Cross fountain pens--May meeting

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Many thanks to everyone who came to our meeting last night; we had 18 members in attendance, including one new member (Tony). I was a bit distracted by the Sheaffer Centennial celebration earlier that day (see blog post below)), having won a nifty Sheaffer "VFM" in the Strobe Silver colour, and almost forgot to snap some photos at our pen club meeting. The group shot I did take (see above), however, represents a nice cross-section (no pun intended!) of Cross' "early modern" fountain pens (from L-R)- my burgundy Cross Century Classic (aka Century I) & green Cross Metropolis, Dexter's white Cross Solo, my green Cross Solo (which is a darker green in real life) & black Cross Radiance, and Graham's chrome Cross Townsend Medalist (of which he wrote about here). I neglected to take photos of them, but we also saw nice examples of these Cross fountain pens:

• Century I ladies' model
• Century II
• Verve
• ATX
• Affinity
• Apogee
• Aventura
• Penatia "Lexington" (a Cross sub-brand)
• Paul Smith fountain pen (made by Cross for the fashion designer's line of writing instruments)

Our next meeting will be held at Perks on Thursday June 20 and will feature fountain pens that came in more than one size---e.g the Parker 51 (made in a standard size & Demi size), Visconti Van Gogh (made in the Maxi, Midi & Mini sizes). You don't have to bring examples of *all* the sizes made for a pen model---one is enough! There are no RSVPs necessary for meetings held at Perks pen store. Hope you can make it to our June meeting!

Late edit: We will be having our twice-yearly INK SWAP at the June meeting as well. It's strictly voluntary and you can bring in partially-filled bottles of ink and/or ink cartridges (those must be full ;) too.

Happy 100th birthday, Sheaffer!

Ok, it's a day early as the official Centennial Anniversary isn't until tomorrow, but there is a special Sheaffer event happening at the Vancouver Pen Shop that I wanted to mention. The store will be having a one-day celebration on Thursday May 16 (9:30am - 5:30pm) to mark the occasion. According to Shannon, there will be cake, prizes and a special discount of 20% on all Sheaffer writing instruments in the store... but just on that one day. The Vancouver Pen Shop is located at 512 West Hastings Street, here in Vancouver, B.C. (additional info I discovered late May 16th---the Sheaffer sale at the store continues with a 15% discount on all Sheaffers during the month of May at the Van. Pen Shop!)

From Sheaffer's official website here

The year 2013 represents a significant milestone for Sheaffer Pen: its one hundredth anniversary in the fine writing industry and its birth in Fort Madison, Iowa. On May 16, 1913 the W.A. Sheaffer Pen Company was incorporated in Fort Madison, Iowa for $35,000. Its founder and President was Walter A. Sheaffer, the humble gentleman who formed an idea, tested it, staked his life savings, and against all odds created one of the most highly respected and honored organizations around the world. It was the invention of the lever-fill fountain pen in 1907 that ignited a dream and gave the W.A. Sheaffer Pen Company its favored position in the industry. Little did Walter know, his namesake company would become a worldwide symbol of quality, craftsmanship, and innovation over the next 100 years. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don't forget our pen club meeting also on Thursday May 16! It's at the usual place (Perks pen store at 5844 Cambie Street) and time (6:30pm-8:30pm). Our meeting theme for May will be "Cross Fountain Pens". Hope to see you there!

Calligraphy pens

We had a pretty good turnout for the April meeting, held at Perks on April 18th (16 members in attendance on a *very* wet night) which featured calligraphy pens. Special thanks to Julienne for her calligraphy demos and to Greg for donating the door prize, a Sheaffer NoNonsense calligraphy set (won by Mike M).

Our May meeting will be held at Perks pen store (5844 Cambie Street, Vancouver, BC) on Thursday May 16 at 6:30pm, and our theme will be Cross Fountain Pens.

Now, here are some photos I snapped last Thursday:

Julienne showing us some examples of the calligraphy she does with her Pilot Parallel fountain pen, a type of pen whose nib consists of two parallel plates. The nib widths range from very wide (1.5mm) to extremely wide (2.4mm and 3.8mm) to "paintbrush" width (a whopping 6.0mm wide!!)



Our members watch with rapt attention to Julienne's talk on calligraphy pens....



(similar photo as above, but without the annoying camera flash!)



