Some photos from our October meeting!

A total of 32 VPC members and guests came to our last monthly meeting, which was held on Thursday October 16th at the Renfrew branch of the Vancouver Public Library. The meeting was a casual get-together (ie. a meeting with no "show & tell") that also featured a writing workshop by Paul! 

It was a fun evening and the time flew by quickly, but I remembered to take a few photos during the event, so here they are....

(all photos by Maja, except where noted ~ please click on images to enlarge)

With his wife Villoo and son Pierre in attendance, Paul (above) gave an inspiring talk on the use of pen and ink for creative/reflective writing. His talk was followed by a short handwriting exercise--an opportunity to write whatever we wanted, with the fountain pens we brought to the meeting. Paul explained that this exercise was inspired by Mario Levrero’s novel "Empty Words", a book about a novelist who attempts to better his life/himself by improving his handwriting.

Paul provided the handout above, which hopefully will look familiar to some of you :)

Some of the workshop participants (like Paul's friend Drew) were inspired to create art; this is a sketch of a painting that Drew is currently working on...   (photo courtesy of Drew)

We saw many interesting fountain pens in use in the meeting room (both modern and vintage)-- from a bright yellow Sheaffer calligraphy fountain pen (bottom of photo above) that Paul loaned to Amy and a couple of vintage Parkers (a Vacumatic & a Duofold) that Catherine brought (right side of photo)....  

...to some fountain pens that Phil recently acquired--- (top to bottom) a black Pelikan M205 with a 12K gold nib (very unusual), a modern Caran d'Ache, and a vintage Aurora '88'.

Catherine brought two lovely handmade items to the meeting with her ---a fountain pen in a beautiful abalone-like resin made by our fellow VPC member Anson of Springfield Pens ... and a leather notebook cover Catherine made herself!

Phil holding a vintage Lady Sheaffer ballpoint (not something you see every day)...

Speaking of vintage, longtime VPC member Mark (the friendly pen repair guy at PenDen.ca) brought a nice selection of wonderful vintage writing instruments with him (in the black pen cases above). In addition to doing vintage pen repairs, Mark also sells vintage writing instruments (and a few moderns, too).

Lyndon brought a handsome fountain he acquired a little while ago---a Pelikan M805 Black-Silver...

...and Rumi brought her lovely Gravitas 'Entry' "Rainbow Skittles Paisley", an anodized aluminum fountain pen made in Ireland by Ben Walsh (my photo doesn't do it justice!). The pen stand was made by Larry Bennett, a local penmaker.

In addition to Paul's family members and his friends Drew and Lionel (Lionel came with his support dog, West Highland White Terrier Maggie 😊)...

...we were happy to have two avid fountain pen fans from Saskatchewan at our October meeting -- Thomas and Nadya! They brought some fountain pens of their own to show us, of course 😄 :These are ones that Nadya brought to our meeting (L-R) -- a TWSBI 'Diamond Mini AL Grape', a wooden Kakimori dip pen, a Sailor 'Pro Gear Slim' - Cult Pens exclusive, a Pilot 'Metropolitan 'Grey Houndstooth'' and an Esterbrook 'Niblet' "Botanical Garden" pocket fountain pen...

 ....and here are Thomas' fountain pens (L-R)--a green-striped Pelikan Souveran (not sure of the model #), a Pilot '74' "Merlot" , an Esterbrook 'Estie' "Nouveau Bleu" and a black Sailor fountain pen.

Many thanks to everyone who came to our October meeting, especially to Paul for doing his writing workshop during our get-together! 👏 
Our next meeting will be held at Buchan's Kerrisdale Stationery on Thursday November 20th at 6:00pm (all info in previous blog post) Hope you can make it! (no need to RSVP beforehand)

(~blog post by Maja~)

November meeting at Buchan's!

November 2025 meeting information!

When: Thursday November 20, 2025 from 6:00pm to ???

Where: Buchan's Kerrisdale Stationery, 2141 West 41st Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. The store is located on the north side of West 41st Avenue, half a block west of West Boulevard. Parking behind the store is *very* limited, but there's metered parking along West 41st Avenue. Store's website: https://www.buchanst.com/

This meeting is just a social gathering (with no topics/themes), but please feel free to bring any pen-related stuff you want to show other members/staff while you're mingling at the event! And don't worry about arriving right at 6:00pm :)

⭐The store will stay open during the meeting for our shopping convenience! ⭐ Hope to see you there! 😊
Any questions? Please email us at: vancouverpenclub@gmail.com

Newest Acquisitions (Virtual "Show & Tell") ~ part 554

Many thanks to all who attended our October meeting yesterday; I'll post some photos from the event later this month. In the meantime, here's another vintage treasure recently acquired by Christopher! (thanks for the writeup, Christopher :)

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

Christopher writes: 

"Today I will relate a wonderful vintage pen that recently came my way, the Waterman 752. Right off the bat, I noticed that there is not a lot of difference between the Waterman standard 52 and this Waterman 752. But what grabbed me was several features that set this Waterman model aside in its make up and made it easy to see that this is an upper end player with features only offered on the finest of vintage Waterman pens.

