Photos from our Vancouver Pen Shop get-together/November meeting ~ Part 2

Here's the second set of photos taken during our pen club's recent get-together hosted by the good folks at the Vancouver Pen Shop on November 17th (* see previous blog post for other photos *). This event was held at their store's old location on West Hastings; since then, the store has moved to its new location at 555 Howe Street!

This get-together wasn't like a regular meeting of our club, but a couple of meeting themes were suggested and implemented --"Green Fountain Pens" (store manager Shannon's idea) and "Your Favourite Pen Purchased from the Vancouver Pen Shop", which was suggested by a longtime member of our pen club and one of the Vancouver Pen Shop's most loyal customers -- the gentleman you see below... Stuart!

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

If you've been following the virtual "show & tell" here on our blog, you know that Stuart has purchased many pens and pen-related items from the Vancouver Pen Shop over the years. For our meeting themes, he brought along a few green fountain pens and his very favourite pen purchase from the Pen Shop - the gorgeous Graf von Faber-Castell 'Intuition' fountain pen on the extreme right of the photo below...

Above: (L-R) Sheaffer Levenger Connaisseur in the "Aegean Sea" colour, vintage Sheaffer 'Craftsman', vintage Sheaffer 'Balance', Parker 'Classic' fountain pen (the first pen Stuart purchased from Van Pen... way back in 1988!), Lamy 'Studio' in "Racing Green"(another Van Pen purchase) and the Graf von F-C 'Intuition'. Stuart's adorable cat & bird pen roll was bought at the Pen Shop as well.

(~ photo courtesy of Sherman ~)

Many thanks to Sherman for sending in this photograph of the pens he brought to the meeting! He was busy taking those great selfies (which I posted in Part 1 of this blog post) and I was busy mingling with our members and the Van Pen staff, so I never got around to photographing them. Along with the photo, Sherman added: "Enclosed please find the green pens that I brought to the event. The Platinium 3776 was for the 2nd theme, to remind that I have bought a Black one there and they wrapped it so nice as I was gifting it. Was so impressed how kind they were."

Photo above (L-R): Platinum President Wine Red, Kaweco Student 60’s Swing, Pelikan Souverän® M400 Black-Green, Visconti Rembrandt Special Ops Limited Edition, LAMY AL-Star Turmaline Special Edition 2020, Franklin-Christoph Model 02 Intrinsic Retro Emerald & Ice, élysée Lyric Rouge (30 Line), élysée Laque Jade (80 Line - Design Line), Conklin Mark Twain Crescent Filler™ Spring Green/Gold Leaf Marble.

Above: Louise's beautiful Rickshaw Bags 8-pen roll (featuring the famous "Great Wave" print by Hokusai)  with some lovely fountain pens peeking out from it, like her new Leonardo 'Momento Zero Grande 2.0' in "Angel Skin" resin (the third pen from the left), and a couple of cheery green TWSBI 'Eco' fountain pens - a "Glow Green" (which glows in the dark!) and a "Jade" model.

Above: A sampling of some green fountain pens that I own---(left to right): a UK-made Parker 'Duofold', Parker '17 Super Duofold', Parker 'Insignia', Sheaffer Lifetime flat top Jr. (ca. 1924-26), Sheaffer 'Triumph 1000 Lifetime'-Vac-Fil, Sheaffer 'Tuckaway', Pelikan M200 matching fountain pen & ballpoint in marbled green, Parker 'Vector XL', Waterman 'Allure', Yiren '405' (an iridescent Lamy Safari "tribute") and a Lamy 'Accent' (with Karelia Wood grip section) that I purchased from Amy that night (thanks, Amy!)

Side note: I purchased the Pelikan M200 fountain pen on April 16, 2002 from the Vancouver Pen Shop (I still have the receipt!) from the late Mrs. Margaret Leveque, who was the store's first owner. She and her husband Paul (who did pen repairs) ran the store for many years, and I clearly remember buying the pen from her and how she mentioned liking broad nibs. The pen has an OB (Oblique Broad) nib, but it's not an italic oblique---it's a round oblique...not something you see every day. I liked the pen so much that I bought its matching ballpoint from Van Pen three months later. Memories!