Our affable host, Richard Clarke of Perks pen shop! If you are ever in the Vancouver area, make sure to stop by Perks (at 5844 Cambie Street) and see the nice selection of writing instruments, paper and inks for sale. Perks is open daily, except Mondays.



Some lovely handwriting done by Julienne with a modern flexible-nibbed fountain pen, the Noodler's "Ahab" (poem by Wm. Wordsworth :)



Anne brought in a wide selection of dip pen nibs along with her Speedball dip pen. These type of dip pens use India Ink, a type of drawing ink containing pigments and gum arabic that is *not* to be used in fountain pens (India Ink will clog fountain pens terribly and is a challenge to remove!)



New member Ken brought in a wide selection of writing instruments used by architects. Unfortunately, I forgot to photograph them, but I did snap a photo of his "jumbo" fountain pen made by Tombow, as well as Louise's Parker Vector with calligraphy nib. The latter came as part of a set with several different calligraphy nib widths.



Some examples of the intricate Korean calligraphy done by Julienne on a special type of paper that felt a bit like papyrus to me.



Any of these look familiar?? The ever-popular Sheaffer NoNonsense calligraphy kit--various generations of the kits sold from the 1970s to the present day.

April meeting details (topic: Calligraphy Pens)

Date: Thursday April 18, 2013
Place: Perks pen store, 5844 Cambie Street, Vancouver, BC (ie. the usual place)
Time: 6:30pm-8:30pm ("early birds" welcome at 6:00pm to chat before the meeting).
Theme: Calligraphy Pens! Please bring a few examples of your own calligraphy (if you have any), along with the pen(s) you use. The store isn't an ideal setting for elaborate calligraphy demonstrations, but I thought it would be nice to see what our fellow VPC members are using to create their own "beautiful handwriting". If you don't do calligraphy but have some pens that can be used for calligraphy (ie. pens with italic nibs, dip pens with flexy nibs, etc) please bring them along!
"Newest Acquisitions" is always our secondary topic, so if you have some cool new pen, ink, paper or pen-related accessory to show, please bring it along, too. No RSVPs necessary for any meeting held at Perks. Hope to see you there!

more on mechanical pencils

Thanks Maja for the write up on pencils seen at our last meeting. It was surprising - or perhaps it shouldn't be - how much we enjoy mechanical pencils nearly as much as we do pens. I attempted to lower the tone of the meeting by producing my favourite el-cheapo Paper Mate Clearpoint, a rather ugly plastic thing I found walking across the school grounds near me, only to discover that other members also agree a good mechanical pencil doesn't have to be an expensive, high end one. This one takes a sturdy 0.7 lead which is advanced by the handy purple button in the middle, has a good grip, a generous eraser supply, and works like a charm. There Maja, you dared me to post this, so I did! Bill K.

March meeting photos

Just posting some photos from our meeting last Thursday taken by Bill K (first six photos) and Richard (last three pics). I didn't think we'd get as many members as we did, but 20 members showed up! Our March topic was mechanical pencils, and it was well-represented with pencils which ran the gamut from classic vintage examples & lovely but lesser-known vintage brands, to modern mechanical pencils used for drawing, drafting and carpentry. Many thanks to all who attended! The next VPC meeting will be held on Thursday April 18 at Perks (usual time & place) and the topic will be "Calligraphy Pens"!

(click on photos to enlarge)



Photo above: Derek (in denim shirt) talking about the amazing vintage pencils he brought in while Ken (far left), Dexter, and Mindy look on.

Photo above: Brian brought in his wonderful vintage Waterman pencil collection, as well as some classic mechanical pencils made by Wahl-Eversharp, Parker and others.

Photo above: Graham, Mindy and Glenn Collins listen while Maja shows her collection of vintage pencils from the "Big Four" vintage pen companies (Sheaffer, Wahl-Eversharp, Parker and Waterman) as well as some nice Eclipse pencils.

Photos above: A close-up look at the above pencils.

Photo above: Part of Derek's great collection of vintage pencils (yes, he has more!)

March of the pencils!

We're doing something a little different this month, and will be featuring mechanical pencils as our March meeting topic/theme. Mechanical pencils were often sold with fountain pens in sets (before ballpoints became popular), so we're going to shine our spotlight on them this month. Without further ado, here are the details about our upcoming meeting:

Date: Thursday March 21, 2013
Place: Perks pen store, 5844 Cambie Street, Vancouver, BC (ie. the usual place)
Time: 6:30pm-8:30pm ("early birds" welcome at 6:00pm to chat before the meeting).
Theme: "Get the lead out!" (Mechanical Pencils - Vintage & Modern)
"Newest Acquisitions" is always our secondary topic, so if you have some cool new pen, ink, paper or pen-related accessory to show, please bring it along, too.

