Photos from our December meeting (Part 1)

Many thanks to the 24 VPC members (including four newcomers) and one special guest (from the London Pen Club in Ontario) who attended our December meeting!

Normally we don't meet in December because of the holiday season, but I was hoping the VPC Limited Edition fountain pens made by Leonardo pens would arrive in time, so I scheduled one just in case. Unfortunately, the pens didn't arrive before our meeting, but we had a lot of fun anyway...

(L-R: Maja, Daryl, Ben, new members Cyanea and Isabella, Glenn, new member Louise and Julienne)

(photo courtesy of Christopher ~ all other photos by Maja ~ please click on images to enlarge)

As a way of injecting more fun into this holiday-month meeting, we had a (voluntary) blind pen swap (which was Wai's idea from several years back) where members could select a wrapped pen in exchange for another (wrapped) pen they didn't want. The only criteria were that the pens had to be fountain pens under $20-$25 in value and in good working order. I donated my blue Kaweco 'Sport Classic' which came home with Tim, our pen club's co-founder. In a nice coincidence, I wound up getting Tim's Rotring 'Core' fountain pen :) Many thanks to Tim and everyone else who participated in this event!

Our December meeting theme ("Pens and/or Inks that are named for, or remind you of specific places") was suggested by Jerred (thanks, Jerred!). It was actually an old theme idea from the early days of our pen club that was never implemented, so I'm glad he suggested it because we saw some very interesting examples. For the theme, Jerred brought in (top to bottom, in photo below) his Monteverde 'Catalina' fountain pen in "Blue Pearl" filled with Private Reserve "Electric D.C. Blue" ink (which matched our theme!), his Platinum '3776 Century' in "Chartres Blue" and his Noodler's 'Konrad Acrylic' in "Baikal Blue", named after the world's oldest and deepest lake:

Stuart also brought some nice examples for our December meeting topic--a Waterman 'Expert' in the "Ombres et Lumières" pattern (an homage to Paris, the "City of Lights"), a Sheaffer 'Connaisseur Levenger Seas' fountain pen in "Aegean Green" (a tribute to the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey) and a Lamy 'AL-star' in "Pacific Blue":

In addition to the modern pens above, Stuart also brought some vintage examples for our theme - a Wahl-Eversharp "Fifth Avenue" fountain pen and mechanical pencil set in original box (and with original warranty):

The Montblanc pen company was named for Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps and 11th highest mountain in the world. Here is a lovely example made by that manufacturer---Barry's Montblanc '146' fountain pen in the harder-to-find burgundy colour:

(Photo below) Continuing with our geographical theme are Dana's Japanese-made Platinum '3776 Century' fountain pen in the beautiful clear red "Bourgogne" colour (3776 being the height of Mt Fuji, in metres), Jerred's Martemodena 'Citizen' - "Beijing" model in red and yellow (the colours of the Chinese flag), Tony's TWSBI 'Diamond 580' "Republic of Taiwan" Special Edition in the red, white and blue colours of the Taiwanese flag, and Dana's Franklin-Christoph '46' demonstrator in "Italian Ice" -a very cool (pun intended) fountain pen made of a clear material that glows lavender in UV light (who said fountain pens were boring??)

In the middle of the photo above are a couple of Jenny's newest purchases---a Kaweco 'Perkeo' in the "Bad Taste" (yes, that's the official name!) coral & black colour combo and her Platignum 'Studio' in pink. The pen on the far left is a TWSBI 'Diamond Mini'---a great pocket fountain pen--- belonging to Mariana, and at the very bottom of the photo is Tony's ballpoint with the City of Vancouver logo on it (which suited our meeting venue *and* fit our meeting theme).

(Photo below) My (Maja's) collection of writing instruments related to cities or places---Top row: OMAS 'Bologna' "L'Acqua Di Bologna", Sheaffer Connaisseur Levenger Seas "Adriatic", Fuliwen '017' "Blue Danube", PenBBS '309 Gradient' "Hawaii", PenBBS '308 Gradient' "Hawaii" ThINK "Iceland", ThINK "Sahara", Monteverde 'Napa' in red, ivory and blue patterns, Monteverde 'Catalina', and Monteverde 'Mountains' "Cortina".