Rene always has a lot of interesting vintage pens to show during our meetings and these are no exception. From left to right, we have: an Oversized Sheaffer 'Balance' , a colorful pen by E. Faber, a Parker 'Geometric Duofold' (nicknamed the "Toothbrush Duofold" because of its pattern), an attractive Eclipse, a Waterman '4' model, an Esterbrook 'LJ' in the harder-to-find "Icicle" material, a Parker 'Moderne, a Sheaffer WASP 'Clipper' (in a plastic fondly referred to by some as "Circuit board"), a Lamy 'Studio' in "Racing Green" (like Stuart's!) and a Sheaffer ' Pop' Star Wars fountain pen featuring Jedi Master Yoda.

I apologize for the blurry photo above---my camera focused on the pens inside the display case---but this is Rene's Lamy 'Studio' in brushed stainless steel, the first fountain pen he bought from the Vancouver Pen Shop

Here's that stellar new find of Nathan's that I mentioned in Part 1 of our meeting blog post. It's a genuine Montblanc 'M' fountain pen that he recently acquired for a pittance via Facebook. The seller worked on the nib himself, but wound up nearly wrecking it, so rather than paying a small fortune to buy a replacement nib, he decided to sell it. Nathan was the lucky buyer, and after he applied his nib-smoothing/nib-grinding skills to the nib, he made it into a wonderfully-smooth writer.

I love the pen's grooved section and the shape of the 14K gold nib (which is like a semi-wraparound nib). There are knockoffs of this model to be found online, but their nibs don't look anything like the real thing ... and they sure don't write as nicely as the genuine article; this is one stylish fountain pen that's a dream to write with!

Nathan 's leather 6-slot pen case (made of 100% vegetable-tanned leather) that he acquired via Aliexpress...

The pens are separated and well-protected by molded slots so they can't knock against each other and cause damage. The case closes via a hidden magnetic snap, and is available in an assortment of colours.

Here's a closer look at the fountain pens inside Nathan's pen case (bottom to top)---a black  TWSBI 'Eco' that was the first not-cheap pen that Nathan bought on his fountain pen journey (and yes, it was from the Vancouver Pen Shop!), a 3D-printed pen made by Hex Pens in Hong Kong, the aforementioned Montblanc 'M', a vintage OMAS Extra Lucens 556/F, a 'Soyuz' fountain pen made in the U.S.S.R, and a NOS (New Old Stock) 'Chollima Brand' fountain pen from North Korea (!)

Above: a cool 3D-printed ink holder made by Nathan that holds six bottles of Robert Oster ink

And speaking of Robert Oster ink... Here's a writing sample (done by talented calligrapher & Pen Shop staffer Renz) of the special edition Robert Oster ink that was made for the Vancouver Pen Shop's 35th anniversary! The colour's official name is "Vanpen 86", so named because 1986 was the year in which the store opened.

Now for something completely different---two intriguing Delta fountain pens belonging to Jerred (who has an amazing collection of Delta pens--check out his reviews on this site). These new acquisitions are a blue Delta 'Horsepower" (inspired by high-performance European cars) and another car-inspired pen--a grayish-blue Delta 'Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint 50th Anniversary' Limited Edition made for the 50th anniversary of Alfa Romeo's legendary "Giulietta Sprint" model (only 954 of the Limited Edition fountain pens were produced).

The pens have some very interesting design features that make them stand out in a sea of fountain pens. The 'Horsepower's' bulbous cap (seen above) is shaped to mimic the lines of a Formula 1 race car when viewed from above, and the pen's barrel has a wide decorative band made of real black carbon fiber (a material widely used in Formula 1 race cars). The 'Giulietta Sprint's hand-crafted sterling silver clip (seen in the photo above this one) was made to resemble the grill work on the original classic 'Giulietta Spirit' automobile.

