7th Annual Northwest Pen Round-Up! (Portland event in July)

Mark your July calendars!!

A few days ago, I received some info from co-organizer Michael McNeil about the 2019 Northwest Pen Round-Up! being held in Portland on Saturday July 13. This annual, one-day pen extravaganza is free and open to everyone. It's also the closest pen event to Vancouver, so I hope you can make it! (photos from previous Round-Ups can be found here on our blog ).

Without further ado, here is the official info that Michael sent me about the 2019 Round-Up!:

We are pleased to announce that the 7th Annual Northwest Pen Round-Up! will be held on Saturday, July 13th, 2019, at the Lucky Labrador Brewing Co. in Portland, Oregon, from noon until 5:00 p.m. The Lucky Lab (1945 N. W. Quimby) is located very close to downtown in the Northwest section of Portland.

It is the same weekend as the largest antique show in the Northwest, the Christine Palmer Antique Show. The Portland antique show is huge; for decades it has attracted sellers and dealers from all over the West Coast. The show has Friday early admission and runs through Sunday.

We have had collectors from all over Oregon and the Northwest, B.C, California, Arizona, Iowa, and other states who have attended the Round-Up. There will be something for every kind of collector of writing instruments, from the beginner to the advanced collector. We have often had distant visitors to our meetup who have scheduled vacations in conjunction (with the Antique Show).

The Round-Up is the largest gathering of writing instrument collectors in the NW. Many Seattle and Portland pen club members will be attending. In the past, there has been plenty to see, sell, trade, admire, learn about and discuss. It is also a great opportunity to meet other collectors. If the past is any guide, there should be quite a number of extraordinary vintage pens for sale as well as lots of modern pens.

The event room has air conditioning, so that's cool, literally and figuratively. The Lucky Lab serves a variety of food and beverages at reasonable prices. It is a converted old truck manufacturing plant. There is plenty of on street parking nearby.

A number of people have planned a summer vacation around the pen show and the antique show. Portland is situated in a very scenic area of the country, near the Cascade Mountains and Pacific Ocean. The Pacific coast always has cooler weather than Portland and seldom does it get above 75 degrees. There are plenty of things to do in Portland. Portland prides itself in being a little off beat and it is always an interesting city to visit. Portland has its own unique charm, with lots of interesting restaurants, Powell’s Books, scenic tourists’ sights, etc.

All pen/writing instrument collectors/aficionados are invited. We do not limit this event to just people from the Northwest or the West Coast.

Admission is free. We only charge a nominal fee for vendors who want to set up. If you would like table space, please contact us early, as space is limited. It will be a very casual event, and you can sell even if you are not set up. Keep in mind, there is no sales tax in Oregon.

If you would like to reserve table space, or desire more information, please contact Stuart Hawkinson or Michael McNeil:
s.hawkinson@comcast.net
michael@northwestpenworks.com

A stunning dip pen by Daniel Foley & Co.

A stunning dip pen by Daniel Foley & Company, a new acquisition belonging to VPC member Christopher, who brought it to our February meeting:

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

I hadn't heard of this vintage pen company before we saw Christopher's dip pen, but I found some interesting information on the D. F. Foley Pen Company here .

Many thanks to Christopher for bringing this interesting antique piece to our meeting!

Sheaffer 500 "Dolphin" desk set

One of Stuart's newest acquisitions that he brought to the February Vancouver Pen Club meeting---a NOS (New Old Stock) Sheaffer 500 “Dolphin” desk set, ca. 1962-64:

(all photos courtesy of Stuart ~ click on images to enlarge)

The desk set (with original box pictured below) features a solid walnut base and a Fine-point steel-nibbed cartridge desk pen...

The set came complete with original Registration and Warranty from Sheaffer, as well as two Sheaffer ink cartridges...

The "Dolphin" nickname for this particular Sheaffer nib style comes from the shape of the nib (the shape of a bottle-nosed dolphin's head):

Sheaffer made a lot of desk sets over the years and this is just one of the nice examples that you can find a-plenty (for fairly reasonable prices) on sites like eBay. Grab yourself a fountain pen desk set and see for yourself how much fun it is to use in the workplace/home office!

Photos from our February meeting

Twenty Vancouver Pen Club members (including newcomers Jimmy and Vincent) came to our February meeting at the Terry Salman branch of the VPL on February 19th.

We also had a special guest in attendance--Matthew Parsons, an associate producer at CBC Radio One--who came to listen in on our meeting and interview a few of our members for a feature on CBC Radio One's "North by Northwest" show. The radio segment about our club aired on March 3rd and can be heard here (it starts at the 05:35 mark and ends at the 17:35 mark). I posted a bit more about the radio feature here on our blog .

