Wrapping up the 2016 Chicago Pen Show: Part 2

On the vintage front, I saw a lot of great pens. No matter how many pen shows I attend, there’s always something I haven’t seen in person, or rarely see, or rarely see in such perfect condition. The tables are like a treasure hunt.

For reasons I can’t understand, I appear to own eight yellow pens. So it makes sense that I always enjoy seeing a nice Mandarin Duofold. This one was part of the auction.

Vintage pens I’d never focused on before, but really liked, included some Conklin Nozacs and a Waterman Ink-Vue. The Parkers at the Chicago Pen Show are always great, and this year my local pen friends and I especially liked some wartime Challengers made of beautiful celluloid.

And I got to see every single special Parker 51 I’d buy if I win the lottery. I loved that. Here’s one.

In our local group, Dave and I are the Kaweco fans, and we both were taken by the pen he’s holding below, a vintage Sport. I don’t know if he’s thinking the same way, but I really wish I had taken this home with me.

For some reason, I spent time with Sheaffer PFMs this year. I was showing them to someone else. But darn, if I didn’t like that pen myself.

Oh and not really vintage, but not current either, were some early Aurora Optimas in celluloid — some prototypes and some early ones. These were drop dead gorgeous. There are four in this photo, and I found another elsewhere. I really was tempted.  If wishes were horses, I’d be flying around with those in the imaginary saddlebag right now.

This year the selection of non-vintage but collectible pens was as good as I’ve ever seen at Chicago, I think. Here is a tower of Montblancs.

The show seemed to have tons of Montblanc Writer’s Editions, and at reasonable prices — which still means a lot of money. It was fun to hold them all, and see which pen felt better in the hand. You know, for that imaginary purchase I’ll make in the future.

Except, I’d buy this one first: the Parker T1 that Joel Hamilton let me see. I. Loved. This. Pen.

On the other end of the spectrum, it was interesting to me, as a Lamy Safari user, to see that some older Lamy Safaris in colors no longer available have really gone up in price. Obviously, demand for those has increased. I’d guess the same about Pelikan Cities pens. I’ve never seen so many desirable M620s at Chicago.  Among other Pelikans in the case below, you’ll see the Stockholm and the Shanghai.

The prices for Cities pens seems to be increasing, too. But it was great to see all of the best ones under one roof. Here’s the one for the City by the Bay.

And that brings up one of my favorite things about pen shows: you can very happily enjoy the show by looking at it as a great museum.

Pulling myself away from Pelikan, I really liked seeing a lot of pen makers and pen companies represented at the show.

Kenro brought Aurora and Montegrappa pens. No more Omas, unfortunately. But they  brought every Aurora nib for people to test.

That meant I finally got to try the Optima’s extra-fine nib. I loved it — it’s a true extra fine, but it’s very smooth, while still having Aurora’s characteristic bit of feedback.  The extra-fine is on my buy list for sure now.

The pen second from left in the next photo is the Aurora Optima 365 Abissi.

Visconti was there, too, with pens to try and also pens that haven’t been released yet but can be ogled. Here’s one of them, a Visconti fountain pen that’s coming out later this year: it has the Divina shape and the Wall Street celluloid.

Visconti is also bringing out this next one later this year. It’s called the Watermark, and I thought it looked great.

Syd Saperstein was there from Wahl-Eversharp, along with his super nice wife Judi. The modern Skylines used some really beautiful materials. And the oversized Decobands are showstoppers. Here is a Decoband in my favorite color.

We had Papier Plume from New Orleans, who brought both pens and inks. At the table was Renzo, who surely will accept my apology if I’m misspelling his name, because he is the nicest guy. And an Edmonton Oilers fan, to boot.

I really liked the colors of the Papier Plume inks. I have filed that under “subjects for further research.” A trip to New Orleans just might be required for that.

New to me this year, and I think new to the Chicago Pen Show, was Stylo Art from Japan. Nice people with beautiful pens.

In addition to pens made of attractive woods, Stylo Art was showing urushi pens and accessories.

That urushi was gorgeous. I really wanted to get back to the Stylo Art table, but I ran out of time. I hope they come next year.

The Edison Pen Company was there, of course, and catching up with Brian and Andrea Gray is always my favorite thing to do at the pen show. Plus, their trays of pens are so colorful and cheerful.

As ever, Edison’s “Hawaiian” material was really popular with pen show buyers.