Here's a much more familiar-looking fountain pen -- Alvin's Platinum 'Century 3776', which he purchased from the Vancouver Pen Shop a while back. It's in the original packaging, which included a Platinum pen pouch. I forgot to photograph the fountain pen that his wife Yen bought at the Pen Shop that night -- a modern Esterbrook 'Estie' fountain pen in the Limited Edition "Maui" material.

I tried to take photos of most of the pens that were brought in by our members, but I apologize to those whose pens I missed. Glenn Marcus (who joined our club a long time ago and was at our club's get-together at Van Pen) has been a regular customer of the Vancouver Pen Shop for many years and wrote a very nice piece on the store on his wonderful website - GlennsPens.com

Last, but not least, is the fountain pen that new Vancouver Pen Club member Phil bought at the Pen Shop during our meeting---a handsome Pilot 'Custom Heritage 91'

As the sign above says, the Vancouver Pen Shop's location is now 555 Howe Street (between Dunsmuir and Pender) --they actually had their grand opening on November 23! By all accounts, the new store looks great (and it's more spacious + has more natural light) and it's conveniently located one block from the Expo Line's Granville Skytrain station and two blocks from the Canada Line's Vancouver City Centre Skytrain station. Check it out if you're in the area -- their store hours are: 10:00am - 6:00pm Monday through Saturday.

Once again, our sincere thanks to owner Margot, manager Shannon, the staff at the Vancouver Pen Shop who were on that night ---Fernie, Marlon and Sunshine---and helper Jacqueline for hosting our meeting. We had a wonderful time! 😊

(~blog post & photos by Maja~)

Last meeting of 2017!

Many thanks to the fifteen VPC members (including newcomer Jim M) who came out to the Terry Salman branch of the Vancouver Public Library on a rainy night for our November 16th meeting!

The evening's primary theme/topic was "What pen-related gifts did you get for Christmas/the holiday season in the past, and what pen stuff would you like to get this year...and why? " (many thanks to Mido for the theme idea!) and our secondary theme/topic was -as usual- Newest Acquisitions.
We saw many interesting items for both themes, so I snapped a few photos of them...
(~ click on images to enlarge ~)

Mido's green Pelikan M200, a gift from his family. Mido is hoping to add a Pelikan M800 or M1000 to his collection, in the form of a Christmas gift. Great choices, Mido!

Some really nice vintage Waterman fountain pens that Stuart recently acquired. The black pen with gold cap is a Waterman 'Duo 7', and the one below it is a gorgeous silver Waterman C/F in the Moiré pattern. There's a nice little writeup on the Duo 7 here (interestingly, the pen uses a glass ink cartridge and writes on both sides of the nib)

Two more new pens of Stuart's---a modern fountain pen (Lamy 'Studio' in the Special Edition "Racing Green" colour) and a vintage one (teal Waterman C/F). I'm sorry that I didn't snap a photo of the two pens Stuart received as Christmas gifts---two handsome Sheaffer 'Legacy' fountain pens (I'll try to photograph them at January's meeting). Being a vintage pen fan, the #1 pen on Stuart's wish list is an original Parker 'Duofold'.

Jerred always has some very interesting new pen-related acquisitions to show us. This time he brought (bottom to top) a jet-black M&G fountain pen (a very Lamy cp1-like pen), a Spalding fountain pen in black maple, a Paper Mate 'Monogram' fountain pen, and a pen-of-unknown-model from Aliexpress in a bright blue colour (I photographed its light-blue counterpart at last month's meeting). Jerred's dream fountain pen?
A Nakaya Vermillion Emperor.

A cool Muji 'Aluminum Round' fountain pen recently purchased by Tsung-Yen at the Muji store at Metrotown mall in Burnaby. His wish for a Christmas/holiday pen-related gift is the ever-popular Pilot 'Vanishing Point' fountain pen.