Bottom row: Campo Marzio "Ambassador", Noodler's Ahab "Hudson's Bay Fathom's Blue", Noodler's 'Konrad' "Galapagos", Noodler's 'Konrad Acrylic' "Jersey Devil", Wahl-Eversharp "Fifth Avenue" ballpoints, fountain pen and mechanical pencil, Shanghai M&G Stationery fountain pen, Platinum '3776 Century' "Bourgogne", Montblanc '221', and Retro 51 'Tornado' "London Skyline" rollerball.

Joie's "Seoul" ink by De Atramentis, a scented fountain pen ink...

Our secondary theme is always "Newest Acquisitions" (pen-related). Here are a few that we saw that evening ---(top to bottom) Julienne's Lamy 'Scala' in "Glacier", René's Lamy 'Studio' in "Aquamarine", and Julienne's own 'Studio' pens in "Terracotta" and "Imperial Blue". Our club members love Lamys!

VPC member Louise attended her first meeting in December and brought along some amazing fountain pens, including (top pen in the photo below) a stunning Sailor 'Realo' with aftermarket Raden finish made of multi-coloured abalone pieces, and a gorgeous custom-made fountain pen made by the Carolina Pen Company that was inspired by a photograph of a galaxy that Louise sent to the penmaker:

Louise's lovely collection of Lotus fountain pens, handmade in India:

This writing instrument of Louise's was made much closer to home---it's a clipless fountain pen made of "Cenote After Dark" Alumilite (a resin material) made by Butterknife Creations, a Canadian pen company located in London, Ontario:

My photo doesn't even come close to doing this gorgeous fountain pen justice, but I had to include it in the December meeting photos. It belongs to Louise and was made by 18111.com:

Another fabulous fountain pen belonging to Louise - a "Carina Hapalua" model in Abalone made by Eric Sands of Atelier Lusso, a maker of bespoke writing instruments located in Lake Arrowhead, California:

The pen on the far right belongs to our youngest member---Zepherin---who came to the meeting with his trusty Lamy "AL-star" "Ocean Blue" fountain pen...and our special guest from Ontario-his grandfather John Parnell, one of the founding members of the London Pen Club. The five large pens in the photo were all made by Sean Allot of the London Pen Co. John helped to design the protoype (the green pen in the center) for the "Parnell" model line shown here. The model on the far left was created to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the London Pen Club:

(Photo below) Jenny attended the 2019 Kobe Pen Show in Japan and came back with some beautiful fountain pens, several of which were limited/special editions commissioned by well-known Japanese stationery stores. Among her recent acquisitions were (top to bottom): a lavender Sailor 'Pro Gear' Hachimoniya store Exclusive, a Sailor 'Pro Gear' Nagasawa Exclusive Black Demonstrator (which has a chicken weathervane - the Nagasawa logo - engraved on its nib), a Pilot 'Kakuno' in "Soft Blue" Nagasawa Special Edition with the skyline of Kobe (where a Nagasawa stationery store is located) imprint, and finally, and a Sailor 'Pro Gear Slim Mini' Kingdom Note Exclusive, pink sea slug model (which has a sea slug engraved on its nib :). This latter model was made for the Kingdom Note pen store in Tokyo, which had previously commissioned a vegetable-themed series of Sailor pens! Longtime VPCer Mindy also recently acquired the same sea slug pen, but in another colour (not pictured)...

Inspired by Jenny's purchase of the Pilot 'Decimo' limited edition in the "White Art Deco" design (made for the Japanese Mitsukoshi department store chain ~ only 100 pieces made), Candice managed to snag one of her own---this lovely example:

Not forgetting our members' vintage acquisitions, here are Christopher's Parker ballpoint and three vintage fountain pens--a black Esterbrook 'J' transitional model, a pretty rose-marbled Parker 'Challenger' and a green-marbled Mabie-Todd 'Blackbird' "Self-Filler" model:

Last, but not least - one of my newest acquisitions- a handsome blue Lamy 'Safari' given to me by a dear family friend, purchased in Rome, during her recent trip to Italy:

Many thanks to everyone who brought pens and inks and other pen-related items to our meeting. René brought in a marvelous selection of fountain pens and inks for our topic, including a Benu 'Minima' fountain pen in the sparkly "Baikal Ice" pattern. He actually won a contest to name this particular 'Minima' model (belated congrats, René!), so I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to snap a photo of it (the official website's photo of it is here). I'll be posting another set of photos---by Ricardo, this time---from our December meeting in a few days, so watch this space!

Don't forget---our next meeting is this Thursday January 16, 2020! (all details here)