June meeting photos ~ part two

Continuing with our June theme of "Limited Edition Fountain Pens"...here are some photos of a few of Bruce's amazing Visconti LEs. The one on the far left (in the photo below) is the gorgeous Visconti Mudejar Art LE, made of ivory-coloured resin and covered in scrimshaw engravings, released in 2007 (only 600 made), the one in the middle is the Visconti Istos Aracnis, released in 2012, made of black lucite and covered with a Sterling Silver overlay in a web pattern (only 888 made), and the far right one is a Visconti Ripple LE made for Chatterley Luxury. Excellent info on Visconti's Limited Edition Pens (they made a lot of them!) here on Fountain Pen Hospital's website.

~ Click on photos to enlarge ~

An assortment of wonderful Visconti LE's from their Opera range - from L to R: Opera Master LE, a Wall Street LE (2nd gen), the Aida LE, and the Visconti Opera Club Maple Leaf LE.

Bruce holding a Visconti Verona 'Rebecca Moss' LE:

A quick shot of Stuart's newest acquisition----a green-striped vintage Pelikan 140, a piston-filler made from 1952 to 1965. Those old Pelikan gold nibs usually write really nicely (as an aside, I have a 140 with a fantastic oblique medium nib that I absolutely love using).

Many thanks to Mark S for bringing in his extensive LE collection, which is shown in the three photos below. Mark brought in some Montblanc LEs that he'd shown us two years ago when we did Ltd Edition/Special Edition pens, but he also brought us some other lovely LE pens, including a Visconti Titanic LE (shown on the extreme right of his pen case below):

That's Mark holding the Stipula Casa Mila LE, made to honour visionary architect Antonio Gaudi (there's some interesting information on Stipula's Limited Editions --including the Casa Mila LE-- on this page of FPH's website)

A quick shot of my (Maja's) LEs: From L-R: Delta Vancouver Pen Club LE (#07/25), Waterman Carene David Ogilvy LE (not numbered, but the certificate says only 1700 were made, worldwide), Retro 51 Double Eight LE (#075/200), Retro 51 Abbondanza, made for Retro 51 by Stipula (#231/351), Stipula Duetto LE made for Seattle's World Lux pen store (#30/50), Stipula Casa Batilo LE (#147/193),the 2007 Bexley Simplicity LE made for FPN--Fountain Pen Network (not numbered but the production run was limited to 115 pieces, iirc). Top left: Pilot M90 LE (limited to 9,000 pieces). Top right: Stipula Passaporto LE made for FPN (#22/200, marked Moderator as I'm an Hon. Admin there)

Lastly, I asked Ben to take a photo of his two modern Sheaffer Balance LEs because I accidentally deleted a quick shot I took of them, and he sent me this great photo showing the Jungle Green LE on the left and the Aspen LE on the right. Both are stunning patterns!

Many thanks to those who brought in LEs I didn't photograph---Julienne (mentioned in part one of this two-part post), Bill K with his Stipula Passaporto FPN LE in blue marble (one of 200 pieces made for the Fountain Pen Network website in 2011) and Jerred for showing us his gorgeous Delta Dolce Vita Oro and Nemosine Singularity fountain pen in Blue Marble (only 500 made in this colour). Natasha brought her OMAS LE pens to the April meeting, so she didn't bring them to the June meeting but you can read about them in our April meeting report :)
And many thanks to those members who brought in their new aquistions (not photographed)----June with her Pelikan 400NN, Bart with his Pelikan M800 in Burnt Orange, Natasha with her Marlen Aleph, Lamy Safari in the Dark Lilac colour for 2016, Lamy 2000 in stainless steel and her Namisu Nova model, which I believe was part of a Kickstarter.com campaign. This is a simple but very elegant design, made from solid aluminum or titanium, which is now (unfortunately) sold out, but if you can get your hands on one, I'm sure you'll be impressed by the design. One of Bethany's two newest acquisitions brought in for us to see was a Tactile Turn 'Gist' fountain pen, another elegently designed pen that was also part of a Kickstarter campain (the other pen she brought was a very cool Franklin Christoph '65'). And last but not least, our generous door prize donor, Jerred brought in his newest pen purchases---a Stipula Etruria Magnifica, a Parker 180 and some Dollar 7171I fountain pens.
It's great when our members have items to bring in for our monthly theme or show us their newest pen-related purchases....but even if you *don't* have something for the theme or new stuff to show, please come to our meetings anyway. The point of our club is to have fun, learn and/or educate people about fountain... and we're not pen snobs, either ;)

June meeting photos ~ part one

We had excellent attendance for our June meeting; 26 members (including one new member, Sophia) showed up at Perks. Many thanks to Jerred for his donation of the door prizes---three Dollar piston-fillers, won by Stuart, Tony and Ralph!