Longtime VPC member Christopher showed us his latest vintage pen finds, including: (L-R) an Aikin Lambert retractable dip-pen made of rolled gold & ebony (ca. 1860), three Wahl-Eversharps (including two lovely Dorics), an E.Faber in a colourful green & black marbled design, and his best find - a black Waterman '52' with wide gold band & mercantile clip.

A photo showing (in the foreground) the adjustable nib on one of Christopher's Wahl-Eversharp Dorics. Christopher's Christmas gift wish was granted a few years ago when his wife Chris bought him the Montblanc '149' he really wanted. I asked Christopher which pen was currently at the top of his wish list, and he immediately said an over-sized Parker Vacumatic (ca. 1932-1933) in red stripes, with double striped jewels, a matching section and perfect clarify. Wonderful choice!

One of Ricardo's newest fountain pens is the Martemodena 'Federico' in the red marbled "Hell's Bells" pattern at the top of the above photo. It came with a second barrel in orange (not pictured) and is a chunky, but light fountain pen. The other two pens are his blue Pelikan M805 in Vibrant Blue and a clear TWSBI 580. All great pens!

The beautiful swirly-green fountain pen at the top is another recent acquisition---a Visconti 'Van Gogh'in the "Irises" pattern (the colours were inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's famous paintings of the flower). He's only received fountain pens for his birthday and work, but Ricardo's Christmas wish-list pen is another Visconti - their popular 'Homo Sapiens' model.

Rohit brought in two pen-related Christmas/holiday gifts for the meeting's topic --- a gold Lamy 'LX' (not pictured) and this handbook on cursive writing---but he prefers to buy his own pens, given that he knows exactly what he wants, and where to find it! The amazing fountain pens in the photo are (L-R) Rohit's two Visconti 'Homo Sapiens' pens, an Aurora '88 Minerali' Azurite Blue Demonstrator (a limited edition---only 388 pieces were made), a glossy black Montblanc 'Heritage 1914', and a Lamy '2000' Stainless Steel. All iconic modern fountain pens!

I'm sorry I didn't photograph it, but Dana brought in a really cute pen roll made of a cloth material with bananas on it---a Christmas gift from a friend of hers. I did photograph two interesting eyedropper-filling pens she recently acquired (see photo above)---a huge ASA 'Galactic' fountain pen (top pen) and a Franklin-Christoph Pocket '66' in the "Solid Ice" colour. The pen Dana would love to get is the beautiful Pelikan M600 Pink Special Edition (that'd be one of my choices, as well ;)

Martin swung by our meeting to ask about a pen he got many years ago as a gift---this handsome Parker Duofold with a large 14K gold '50' nib. These pens are known as "English Duofolds", to distinguish them from their American counterparts, and often come with very nice gold nibs.

Barry's newest writing instruments (top to bottom)---a black Lamy '2000' fountain pen, a Conway Stewart mechanical pencil, a red marbled vintage Waterman fountain pen & pencil set of the Waterman "2 Lady size" model, and a grey marbled Parker 'Parkette' (ca. 1938). He acquired all of these items, except the Lamy, at a local antique store on the day of the meeting (well done, Barry)!
Barry's current pen wish list includes an Aurora Optima in Aurolide Blue, a vintage classic---the Waterman 'Patrician'---and a modern classic---the Montblanc '149'.

A shot of one of my newest acquisitions--a bottle of J Herbin's "Bleu Pervenche" (blue periwinkle) ink, purchased (along with some beautiful Monteverde "Rose Noir" ink & a white Lamy 'Safari') at Charal's the night before our meeting. Charals is a wonderful pen store in downtown Vancouver (near BC Place) that has an amazing array of fountain pen ink, fine paper, writing instruments at every price point, and other gift items.

Our newest member, Jim M, holding up one of Bruce's Christmas gifts from 2016----a large calligraphy set in a very nice box! Bruce's Grail Pen is a maki-e fountain pen.

