Continuing on with photos from our club's January meeting, these courtesy of Ricardo...
As mentioned in
part 1 of the January meeting pics, the Vancouver Pen Club Limited Edition "Momento Zero" fountain pens that were ordered by some of our club's members from the Leonardo Officina Italiana pen company were delivered to us by Glenn at our January meeting.
One of the happy new owners of this beautiful fountain pen (Tony):
(~ all photos courtesy of Ricardo ~ please click on images to enlarge ~)
This is the packaging for the steel-nibbed version of our club pen (the gold-nibbed pens came in a box that included a bottle of Leonardo fountain pen ink)...
I
love fountain pens with sections that match the cap and barrel...
The cap band has "Vancouver Pen Club" engraved on it, and each pen is individually numbered (only 26 pens were made, and all were sold):
As you can see, the pen is large enough to be used unposted:
Tim (one of our club's co-founders) trying out the new VPC club pen:
Jerred (wearing blue, pictured with Alejandra and Bruce) came up with the idea of "White Fountain Pens" for January's meeting topic...
...and here's one example he brought in---a white Delta 'Vintage' fountain pen. Despite its name, this is actually a compact modern pen that measures just under 5 inches in length:
Ricardo's wonderful sketchbook, filled with his drawings of some of the pens shown at our meetings :
Longtime VPC member Christopher talking about one of the many interesting vintage fountain pens he brought to show us:
A lovely NOS (New Old Stock) vintage Sheaffer flat-top in the pearl (cream & black) design, one of Christopher's most recent purchases:
Christopher carefully inspecting a fountain pen. In addition to being a keen collector of vintage fountain pens, Christopher also repairs and restores them...
Ricardo's brand-new Parker 'Jotter' ballpoint pen in bright yellow:
Ricardo's Jotter (shown below) is a standard-sized 'Jotter'. In 2018, Parker introduced a larger version (7% larger, to be exact) of the Jotter called the 'Jotter XL' which has both a longer body and a wider grip...
Yes, Ricardo sketches non-fountain pens, too!
René testing out a fountain pen...
René's vintage lever-filler made by the Eclipse Pen Company (note the handy inkview window---the transparent part of the section---that allows the user a peek at the ink supply):
René's beautiful Conklin 'Duraflex' 365 Dayflex Limited Edition:
Another white fountain pen René showed at our meeting---a Jinhao fountain pen with an intricate golden dragon overlay:
Our secondary topic is always Newest Acquisitions. Here are two of René's latest--a red vintage Esterbook 'SJ' and a Cross 'Townsend' "Year of the Rat" Limited Edition (middle pen):
I forgot to photograph René's Benu 'Minima' at the December meeting, so I asked him to bring it to the January meetup. Thankfully he remembered, so I photographed it. Even more thankfully, Ricardo took a
much better photo of this beautiful pen:
A close-up shot of the lovely sparkly material. The finish is "Baikal Ice" and it was chosen after René won a contest to name it (congrats, René!)
René and longtime VPC member Barry, sitting next to him...
Barry brought in a really nice 48-pen leather case by
Girologio (which we forgot to photograph!) to our January meeting. The case is made of high-quality "ecologically tanned" tanned leather and can fit fountain pens as large as the massive Montblanc 149.
Barry taking a closer look at a fountain pen...
(L-R) Barry, Stuart, Jim, Maja, Daryl. Jim brought in a very cool-looking white Pilot 'Vanishing Point' fountain with black trim and a black nib (nicknamed the
"Stormtrooper" VP :)
Stuart always brings in interesting fountain pens (both modern and vintage) for use to see. For our topic, he brought three vintage Lady Sheaffers in white and this gorgeous modern fountain pen, his Graf von Faber-Castell 'Intuition':
The body of the pen is made of a single piece of fluted resin (a lovely aesthetic) with an interesting mechanism within---turning the metal knob at the bottom of the barrel unscrews the nib-converter unit, allowing the user to fill the pen without staining the barrel:
The medallion on the top of the cap featuring the Graf von Faber-Castell logo:
There's a really nice review of this lovely pen
on Glenn's pen blog...