Our theme for the meeting was "Limited Edition Fountain Pens", and we saw many beautiful examples brought in by our members. We actually did this topic back in July of 2014 but we've had so many new members since then, so when one of them asked me if we could do that as a topic, I said 'sure'!

Mido started off the meeting by showing us his Pilot Vanishing Point Limited Edition (LE for short) fountain pen in purple. The pen was released in August 2008, and only 2008 pens were made, 900 being released to the U.S. There is some excellent information on VPs on Carmen Rivera's extensive website devoted to this popular fountain pen model ( link ).

~ Click on photos to enlarge ~

Our secondary topic is always Newest Acquisitions, so Peter brought in his classy new fountain pen blotter (shown below), in addition to his Delta Vancouver Pen Club LE (#12/25).

Here are Julienne's newest acquisitions---a nice assortment of vintage fountain pens shown below. For the evening's primary theme, Julienne brought in her Delta Vancouver Pen Club LE, a Monteverde Fantasia LE, a Delta Capri Marina Grande LE & its counterpart, a Delta Marina Piccola LE (a sort of 'his & hers' set; I didn't photograph them, but there's some good info on them here ), as well as her OMAS 360 LE (#108/360).

This is Christopher's fountain pen that Julienne is trying out here; it's an exceptionally smooth-writing vintage Waterman Taperite that was a recent acquisition for him.

More new acquisitions! This is Ben's beautiful Sheaffer Legacy Sterling Silver fountain pen. The fountain pen is nicely balanced, and the metal has a very pleasant warmth to it due to the heat conductivity of the silver. Great buy, Ben!

One more new acquisition photo before we continue on with the Limited Edition theme---this is Aaron's fantastic new Montblanc Heritage Collection 1912 fountain pen. It's a very classy-looking modern pen that evokes Montblanc's early days in terms of looks *and* design---it has a very cool retractable nib mechanism, in addition to a piston-filling mechanism!

VPC Summer Dinner ~ information for members

The annual summer dinner for VPC members will be held on Thursday July 21.
VPC members - please RSVP me no later than July 18 as per the instructions in the members' group emails I sent on July 5th and 9th.

Please note: this is not a regular meeting, and there will be no regular meeting in July, just the dinner.
We will return to our regular "themed" meetings at Perks on Thursday August 18 (theme: to be announced). Have a great summer, everyone! :)

May meeting photos

We had good attendance for the May 17th meeting held at our usual venue, Perks pen store at 5844 Cambie Street, Vancouver. Sixteen members, including three newcomers (Bart, Jas and June), showed up to see and discuss our May topic, fountain pens with extra-fine (XF) nibs. We saw a wide variety of pens, both modern and vintage, and I snapped some quick photos of them (VPC group photos by Richard).

Here is what our members brought for the topic:
Alejanda: Parker '51'
Bart: Lamy 2000 & Pilot Metropolitan.
Catherine: (didn't bring it, but has a Lamy Safari with an XF nib)
Charles: Sheaffer Snorkel, Sheaffer Balance, Sheaffer Craftsman, Sheaffer Admiral and two Parker '51's.
Christopher: Parker Moderne, Esterbrook Dollar Pen in the hard-to-find "Cracked Ice" pattern, Peter Pan, Esterbrook Skyline & Parker Victory.
Jerred: Pilot FK-700R, Lanbitou 'Missile', Reform 1745, Kaweco Sport, Delta Passion.
June: Lamy Accent.
Maja: Esterbook desk pen, Esterbrook SJ w/9128 (XF flexible) nib, Pilot Custom 74, Cross Radiance, Online Vision, Lamy Safari w/custom barrel by Penchetta Pens & Knives, Sailor Procolor 500 in the Hoshizuku (Stardust) pattern.
Mark: Parker Slip Cap Eyedropper filler with middle joint (ca. 1903)
Mido: Montblanc Generations, modern Parker Duofold.
Mindy: Esterbrook J with #1550 nib, Pilot Penmanship, Sailor Pikachu Special Edition, Pilot Falcon.
Stuart: Sheaffer flat-top ringtop, Sheaffer Balance with Military Clip, Waterman CF, Eversharp Skyline, Parker '21' Deluxe & several Sheaffer Snorkels.