(all photos by Ricardo ~ click on images to enlarge)

(Above, L-R) VPC co-founder Tim Conklin, Matthew Parsons from CBC Radio, myself (Maja) and new member Jimmy:

VPC members chatting before the start of our meeting. Our meetings usually start at 6:30pm with the topic/theme "show & tell", so there's usually half an hour or so for informal "pen talk" before the meeting starts...

That's new member Vincent in the middle of the photo above. Vincent kindly donated two pens as a door prize draw. Dana won a Wink Pen fountain pen (a cool glass-nibbed pen) and I was lucky enough to win a Noodler's 'Ahab' fountain pen in the clear blue "Hudson Bay Fathom's Blue" colour. Many thanks to Vincent for his generosity!

The topic/theme for our February meeting was "Tips on looking for and buying vintage pens on eBay" and featured a talk by René (wearing the striped shirt). René gave us some very useful tips & advice (and even provided everyone with a handout) and showed us some of his own wonderful vintage pen finds. Many thanks to René for his excellent presentation!

Jimmy (in photo above) attended his first Vancouver Pen Club meeting that night, and brought some amazing fountain pens by Yard-O-Led, Graf von Faber-Castell, Montblanc and Visconti with him...

(Above) Jimmy's beautiful Sterling Silver Yard-O-Led 'Viceroy Grand' Barley fountain pen

(Above) An elegant Graf von Faber-Castell Sterling Silver fountain pen, also owned by Jimmy

Another beautiful Sterling Silver fountain pen owned by Jimmy--a Montblanc 'Meisterstück' "Martelé" fountain pen

Jimmy's Visconti 'Homo Sapiens' Sterling Silver fountain pen

That's Jerred on the far left of the photo above. He always has some very interesting fountain pens to show at each meeting and the one below is no exception...

(Above) Jerred's KACO 'Edge' fountain pen made of Makrolon (the same material used in Lamy 2000s). I'd never heard of this Chinese pen company before the meeting, so I'm glad Jerred brought it to show us. You never know what you'll see at a VPC meeting!

More "pen talk" before the official start of the meeting...

Mindy using her cool new Kaweco 'AC Sport' Carbon fountain pen, made of a combination of aluminum and carbon fiber

Dana and Justin having fun at the meeting...

Dana's bright yellow Jinhao 'Shark' fountain pen fitted with a Pilot calligraphy nib

(Above) Melodie's Pelikan Tortoise (L) and Dana's beloved Pelikan M200 Café Crème Special Edition (R)

(Above) Melodie's beautiful Pelikan M600 Turquoise

(Above) Parker Sonnet fountain pen in the hard-to-find Brown Rubber Lacquer material, also owned by Melodie

Troublemaker inks--"handmade fountain pen inks from the idyllic Philippines" (their website ):

Ricardo's wonderful notebook with illustrations of some of the pens shown at the meeting:

Many thanks to all who attended the February meeting! Special thanks to René for his informative presentation on our topic/theme, Vincent for his door prize donations, Ricardo for taking such great photos during the meeting, and (last but not least) to CBC Radio's Matthew Parsons for doing such a wonderful job with the feature about our club!

Our next meeting is later tonight (Thursday March 21) at the Kitsilano branch of the VPL. All details here. Hope you can make it!

The Vancouver Pen Club on CBC Radio One!

We had the pleasure of introducing CBC Radio One's Matthew Parsons (an associate producer of CBC's "North by Northwest" program) to the Vancouver Pen Club at our February 19th meeting, held at the Terry Salman branch of the Vancouver Public Library.

Matthew conducted a series of short interviews during the meeting with some of our members, and the interviews were included in a recent episode of "North by Northwest" about our club (and the fountain pen hobby, in general) that aired on Sunday March 3rd.

Link to the audio: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1453072451850
(the segment about our club starts at the 05:35 mark and concludes at the 17:35 mark, but there's also a nice intro by Gloria Macarenko from 00:00 to 00:30).

Many thanks to Matthew, CBC Radio One, all those who were interviewed, and all who attended the meeting! (photos from the meeting will be posted in the next few days, here on our website)

Cheers ~Maja

March meeting details!

MARCH MEETING DETAILS:

When: Thursday March 21 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) in Vancouver. The meeting will take place in the meeting room in the library's basement (this is where our club met in January). No food or drinks allowed, but covered drinks are ok. There is free parking in front of and at the side of the library, as well as on residential streets (please check signs for parking limits/regulations) and the Safeway parking lot (again---please check the signs for parking limits/regulations). Parking on West Broadway is metered parking.

Topic/Theme: "Non-round fountain pens" (e.g. faceted/triangular/other).

Please bring up to 3 fountain pens that match the topic (hint: Lamy Safari/Al-Stars are good examples)---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. Many thanks to Jerred for suggesting this great topic idea! 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 to show us.
No need to RSVP for this meeting or any other not held at a restaurant. Hope you can make it to the March meeting!