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!