 Let us first look at the cap. The finish on this part of the pen is truly impressive, with deep repeated 'V' shapes circling around the cap over and over again, down the entire surface. The cap also sports a 14K 'Solid' Gold Waterman 'Globe' logo Ideal marked clip, held in place by two well placed 14K solid gold rivets. Further south on this cap, is a spectacular and equally wide jeweler's, Sheraton finished 14K solid Gold banding. While the barrel, other than a Gold-filled Waterman boxed lever filler, has a totally plain surface, free of any chasing but with an indent to welcome cap posting for writing. On the end of this barrel, is the unmistakable Waterman numeric model coding of 752. 

The section at the other end, is both substantial and responsible and sports a truly beautiful Canadian marked 14K number 2 Waterman Ideal nib. It should be noted that the first numeral of this pen's Waterman model coding stands for a barrel banding, but it was also possible to acquire from Waterman a 0752 which meant that the banding was 14K Gold filled. As for the measurements, posted this pen is all of 6 ¾ inches, but caps back to 5 ¼ to pocket. I should add that this pen holds a good measure of ink and lays it down with a smooth medium flex to perfection. Definitely a real pleasure to write with, and a perfect candidate for my vintage pen collection."

Reminder -- Meeting this Thursday! (Oct 16)

Details here! 
(Note: Paul's presentation will start at 6:00pm!).

September meeting photos (part 2)

 (⭐Information about our October meeting⭐ is in this blog post -
https://www.vancouverpenclub.com/2025/09/october-meeting-information-including.html )

We had record-setting attendance (at least 40 people!) for our September meeting at the VPL's Champlain Heights branch on the afternoon of Saturday September 13th, and both Sherman & I took photos during the meeting. I posted my photos a few days ago (link to post) as part 1 of the photos taken, so here are the photos Sherman wanted to share - part 2! (thanks, Sherman :):

(All photos courtesy of Sherman ~ please click on images to enlarge)

 Bird's-eye-views of the hustle and bustle of this busy gathering...

(I'm so glad the library meeting room's official capacity was 40 people -- we needed the space!)

We didn't have a themed meeting with a "show & tell", but the two-and-a-half hours flew by as our members talked pens, inks and all things pen-related :)

VPC member Godwin (who wasn't present) had very generously donated a whole bunch of inks and Chinese-made fountain pens for our door prize draws, so we gave away the last of the ink & a good chunk of the pens at our September meeting. That's Grant helping me (Maja) with the draws that afternoon (I just realized how tired I looked lol); thank you so much for your help, Grant!

This is the Jinhao '992' fountain pen that Sherman won in the door prize draws. The Jinhao is essentially a clone of the Sailor ProColor 500, but it's a nice little fountain pen in its own right.

Sherman wound up trading fountain pens with Audrey (above); for his Jinhao '992', he got Audrey's Jinhao '950' Ceramic Blue model with Dragon design. 

Sherman with Abhijit, who came from India to attend our meeting! Abhijit came to our July 2024 meeting and had so much fun that he decided to come back for this one while he was in Vancouver :)


Sherman also sent in some photos of his newest acquisitions that he took after the meeting ended. Here here they are, starting with...

...his Jinhao '950' Ceramic Blue with Dragon design fountain pen...

Sherman writes: "The blue paint on the Jinhao 950 Ceramic Blue is quite unique, and I couldn’t find a good match with my current inventories. I inked it with Namiki Blue and this EF nib writes quite okay."

Sherman's new Snowhite 'FP20' disposable fountain pen (link), one of many that our fellow VPCer Steve G. gave away during the meeting. For a modest pocket fountain pen, Sherman was impressed with how smoothly it wrote (and I agree).

Sherman got this lovely notecard from longtime VPC member Mark Harcourt, who created a very nice pen sales & restoration website (PenDen.ca) earlier this year. 

Sherman's Chinese & Taiwanese fountain pen collection (including his Hero 1921 90th Year Commemorative Red fountain pen, with its impressive display stand). The four pens on the extreme right side of the case are (L-R) two of Sherman's beloved élysée fountain pens and his two VPC Limited Edition fountain pens by Leonardo and Radius 1934. Sherman reviewed his very special Hero fountain pen here on our website in 2023.

Many thanks, once again, to all who attended our September meeting, to Godwin for the wonderful pen and ink door prizes, Steve G. for the fountain pens and ballpoints he gave out, and VPCer Sam L. for the many notebooks & other stuff he donated for our de-stashing table! 

(~blog post by Maja~)