.

Bruce's wonderful Christmas self-gifts (L-R): a gorgeous Visconti 'Metropolitan' (one of a very limited # made---Bruce's is 03/22), a Montblanc 149 from the mid-1960s, and a Pilot 845 with juicy BB (double-broad) nib.

That's one of Jim's newest purchases---a beautiful Edison 'Pearlette' in the "Sonoran Sky" colour, made by Brian Gray of the Edison Pen Company , a highly-regarded American maker of handmade writing instruments.

The black pen above is a Pilot 'Vanishing Point' in black carbonesque, a self-gift that Jim bought for himself. The VP (as it's known) is a modern classic, a fountain pen with a retractable nib that operates using a clicking mechanism, much like a ballpoint. On his Christmas wish list is another Pilot---a vintage Pilot 'MYU' with black stripes.

My (Maja's) Christmas haul from the last few years! From L-R: Sheaffer '300' ballpoint, Noodler's 'Ahab' in the "December 25" pattern, red Pelikan M205, ThINK fountain pen in the "Giraffe" pattern, black Sheaffer 'NoNonsense' and an ivory Delta 'Journal'.

The Sheaffer ballpoint was a self-gift, the 'NoNonsense" was a Christmas gift from my cousins in northern California, the Delta was purchased with money from my in-laws and the others were given to me by my parents (after I "steered" them towards those particular pens ;).
The pens on the right-side of the pen case were all given to me for Christmas by my very generous friend Glenn, who lives in Australia. From L-R: two Parker 'Facet' fountain pens and a FPR (Fountain Pen Revolution) 'Dilli' model with flexy nib. I brought a few more pens that Glenn sent me (a beautiful Sheaffer Slim 'Targa', a Waterman 'Kultur', and a FPR 'Triveni') but they're not pictured. At the top of my Christmas wish list is a Pilot 823 amber demonstrator fountain pen.

That's Mindy's amazing celluloid snake pen, created by Fisher of Pens, a maker of handmade pens located in South Carolina. Mindy's only pen-related Christmas gifts were some Sheaffer NoNonsense fountain pens from her brother, but her dream pen is a Nakaya fountain pen with a snake "rolling pen stopper"!

Alejandra's pens (including a clear Pilot 'Penmanship' she just bought from Mindy at the meeting :) and some inks she brought in for our voluntary pen & ink trade. Alejandra is hoping that Santa leaves a vintage fountain pen with an adjustable nib under the tree.

Mindy's Neo Critz pen case, which transforms into a pen stand!

The pen case is made by Kokuyo and is sold by JetPens.com (among others). In their writeup on the company, JetPens writes Kokuyo Co., Ltd., was founded in 1905 to manufacture book covers for account books. Back then people perceived Kokuyo as a "trash business" as few cared about book covers. However, Kokuyo's founder Zentaro Kuroda made tremendous efforts to change this perception and motivated his employees to make products needed by society. Today, the company has become a conglomerate called the "Kokuyo Group" that produces almost every type of office product imaginable.

A very quick photo (taken at home that night) of the gifts given to me at the meeting by my fellow VPCers as a 'thank you' for running our club---a bottle of nice rosé wine and a handsome stainless steel Jinhao X750 fountain pen! The gifts came with a nice 'thank you' card created by Glenn Marcus (not pictured) and signed by my fellow VPCers :)
Thank you so much, everyone, for your thoughtful presents...and also for your contributions to our meetings. This club wouldn't be the same without your enthusiasm and participation!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Our next meeting won't be until January 2018 (it will almost certainly be held on Thursday January 18) as we don't have December meetings, so please check our website for more info/updates. Alternately, you can sign up for email alerts about new posts by entering your email address in the "FOLLOW BY EMAIL" field on the far left-hand side of each webpage on this blog. Thanks again to my fellow VPCers for a great 2017!