No RSVPs necessary for any meetings held at Perks pen store. We're a very friendly, casual club with no membership dues or duties, and new members are always welcome! And please don't worry if you don't have any pencils to show---I'm sure we'll have plenty of examples to see. Hope to see you there :)

Lamy night at Perks!

February's meeting topic was Lamy Writing Instruments and drew 14 members plus a special guest---Michael Pons, a representative for the Canadian distributor for Lamy, Visconti, Faber-Castell & Diplomat. Michael gave an enlightening and entertaining talk on Lamy writing instruments & accessories and was kind enough to show us some examples of the brand-new Lamy Al-Star for 2013 in the Pearl finish, an attractive champagne colour: (pen photo by Mike M)



(Michael Pons--center, between Anne F. and Glenn M. in photos above)

Many examples of Lamy writing instruments were brought in by our members and a good time was had by all. Many thanks to Michael for coming to our meeting to talk about Lamy products. Grateful thanks also to Louise & Norm for the door prize, a pen-related book they acquired at the Melbourne Pen Show last year while in Australia.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday March 21 at Perks, and the topic will be "Get the Lead Out! (mechanical pencils-modern & vintage)". (rest of photos by Richard Clarke)

Two vintage demonstrators

Longtime VPC member Derek L. kindly provided us with photos of the two vintage demonstrators he brought in for our January meeting. The top image is Derek's Parker '51' Special demonstrator and the bottom photo is his über-cool Sheaffer Snorkel demonstrator. Many thanks, Derek!

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January 2013 meeting at Perks pen store

We had another meeting with excellent turnout---24 members were in attendance, including two newcomers! (Rustem and Wallace). The topic of "Demonstrator Fountain Pens" was well-represented, with both old (Sheaffer Snorkel & Parker 51 Special aerometric) and new examples (Noodler's 'Ahab', Pilot 'Crystal', Reform 'Skywalker', TWSBI 530s, 540s, a Vac 700 & two 'Minis', Pilot 'Petit1' pens, as well as some really nice demonstrators by Visconti, OMAS, CONID & Sailor).

The evening also saw two (unexpected) door prize draws! The vintage desk set (lever-filler fountain pen and base), generously donated by Dave M, was won by Graham, and the bottle of modern Sheaffer ink (courtesy of Perks) was won by Mark H. Many thanks to Dave and Richard for their donations, and congratulations to the winners!

The meeting was also notable because one of our long-time members (Michael A.) is moving away this month. We will all miss his knowledge and enthusiasm a great deal; Michael did two wonderful talks on famous industrial designers who also designed writing instruments, and always had something interesting to contribute to our meeting themes/topics. His talks on pen designers were very educational, well-researched, and gave us a much greater appreciation of writing instrument designs (you can see the list of pens Michael talked about here ).Thank you, Michael, for entertaining and enlightening us with this interesting pen-related topic! We wish you all the best in Toronto, and hope that you will enjoy being part of the Toronto-area pen club :)

The next Vancouver Pen Club meeting will be held on Thursday February 21, 2013 at Perks pen store (the usual place---5844 Cambie Street in Vancouver, B.C) from 6:30pm to about 8:30pm or so. Our topic will be "Lamy Writing Instruments", and will include the full range----fountain pens, rollerballs, ballpoints, propelling pencils and multisystem pens. Hope to see you there!

Now, here are some photos taken by Richard at the January 17th meeting...

From L-R: Graham, Dexter, Michael, Rustem, Glenn C, Bruce (with his back to the camera), Christopher, Joe and David S.

Michael sharing a laugh with (from L-R) Maja, David S and Brian P, while Dave M looks on in the right foreground....

That's Ian peeking out from the left foreground, along with Derek, Greg (partially hidden), Graham, Dexter, Michael, Rustem, Glenn C and Bruce.

The Perks store also carries a wide variety of (non-pen related :) gift items, and our club is fortunate to have such a nice space for our meetings...

My apologies for forgetting to take close-ups of the demonstrator pens, but it was a bit of a whirlwind of an evening!