The PENguin Blog

but Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Another weekend without updating the blog or posting my Columbus finds. Sorry. Spent the time working on my newest project, evaluating some fabulous pens for Bonhams Auction house, and grading papers. No exercise, little prayer or meditation. Bad Rick, no Ben and Jerry's. I am pleased to report that despite a few setbacks, Webmaster Gilly is slowly recovering. Praise for that!

I am off to the Ohio Show. For reasons of space I will not have a camera, but will try to update folks on the comings and goings and doings.

I am grateful to my fellow citizens for giving us a new hope and a new day.

Many of you are familiar with The PENguin’s webmaster (or webmistress, as she prefers it) Gillian Hart. She is an occasional poster on the various pen lists and has a strong presence on The PENguin website through the Webmaster’s Corner. What some of you may not know, is that despite her charm and wit and her intellectual attainments (a Master’s Degree in English Lit.) Gilly is multiply disabled. To make a long story short, she is now extremely ill in hospital with a rather guarded prognosis. I can’t help but feel that both the prayers and best wishes and cards and letters from the pen community could help in her hoped for recovery. If you can, I know that both she and her family would appreciate cards and letters. I do not have a hospital address yet, so for now, if you feel moved to do so, please send mail to: Gillian S. Hart 9 Swanson Oaks Swanson Waitakere 0612 New Zealand Thanks, Rick

You are unlikely ever to see another Rover Ro-Set, Italian Not quite a button filler, and not taken today, but I ran across it in old files, a truly great pen from Germany, a Rakete. Montegrappa Elmo Minerva, OMAS sub-brand Picking up on Pentrace's Sunday topic of button fillers Swiss Askas Soennecken Präsident 1 and a mystery pen WTF, a Juska? German Nettuno Superba

After collecting for nearly twenty five years, much of that time pretty intensely, there are few pens I "need"( whatever that means). But every so often (actually pretty often) something catches my eye. Such it was with this when a pen friend showed it to me a few weeks ago. He is in the process of culling his collection but was unsure whether this set would stay or not. That only made it more attractive to me, of course, so when he contacted me a few days ago . . . Well you see the result. and a better image It's a Waterman's Deluxe Ink Vue set in the copper ray colour, made in the mid 1930s to compete with Parker's wildly successful Vacumatic. I think I still favour the Vacumatic, but the Ink Vue, with its deco-ish accents and unconventional plastic has its charms.