Thursday, January 17, 2019

Better late than never... (November meeting photos)

Twenty-eight VPC members (including newcomers Tavinder and Karl) showed up at our November meeting at the Oakridge branch of the VPL to hear a very interesting and informative talk by Ray about Porsche Design (our November meeting topic/theme). Ricardo was kind enough to take photos of people and pens during the meeting, so without further ado....

(click on images to enlarge)

(photo above) Ray showing us just one of the many wonderful Porsche Design writing instruments from his extensive collection.

Porsche Design was founded in Stuttgart, Germany in 1972 by Ferdinand Porsche (who also designed the famous Porsche 911 car) as an entity separate from the Porsche automobile division. Their first designs were timepieces (PD made one of the first all-black watches) but they later designed eyewear, pipes, typewriters, knives and yes, writing instruments. PD writing instruments were made by Faber-Castell but production switched to Pelikan in 2010. In 2017, Porsche Design merged with their automobile division and continues to design sophisticated, luxurious-yet-functional products.

Ray brought many examples of PD writing instruments for his presentation but we couldn't photograph them all individually...
...but here is a sampling of what we saw that night...
Porsche Design P3130 Mikado mechanical pencil, made of 17 stainless steel rods which twist and straighten as the point is retracted or extended :
Porsche Design P3150 Leather Black fountain pen:
An early Porsche Design mechanical pencil (possibly from the 1980s) :
In addition to these writing instruments, we also saw Ray's P3110 TecFlex fountain pen (whose braided metal design was inspired by Porsche's coiled brake hoses), his P3140 'Shake' ballpoint pen (aka "the world's fastest pen") and my personal favourite---Ray's wonderful P3120 triangular grip ballpoint made for Porsche Design by Pelikan. At first I was doubtful I'd like the pens because they were all-metal and I thought they'd be too heavy for me. Although weighty, they are very well-balanced and felt wonderful in my hand....and they are very well-made. I'm glad Ray also brought in a few non-writing-instrument PD products, such as a pocket knife with titanium body, a titanium watch (ca. 1980), and some stylish sunglasses for us to see.
Group shot! (left to right): Barry, Jerred, Mindy, Natasha, Alejandra, Maja, Tony, Karl (one of our two newcomers), Stuart, René, Bruce R, Bruce T, Bob W.

Newest Acquisitions is always our secondary topic and we saw many examples of some great pens, some of which are pictured below (all photos by Ricardo)....
Jerred's beautiful Visconti 'Van Gogh' fountain pen - "Vincent's Chair" model, inspired by the painting of the same name. The Van Gogh series draws its inspiration from Vincent Van Gogh's paintings and uses resins mixed to represent the oil paints used in their respective paintings...

(Above) Another new pen brought in by Jerred---a PenBBS '456' fountain pen that uses a vacuum-filling mechanism:
Sabrina's yummy-looking Sailor Pro Gear Slim "Morita" Special Edition in robin's-egg blue, made for the Morita pen shop in Osaka, Japan:
Another great Japanese fountain pen-a Sailor Pro Gear model made for the Japanese retailer Wancher. This lovely pen belongs to Melodie:
René's stunning Platinum 'Century 3776' fountain pen in the Kanazawa-Haku (gold leaf) Syou-Ru (ascending dragon) Limited Edition:
Look at the workmanship!
And now for something completely different....Jenny Z's uber-cool 'Double Helix' fountain pen by Additive Pens which has a 3D-printed barrel! I think Jenny just got the pen the day of our meeting so it was uninked, but I believe the ink goes *through* the spiral channels in the barrel, creating an amazing effect...
An elegant glass pen that Tony received as a gift, purchased in Bangkok, Thailand:
Maja's newest acquisitions--Left to Right: Platinum 'Procyon', Sheaffer 'Pop', Oberthur 'Rumba', Monteverde 'Catalina', ThINK rollerball in the "Hippie" (heh) design, Bexley 'BX802' prototype:
More of my newest pens (not all were bought in October/November! Also, I bought the Sheaffer and Oberthur at the Nov meeting from Jerred :)--Left to Right: Pelikan 'Up', three Retro 51 rollerballs, an ACME ballpoint with a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired design, Caran d'Ache 888 Justice League ballpoint with the "Wonder Woman" design:
Newest Acquisitions can be pen-related accessories, too, such as this nice leather zippered pen case/wallet handmade by the Galen Leather Company, belonging to Stuart:
Natasha's cool pen roll made by Rickshaw Bags, a San Francisco-based company:
Jim and one of our newest members, Tavinder (Dana is in the background). Jim went to the Scriptus 2018 event---Toronto's annual pen show---and brought back a couple of very nice fountain pens made by Franklin-Christoph and Opus 88 (a Koloro demonstrator)--not pictured.
Left-Right: Grace, Natasha, Sabrina and Sam. Grace and Natasha brought in some really nice new pens to show us from Opus 88 (Grace's 'Picnic' fountain pen, Natasha's 'Koloro' Demo clear fountain pen) and JRL custom pens (one of Natasha's new fountain pens). Sam brought in the newest addition to his great Lamy 'Persona' collection:
Ray talking with Ralph, one of our longtime VPCers. Many thanks to Ray for an excellent talk on Porsche Design--a luxury brand that we don't see very often at our pen club meetings (but not due to lack of interest ;) and to Ricardo for the great photos!
Thanks to all who came to our November meeting, whether you brought stuff for the topics or not---it's your enthusiasm and love of writing instruments that make our meetings so fun!
Hope to see you at our January meeting being held today (Thursday January 17) at 6:00pm at the Kitsilano library (all details in this older post--link)

Thursday, January 3, 2019

January meeting details

When: Thursday January 17 from 6:00pm to 8:30pm
(Don't worry if you're late---we usually start at around 6:30 pm)

Where: the KITSILANO branch of the Vancouver Public Library at 2425 Macdonald Street (between Broadway and West 8th), Vancouver, BC
The meeting will take place in the community/meeting room on the lowest level of the library's basement (this is where our club met in October). No food allowed, but covered drinks are ok.

Topic/Theme: Pocket Fountain Pens! (many thanks to Jerred for the topic/theme idea :)

Please bring your favourite smaller fountain pens (max. 2-3 pens per person, due to time constraints) to show our group. They can be modern fountain pens or vintage ones. If you don't have anything for the topic, don't worry---please come anyway and see what others have brought! Our secondary topic is always NEWEST ACQUISITIONS (pen-related)---eg. new pens/inks/paper/pen cases/other accessories/etc--- so if you have any you wish to show, please bring them with you.

Oh, and here are a couple of recent(ish) articles about fountain pens that you might find interesting:
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/11/19/features/saving-world-one-pen-time
(our very own Vancouver Pen Shop is mentioned in it :)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/style/fountain-pens.html

Hope you can make it to our first meeting of 2019! No need to RSVP for this meeting or any other not held at a restaurant.

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Happy New Year 2019!


Wishing you & your loved ones a very happy, healthy & prosperous New Year 2019!

(Platinum '#3776 Century' in the lovely clear red "Bourgogne" colour-a gift from my father :)

Information about our January meeting will be posted on this site in the next day or two!