And now, without further ado, here are the pics (click on photos to enlarge)...

(From Left to Right: Some of Maja's XF-nibbed pens: Esterbook desk pen, black Pilot Custom 74, black Cross Radiance, red Online Vision & red Esterbrook SJ)

(L-R: Lamy 2000, Eversharp Skyline, Sailor Procolor 500 in the Hoshizuku (Stardust) pattern, Sheaffer PFM, and a red & black marbled Lamy Safari with custom barrel made by Penchetta Pen & Knife. In the background is Jas' newest acquisition, a wonderful Parker Duofold "Big Red" fountain pen)

Our secondary topic is always Newest Acquisitions, and in the photo above, you can see Graham's red Pilot FK-700R & blue Pilot Decimo, Maja's new orangey Stipula Duetto (in the Cognac colour) & a black MB 146 clone with rose gold trim that she found on AliExpress.com, and June's new Noodler's Neponset in the "John Mung" acrylic pattern (white with red swirls). June recently acquired a gorgeous Pelikan M600 in the pink-striped barrel pattern and Bart brought his cool new Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age (both not pictured).

(Maja's newest acquisitions: (in foreground) stainless steel Waterman Hemisphere fountain pen, grey Parker Touché felt-tip pen, green-marbled Wearever fountain pen, and PaperMate's first ballpoint model)

Just above the ink bottle cap, you can see Mindy's clear Pilot Penmanship fountain pen. She actually came up with the idea for our May topic, so many thanks again, Mindy!

The fountain pens that Jerred brought for our topic (along with a new Parker Sonnet) can be seen laid out on the cloth pen case with blue trim above, and somewhere in the photo there should be a new acquisition of Bob W's - a Sheaffer '100' he won in a draw at the Vancouver Pen Shop.

Group photo! From L-R: Christopher, Charles, Maja, Catherine, Alejandra, Mindy, Jerred, Stuart, Jas, June, Bart, Bob W, Graham. Present at meeting but not pictured: Richard, Mark and Mido.

Jerred's black Pilot FCM-500R and Graham's version of the same pen model in red. This is the gold-nibbed fountain pen that costs less than $65 CAD, available from Amazon.ca . Amazing price and a really nice writer. Thanks for the heads-up about this great deal, Jerred!

Mido's modern Parker Duofold and a Montblanc Generations in the harder-to-find purple colour.

Christopher's Peter Pan fountain pen made by Salz. It's difficult to see the scale, but it's a very tiny fountain pen. There's some info on this model on Richard Binder's helpful site here.

Stuart's newest acquisition, the Lamy Safari 2016 Special Edition in Dark Lilac. It's a lovely matte purple material which looks even better in person!

These are the XF-nibbed fountain pens Stuart brought in for our May topic, along with his new Safari.

I'm trying to remember if any of Stuart's other pens here have XF nibs or not...Apologies, Stuart!....I do recall that the nice burgundy Sheaffer Connaisseur (2nd from the left) was a fairly new acquisition for him. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our next meeting will be held on Thursday June 16 at the Perks pen store at 5844 Cambie Street, in Vancouver(our usual venue) from 6:30pm-8:30pm and will feature Limited Edition fountain pens as our June topic/theme, so if you have any to show, please bring them with you. As always, Newest Acquisitions is our secondary topic. No need to RSVP for any meeting at Perks. Hope to see you there!
Cheers ~ Maja

June 16th meeting info

Date: Thursday June 16, 2016
Time: 6:30pm to 8:30pm (members may arrive a little bit early--at -6:00pm---to chat beforehand)
Place: Perks pen store, 5844 Cambie St, Vancouver (the usual meeting place)
Topic: Limited Edition Fountain Pens
These are the kind of pens that were produced in limited quantities, usually having a serial number indicating the particular # for the pen (e.g. pen # 009 of 100 made). If you want to bring your Vancouver Pen Club LE from Delta, please feel free to do so :)

Our secondary topic is always Newest Acquisitions, so if you've acquired any new pen-related items, please bring them for us to see.

