Nikaido purchases & more!

Maruman 'Mnemosyne' pocket notebook made of high-quality paper from Japan, Clairefontaine 'Age Bag' pencil case (made from Moroccan vegetable-tanned leather), German-made Lamy 'Logo' ballpoint (~ Click on image to enlarge ~)

Another photo of my new ballpoint and case, but in different lighting (the pencil case is actually closer to the sandy colour in the picture directly above)...

I purchased all of the items above at Nikaido, an elegant gift shop in Steveston (Richmond) owned and operated by Joe & Sara Cocker. Nikaido is a wonderful store with a carefully-chosen selection of writing instruments by Lamy, Faber-Castell, Parker, Kaweco, Pilot and others, as well as ink and stationery for the pen lover. In addition to pen-related items, they also carry a nice assortment of teas, tableware and fragrances, as well as Tintin merchandise (official website here ).

Two Chinese fountain pens by Delike---the 'Alpha' (a lacquered brass Kaweco 'Sport' clone) and 'New Moon' (orange acrylic) models. Both pens fill via a cartridge/converter system. The zippered pen case isn't leather, but it's well-made and was free from the eBay seller :)

A clear green Jinhao 599A fountain pen with an Architect/Arabic/Hebrew nib given to me by fellow VPCer Jerred, who ground the nib himself (and did a wonderful job), and a red Genius 'Bucky' fountain pen whose nib was stubbed by my old pen friend Vivek years ago.

An Architect nib is one that is ground so that it produces broad sideways strokes and very thin up-and-down strokes. Normally I wouldn't find that type of nib useful for my handwriting, but it was originally an Extra-Fine nib so it actually suits my writing style...and it's fun to use (thanks again, Jerred!) I brought the Genius pen in for our March meeting topic (pens with modified nibs) along with some other examples. I'll post the photos from that meeting in a separate blog post hopefully later this week, along with the April meeting info. Hope you can make it!