That is more commonly known as “unicorn barf.” According to my friend Sharon, there’s even a hashtag for it: #unicornbarf.

“It’s a thing,” she said. Kindly.

Because I don’t keep up with all the things. And apparently everyone instantly senses that about me.

But I do know that two separate people came up to me with their new unicorn barf pens. And Brian said they sold more than that. Which I think is awesome. Fun pens are my favorite. This one’s a Mina.

Speaking of fun, that’s the very nice Jim Rouse from Franklin-Christoph. His fingers are inky because he was adjusting nibs.

Franklin-Christoph also brought a lot of materials and pen models, and all their nibs, including the Mike Masuyama grinds, to try. I could have spent an hour there. Except, and good for them, they were always surrounded by customers.

I have to say that Franklin-Christoph  had one material I really liked. My “next year” list is getting very long.

And here was something else I loved. The Andersons brought a tray of Platinum 3776 pens, including all of the celluloids.  They look great in person. That Koi is very me, but so are the tortoise and stone.

The Andersons are Montblanc dealers, so they also brought the new Montblanc Rouge et Noir pens. These are fairly new and seem very popular. Below is the 1906 Limited Edition in ebonite.

Also at the show were pen repair people, making me wish I’d been more organized and had brought some pens that need fixing.

Indy-Pen-Dance was busy nibmeistering and repairing pens from the second they got there. Here’s Linda Kennedy, below, who seemed extremely nice, and very calm and patient, despite how busy she was.

Ron and Robyn Zorn were there, too, which was great for me, because I’ve sent them pens for years, but never met them.

And what nice people. Robyn even let me store my stuff in their cabinet. It occurs to me that I should buy more Sheaffers to send to Ron. Perhaps a PFM?

Have there been enough pen photos yet? I think I spy some PFMs in there.

Despite all the pens, I spent a lot of time at the ink testing stations. I am the ink person behind the scenes at the show — or Ink Czarina, in Roger Wooten’s words. So, of course, as it turned out, I did not have time to test one single ink of the 300. That’s how busy the show turned out to be. Which is a good thing, of course.

I did get to see a few writing samples other people made at the ink testing station. And one very nice guy, who it turns out I know from this blog, showed me Edelstein Aquamarine written on Tomoe River paper. Thank goodness. Plus it was very nice meeting him in person.

Which that takes me to my favorite part of the pen show. The people. That’s the best part of any pen show. Everyone will tell you that. If you can go, spend time talking to people: vendors as well as other showgoers. That’s what makes it.

Some people are happier than others. Perhaps they just bought two Montblancs.

But there were so many great people at the show. There was Rick, who likes the same pens as me, there were Jim and Jane, there were Hector and Connie, there was Joslyn whose name I may be misspelling, there was Sean (who I didn’t realize was Sean), there was another Jim, there was Aaron (who lives in my town), there was Susan, there was Matt, there was Seth, there was Laura and I think Paul, and I think another Matt, and there was this great family with three generations from Illinois and Michigan. Oh, and a really nice dad named Dan, with his two nice sons. And so many others.

Then there was my friend Dan, with his family, and Jim (the first Jim I met). And there were Jackson and his family, and Dave and Steve. Plus I saw Renee and Brandon for a second. And John and Sharon. And Caleb.

Not to mention all the folks whose names have slipped my mind right now. What a great bunch of people at the show.

And then there are the vendors, who also make the experience great.

That’s Sarj Minhas. Some of the vintage and secondhand pen dealers I spent extra time with this year and whose pens and other items appear in photographs here included Sarj, Joel Hamilton, Sherrell Tyree, Mario Campa, Tim Pierson, Pete Kirby, Francis Bulbulian and Hirsch Davis. Not to mention all the others. I almost forgot Howard at Susan Wirth’s table, who totally cracked me up. And Christina, who was so nice.

Sadly, within the last year two of the dealers I would always see at the show passed away unexpectedly. Those two, Harvey and John, had been particularly kind to my children, and I have pens from both of them.

Actually, Harvey once sold a pen to my kids to give to me as a surprise. I was able to tell his daughter how much that pen means to me, and how nice it was for her father to take the time with them. It was a small sale for Harvey. But it’s priceless to me.

That’s the thing about pens, isn’t it? Some pens have stories. By going to the pen show year after year, I’ve been lucky enough to pick up some pens that now have stories. Like, “That’s the blue Vac that Jack got from Joel all those years ago.”

And that’s another great thing about pen shows.