough and my thoughts that the Trinote has thinner paper than standard Clairefontaine notebooks, Karen Doherty (VP Marketing at Exaclair) wrote to me to set me straight on the facts: apparently the Trinote is in fact made with the same 90 g paper that's used in the notebooks! I'm not sure why I noticed the bleedthrough more on the diary, but it could be that in a notebook (like the one I use to copy down recipes into) I tend to write continuously across the entire page, whereas in the journal I may only jot down a few key words or times in "chunks" down the page, leaving gaps of untouched paper which shows the ink through from the other side. And of course it could be the pen and ink combination.


*I went to take a look at my recipe book and sure enough, slight bleedthrough, or at least visibility of what's written on the other side. But obviously it wasn't noticeable enough for me to complain about until now! Funny, isn't it? In any case, I stand corrected and take back my gripes about the paper thinness!

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Staples bagasse paper, Cross Townsend Medalist

For anyone who's been reading the FPN posts on the new Staples bagasse ("Eco-Friendly") paper, it's available at the Staples on West Broadway near Granville. They have notebooks, three-ring binder refills, and pads. The paper takes fountain pen ink quite nicely and also dries more quickly than something dense like Clairefontaine or Rhodia.

It's not perfect - there can be a bit of bleed with really wet-writing pens and the paper also tends to rumple up a bit - but it's a lot cheaper than a lot of the alternatives and I think it's definitely worth checking out.

I'll try to remember to bring one of the books to the next VPC meeting.

That Staples also has a single Cross Townsend Medalist for $87, which is a good deal considering the online price seems to be more like US $110-120. There were two but I bought one of them. I may post a couple of pictures. First impressions are good - it's been a little bit skippy but a flush helped, and the M nib is very smooth and actually a little bit stublike. It's a heavy metal-bodied pen, but most of the weight's in the cap and it balances quite nicely in the hand unposted. The nib and trim are gold-plated steel.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Lamy Studio at Perks

Thanks Maja for reminding me - I couldn't resist going back down there and getting one of the Lamy Studios. Basic black for me, as shown - my favourite if unimaginative colour for pens - but Richard tells me there are some nice bright coloured ones there just waiting especially for you!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Designer Writing Instruments of the Twentieth Century

Here is Mike A's introduction to the topic on which he will be giving a short presentation at this Thursday's meeting.

Designer Writing Instruments of the Twentieth Century

My interest in fountain pens began not long ago when I was fortunate to have inherited my father's Parker 51. This pen was a gift he received from my mother when they were dating in the late 1940's.

In my search for someone to repair this pen I discovered a whole world of writing instrument enthusiasts.

One day perusing The Fountain Pen Network I saw the mention of a pen designed by Raymond Loewy. As a fan of twentieth century industrial design and an owner of a Rosenthal china set designed by Loewy I knew I would have to have an Eversharp Symphony.

I soon discovered that many prominent designers had been commissioned to design writing
instruments. This became the focus of my collection. I will be discussing this aspect of industrial design at our January meeting.

Here is a list of pens by major designers; I hope that if you own any of these you will bring them to show.

Aurora 88
Aurora Sele
Aurora Hastil
Aurora Thesi
Aurora Kona
Eversharp Skyline
Eversharp Fifth Avenue
Eversharp Symphony

Lamy 2000
Lamy CP1
Lamy ST
Lamy Unic
Lamy Persona
Montblanc No.12
Montblanc No.14
Omas Tokyo
Parker 25
Pelikan Colani
Pelikan P80
Waterman's Hundred Year Pen
Waterman C/F















Photo taken after Mike's excellent presentation on
Designer Writing Instruments of the Twentieth Century at the January 2009 VPC meeting.
From L-R: Richard, Bruce, Graham, Bill, Derek, Maja, Mike, Christopher, Tim, Frank and Dave.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Happy New Year! (and new meeting announcement)

Now that the holiday season is behind us, we are resuming our monthly Vancouver Pen Club meetings, starting with this Thursday's meet-up:

Date: Thursday 15 January 2009
Time: 6:00pm - "Meet & Greet"; 6:30pm - Start of meeting
Location: Perks pen store on Cambie @ 42nd St, across from Oakridge mall
Theme: Industrial designers and the pens they created (***See list in post above and please bring any examples to the meeting***)


We are very pleased to announce that Mike A. has kindly agreed to do a short presentation on this topic at this Thursday's meeting, so I hope we get a good turnout.
As always, if you have any new writing instruments/ inks/paper/ephemera that you've recently acquired, please bring them to the meeting for our informal "Show & Tell".

Hope to see you there!