DC Final Edition
It is undoubtedly the sign of a good pen show that only five days later am I rested enough and caught up so that I can complete my post on the Washington DC show. Those of you who read the lists have, by now, a pretty good sense of the show and some great images, so I will keep this short.
It’s a truism that many of us came at first for the pens but return for the people. That certainly is the case. I am blessed with a multitude of pen friends, many of whom I got to see at the show. The list is too long to detail, but I enjoyed time with Richard Binder, a good friend and colleague, and with Danny Marion a friend and mentor. I am also honoured to lead the best PCA board in the history of the organization and got to meet with those colleagues, plus our Pennant Editor Richard Jarvis and our pen show representative Kim Svabik.
For me another highlight was the opportunity to talk about one of the loves of my life, Pelikans. About twenty of us spent more than an hour looking into the history of the frim, their pens, discussing repairs. We had a lively Q and A followed by some show and tell. Great fun for me and I think for them.
While I sold fewer pens this year than in previous years, I was able to buy a small, but select group of mostly Pelikans as well as some other German makes, and for my self I scored a red ripple Waterman’s 56 that nearly crawled into my hands and a rather uncommon Pelikan 100N which appears to be a demonstrator, with a clear(!) binde! What fun.
A final word to those of you who think you can collect pens without going to pen shows and partaking of the community. You can’t! The joy of pens is in the people and the gathering. There are lots of pen shows in America and Europe, a far cry from twenty-five years ago when it was Chicago. C’mon down!
It’s a truism that many of us came at first for the pens but return for the people. That certainly is the case. I am blessed with a multitude of pen friends, many of whom I got to see at the show. The list is too long to detail, but I enjoyed time with Richard Binder, a good friend and colleague, and with Danny Marion a friend and mentor. I am also honoured to lead the best PCA board in the history of the organization and got to meet with those colleagues, plus our Pennant Editor Richard Jarvis and our pen show representative Kim Svabik.
For me another highlight was the opportunity to talk about one of the loves of my life, Pelikans. About twenty of us spent more than an hour looking into the history of the frim, their pens, discussing repairs. We had a lively Q and A followed by some show and tell. Great fun for me and I think for them.
While I sold fewer pens this year than in previous years, I was able to buy a small, but select group of mostly Pelikans as well as some other German makes, and for my self I scored a red ripple Waterman’s 56 that nearly crawled into my hands and a rather uncommon Pelikan 100N which appears to be a demonstrator, with a clear(!) binde! What fun.
A final word to those of you who think you can collect pens without going to pen shows and partaking of the community. You can’t! The joy of pens is in the people and the gathering. There are lots of pen shows in America and Europe, a far cry from twenty-five years ago when it was Chicago. C’mon down!
Comments
It's a treat for us all, living in the backyard of pen collecting, to see the faces of the fellow collectors who's names we know from lists, books, and web sites, but never get to meet outside the virtual world.
/Tony Fischier