Tony giving the 'Intuition' a test-drive. Though slightly shorter than a Pelikan M800 in length, the barrel diameter of the "Intuition" and the M800 are roughly the same, making it comfortable to hold...
(L-R) Stuart, Isaac, myself (Maja) and Jenny:
Isaac talking about the white fountain pen he brought to the meeting for our theme--his Conklin 'Nozac' Special Edition made for the State of Israel's 70th anniversary (there's a photo of it in part 1 of the January meeting pics):
That's me showing all the white fountain pens in my collection (photo
here). Although I'm a huge fan of colourful pens, I recently started collecting white pens in earnest :
(photo below) Patiently listening to me ramble on about my white pen collection:(L-R) Glenn, Nathan, Ray, Ben, Mindy, Alejandra and Bruce.
Ray brought in some very nice writing instruments, including a Montblanc 'Karajan' (with white piano keys) and a pocket fountain pen by
Schon Design, a manufacturer located in Pennsylvania. Ben showed us one of his Christmas gifts---a bright green fountain pen by
Dryden Designs, a UK company.
Daryl's wooden dip pen, a recent acquisition:
Jenny's white Lamy 'Safari' "I ❤ Vancouver" special edition:
Another pen belonging to Jenny--her beautiful Sailor 'Pro Gear' "Usagiya Exclusive Mizuki" Limited Edition, produced in 2016 and limited to 120 pieces:
Dana's Pelikan M200 "Café Crème" Special Edition:
The "Café Crème" was produced for one year (2015) only. I love how its brown-coloured inkview window matches the colour of the cap and turning knob:
Dana also brought in a vintage fountain pen for our theme---a vintage Lady Sheaffer Skripsert model X, the "Tulle Gold on White" pattern (there's an excellent reference guide to the multitude of Lady Sheaffer models
here):
(photo below) I'm trying to remember whose TWSBI 'Eco' this is. I think it's Tony's because he talked about swapping out a TWSBI nib with a much wider nib made by different manufacturer... I've noticed more and more of our pen club members doing this as it allows them to use more exotic nibs in the fountain pens they purchase (which usually only come with Extra-Fine/Fine/Medium/Broad nibs):
(photo below) Nathan's very first fountain pen--the uber-cool Lamy 'Dialog 3', which features a clever mechanism - twisting the barrel a half-turn causes the nib ("hidden" within the barrel) to extend, and the clip to retract (Lamy's short video of it in action
here ):
A chunky Martemodena 'Dolcevita Federico' fountain pen, also owned by Nathan:
Mindy talking about her newest acquisition, a Parker '21' fountain pen (an underrated cousin of the famous Parker '51')...
Alejandra showing us the lone white/off-white fountain pen she owns, a vintage "no-name" fountain pen she bought from fellow VPC member Mark:
Longtime VPC member (he joined in 2009!) Bruce talking about some of the amazing limited edition fountain pens he brought in for our primary topic:
Among the great pens Bruce brought in was his Visconti "Mudejar Art" Limited Edition (only 600 pieces were made) produced in 2007 (there's an reference page showing all the Visconti LEs
here).
I'm sorry we didn't photograph them, but I'm happy that Bruce brought in fountain pens that we'd normally never see in person :)
In addition to restoring vintage fountain pens, Christopher also sells them!
A closer look at the vintage pens Christopher brought in to sell at our meeting:
Getting ready to leave....
Well, that's all of our January meeting photos---no part 3 to come! Many thanks to all who came to our January meeting on a wintry evening. Special thanks to Glenn for bringing our VPC club pens, and to Ricardo for the beautiful photos in this blog post :) I'll be posting photos from our February meeting soon...