Many thanks to Richard of Perks pen store for hosting our meetings. Please note Perks' new store hours are Wed - Sun : Noon to 5PM (changed from 11am to 5pm). The store is still closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

Our summer dinner will be held in either July or August. It's our way of showing our appreciation to Richard for his generous hospitality in hosting our pen club meetings since November 2007. Thank you, Richard!

Hope you can make it to the meeting this month! (I'll post the May meeting pics this weekend) No need to RSVP for any meeting held at Perks. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me at vancouverpenclub@gmail.com
Cheers ~Maja

The 4th Annual Northwest. Pen Round-Up! (Saturday July 16th ~ Portland, Oregon)

Just passing along some information about this fun (and free!) annual summer pen event held in Portland, Oregon sent to me yesterday by co-organizer Stuart Hawkinson...

Stuart writes:
"The 4th Annual Northwest Pen Round-Up! will be held on Saturday July 16th, 2016, at the Lucky Labrador Brewing Co., 1945 N.W. Quimby Street, Portland Oregon from 11:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

Table setup will start about 10:00-10:30 Saturday morning. Show tables are smaller size than normal, but we try to be flexible. Tables are $20ea payable on the day of the show. We will have room for about 20 tables.

It is the same weekend as the largest antique show in the Northwest, the Christine Palmer Antique Show (show's official website here).

All pen collectors and users are invited, wherever you are. We do not limit this event to just people from the Northwest or the West Coast.

General admission is free.

Please contact Stuart Hawkinson or Michael McNeil for more information
s.hawkinson@comcast.net
michael@northwestpenworks.com
--
Cheers,
Stuart Hawkinson"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In Vancouver Pen Club-related news... I'll post the photos from our May 19 meeting sometime this weekend, so watch this space!
Thanks,
~Maja

May meeting details

Date: Thursday May 19, 2016
Time: 6:30pm to 8:30pm (members may arrive a little bit early--at -6:00pm---to chat beforehand)
Place: Perks pen store, 5844 Cambie St, Vancouver, BC (we're back to the usual meeting place)
Topic: Extra-Fine Nibbed Fountain Pens (please bring examples of some of your XF-nibbed pens) Many thanks to Mindy for the topic idea!

Our secondary topic is always Newest Acquisitions so if you've received any new pen-related items, please bring them for us to see. Hope you can make it...oh, and no need to RSVP for any meeting held at Perks!

Yes, modern flexy nibs *do* exist!

In honour of my upcoming birthday, I acquired a wonderful new fountain pen from Kim at Penquest.com. Meet my new Stipula Duetto in the "Cognac" colour:

(~click on images to enlarge~)

The pen is made of Cellocride®, Stipula's name for the cellulose acetate they used in the Duetto and some other pen models, such as the Ventidue '22' (sadly, both of these pens are no longer made). The placement of the Cellocride® slabs creates a lovely effect when light hits the pen. My photos don't do it justice, but trust me, it's a stunning writing instrument.

In addition to being a gorgeous fountain pen, my Duetto has a wonderfully flexy Titanium nib, as you can see in the writing sample below (ink: Noodler's "Galileo Manuscript", created exclusively for the Fountain Pen Network ):

Thanks again, Kim, for this wonderful addition to my Italian pen collection!

Akkerman ink

A couple of photos of some Akkerman ink I acquired from an online store in The Netherlands last November with the help of Ken C (thanks again, Ken!). The ink bottle has an elegantly simple system for trapping the ink in the upper part of the bottle, thus allowing for easier filling.

From their official website : "To mark our 100 years of existence, PW Akkerman introduced in 2010 his own ink line. This ink’s came in large 150 ml bottles, these large bottles are now completely sold out.
 
Due to the worldwide success of this unique bottle we decided to continue, but now with a smaller sized bottle with a content of ca 60 ml. The new bottles will be available in the same 31 colors as before. The Akkerman inks have been given names related to the city The Hague."

Here's my bottle of "Shocking Blue" ink:

(click on images to enlarge)

My Akkerman ink, my favourite pen case (by Delta) and two of my all-time favourite pens, the orange and black Delta Dolcevita Slim I received as a present from Delta Pen, and the special limited edition Delta Dolcevita that was made for our pen club in late 2014 in a gorgeous chocolate light and dark brown celluloid. :

I reviewed these lovely fountain pens here and here.

April meeting photos

Our April meeting was held on Thursday April 21st at the Community Room of the Terry Salman branch of the Vancouver Public Library (due to Perks being closed). Turnout was uncharacteristically low (10 members) but our enthusiasm wasn't, and we had fun seeing, showing and learning about OMAS fountain pens. Many thanks to all who attended and special thanks to the VPL (esp. Karen at the Terry Salman location) for graciously allowing us to use this room for our meeting. Congratulations to Bruce on winning the door prize---a copy of the PCA (Pen Collectors of America) magazine "The Pennant" (generously donated by Christopher R)!

From L to R: Natasha, Maja, Alejandra, Glenn M, Tony, Jerred, Graham and Mindy (not pictured: Bruce R and Christopher R)

Longtime VPC member (and Italian fountain pen collector extraordinaire) Glenn Marcus got the ball rolling by telling us about his experience visiting the OMAS factory in Bologna, Italy in 2007 (you can read about it on his wonderful pen blog here). Sadly the company closed its doors a few months ago (Glenn posted an eloquent piece on this topic here) so there won't be any new OMAS writing instruments being made in the forseeable future. Glenn brought his extensive OMAS collection to the meeting and spoke about the different models---first and foremost, the 'Arte Italiana' line, the beautiful, faceted (12-sided) fountain pens that immediately spring to mind when one thinks of OMAS (examples shown were: the old- and new-style Paragons and the new-style Milord, beautiful examples in celluloid---Bronze Arco, Green Arco, Royale Blue and 'Wild'---and black vegetal resin), the new Bologna model in the 'Burkina' celluloid, a gorgeous Ogiva limited edition made for the Novelli Pens store in Rome, the lovely 'Extra Lucens' model (the 2013 Limited Edition), an old-style '360' in the 'Magnum' size, along with its new-style counterpart, and several of the 'Vintage 360' models (the clear models that came in a variety of colours). I could have taken photos of Glenn's OMAS fountain pens, but his photography is so much superior to mine and you can see almost all of the pens I mentioned when you click on the individuals links on this page of his pen-related blog.

We went around the table and those who had OMAS fountain pens to show and discuss did so---Graham brought his Milord in Aubergine with beautiful rose gold trim (he forgot to bring his OMAS '90 Italia'), Natasha brought her new-style Milord in that wonderful Bronze Arco celluloid and two Ogiva Alba fountain pens, Bruce (another Italian pen enthusiast and collector) brought two old-style 'Bologna' models (including the version made for MoMA) along with a lovely OMAS in Blue Royale celluloid and a small 'Dama' (the Gentleman's model). Christopher R had an older OMAS fountain pen from 1957/1958, and some very old OMAS ink from 1938, but unfortunately he left them at home.

I wish I'd taken some pen photos that night---my apologies for the oversight--- but when I got home, I snapped a quick photo of my old-style Milord in black vegetal resin and my new-style 'Bologna' in the swirly blue and white cotton "Aqua di Bologna" resin (the colours of the Adriatic sea ,which borders Italy as well as the country of my birth, the former Yugoslavia):

(Click on image to enlarge)

We also saw some of our members' newest fountain pen acquisitions (which is always our secondary topic) including Mindy's cool vintage Pilot Murex, Christopher's very old Caws pencil holder from the 19th century and an Eclipse 'Hooded Knight' model in seafoam green, Alejandra's glossy black Parker '51' set with gold-filled "converging lines" caps (a heck of a bargain for what she paid---well done, Alejandra!)and two new pens that Jerred acquired recently---a Delta 'Unica' and a Pilot 'Seremo' FCM-500. The latter pen can be found (new stock) for $40 USD and sports a 14K gold nib, an amazingly low price point for a gold-nibbed pen.

Our next meeting will be held on Thursday May 19 from 6:30pm to 8:30pm or so, and will almost certainly be held at our usual venue---Perks pen store on Cambie Street in Vancouver---but check our blog for any updates. The topic will be "Extra-Fine Nibs", so bring your examples (both modern and vintage) of fountain pens that have this type of nib. Thanks to Mindy for the theme idea. Hope to see you then!