Franklin-Christoph Model 66 Stabilis desk pen Ice

The Franklin-Christoph Models 02 and 40 in Smoke and Ice have been something of a hit in the pen community - to put it mildly. They look very cool, but there was something stopping me buying one. I don't use a pocket pen, so the 40 was out, and I tend not to post my pens so the taper on the 02 designed to allow posting just seemed ugly. Also I was never quite sure about the "Smoke" section. There was some part too that did not want to just get the same pen as everyone else. When I stumbled across the newly released Model 66 Stabilis desk pen in Ice, it gave me the best of both worlds, making the decision very easy!

The Ice finish is simply spectacular - I immediately applied silicon grease to all threads and converted the pen to an eyedropper - if you do not do this, then I have no words for you. The look of the finish itself has been covered many times over in the Model 02 and 40 reviews, so I won't go over old ground. Suffice to say that the extra length of the pen, and the lack of a "smoke" section to distract, showcases the finish even more. It is not uncommon that I find myself looking at the pen instead of writing.

My one aesthetic concern was the cap - it looked pretty ugly and functional on the website. I guess this is less of an issue on a desk pen - it is either in use or away - but I needn't have worried. The cap is fine - nothing spectacular - but the eye is drawn to the barrel anyway. In fact, its functional nature makes it feel as though you are uncapping an artist's brush, which is actually a pretty good description of what it feels like to use this pen.

Akkerman pen wipe doing its job

This brush feeling is also down to the length - at 152mm uncapped it is longer than my Nakaya portable by a good 23mm. This is in part due to the long clear "tail" that nicely contrasts with the ink filled smoke, and is nicely symmetrical with the cap when closed. The material is light enough that this is never uncomfortable, however, and while long, it fits in my NockCo Brasstown without any problems.

As a desk pen there is no clip, but there is an inbuilt roll stopper in the form of a subtle flat section on the barrel. This doubles as a spot for the engraved "Franklin-Christoph Model 66" - it is nicely done and unobstrusive while practical.

The other feature of the design that I love is the barrel thread. It is just above the nib itself rather than between the barrel and the section. It is also one very thick thread (actually 1 1/4 turns), which allows it to seal nicely, but look like a simple bevel design feature on the section. You have to look again to realise that it is actually the thread! It is a wonderful, innovative and pleasing piece of design.

I picked up the pen with the Masuyama steel 1.1mm stub, but also bought a Masuyama needle point, and the new F-C music nib. So far I have only had a chance to use the stub, but since it writes like a dream I am in no hurry to change. The ink (Sailor Gentle Sky High in the photos) flows beautifully and I have not had a single hard start, even when leaving the pen uncapped for a minute or two. The chance to get a preground Masuyama nib for $15 premium is not one to pass up.

I took a risk when getting this pen, but it is one I am glad I took. Pocketable? No. Practical? Just about. Deeply satisfying and fun to carry? Absolutely.

Crossword Solutions

A renewed surge of interest in the Penaddict Crossword thanks to Brian Goulet, who was rather taken with the clue for his surname!

21 down... the resemblance is uncanny ;-)

Sorry you have missed out on the prizes, but have a go anyway! So as not to spoil the fun people who have not seen it yet, I have hidden the answers, but if you are stuck you can find them here.

Crossword Solutions

Thanks Brian, I hope you all enjoy it - let me know your most groanworthy pun...

WINNER(S) - The Penaddict Prize Crossword!

First of all - wow. Thanks everyone who tried, failed, laughed and cried. To three people in particular, the fact that you got almost EVERY clue should worry you. If you can untangle the thoughts of my twisted mind then you have my sympathies.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out the Crossword itself - you have missed the prize draw, but you can still have fun - spoilers below!

Out of more entries than I expected, three stood out - with just one answer wrong, so I have decided to award three prizes, with the grand prize chosen based on submission time. The solutions (and explanations) are below, but first, the winners!

• Joe Cabrera - a last minute correction to Diamine meant the only mistake was "ENABLERS" - wins a Lamy 2000
• Joe Austen - missed "DIAMINE" - but still takes home a Lamy AL Star
• Terry Kavanagh - missed "MINUSKIN"- and takes home the Lamy Vista

Congratulations all of you - get in touch and let me know where to send them! And thanks again to everyone. For those who listen to Analog(ue), the first show was Myke and Casey discussing how it felt to "put something out into the world". I had no idea whether anyone would care about this, but the response was great. To know that people have spent real time on a puzzle I put together, and that they enjoyed doing so, is incredibly rewarding!

Visconti Aida - the first Paris pen

This is a review of the Visconti Aida limited edition that I picked up at the auction in Paris. It has a medium gold nib, and the handwritten review is using Pelikan 4001 ink.

Since I wrote this I have learned (i) nibs.com have a pre-owned Aida for sale for $430, and (ii) Aida was written by Verdi, and I currently have it inked with Rohrer & Klinger Verdigris. Spooky.

Looks

First of all - the looks. This is a stunning pen. A green grey candy stripe celluloid, it is just beautiful to look at, with great depth. The candy stripe patter means that there is always some part of it that is catching the light. It can distract from the writing! I would put this up with the Nakaya Kuro-tamenuri as the most attractive pen in the collection.

The other things of note are the nicely patterned two tone nib - ornate, but not overly so (Visconti can overdo these things). The section is also made of the same celluloid, which is a lovely effect when in use.

Nib

I was initially disappointed that this pen did not have the palladium Dreamtouch nib that most Viscontis today do. I needn’t have worried - the gold nib is superbly smooth, with just a little tooth on Rhodia paper. I actually prefer it to the Dreamtouch, which can seem unnaturally smooth. Fortunately the flow on this nib is perfect, and the medium width just right. I have another Visconti pen that is unusable due to the amount of ink it lays down, but this is right in the “Goldilocks” zone.

The reason I didn’t know about the nib beforehand is that this is one of the two pens I bought at auction (see One Night in Paris for more details). It also came in a nice box with a crystal inkwell, but that is packed away right not, so I cannot comment further.

Body

The pen itself is on the larger side - around the Montblanc 146 size at 14.6cm. The body shape is from the “squaring the circle” Opera line of Visconti pen, i.e., the barrel is round with four flattened pieces. It is an unusual shape, but comfortable to hold, and the facets bring out the look of the pen nicely.

The end of the barrel has a thin silver ring, which looks as though it might be a blind cap or a plunger, but it is just a (grey) herring. The pen is actually a cartridge converter, which was a bit of surprise given that the Opera family tends to be made up of standard size cartridge converters, and limited edition oversized “power” fillers such as the Wall Street or Opera Master. I should add though that it is a pretty spectacular converter as these things go.

Cap

The screw on cap is unusual for Visconti - rather than abour 8mm worth of threads on the barrel, they have gone for a single turn, single thread metal ring. I can only assume this was an attempt to avoid a common problem of the Opera series, the flats of the “squared circle” on the barrel do not line up with the cap. I am guessing the metal threads could be adjusted at the factory. Certainly it is not a problem on this pen, but it is on my Wall Street and Opera Club. Ultimately they have fixed it with the unique “hook and twist” design on the Homo Sapiens.

The cap itself is perfectly nice, with a broad silver ring marked “Aida” on one side, and the limited edition number on the reverse. There were 1,871 made. This is not a pen for posting - it puts the balance too far back, and the lightweight barrel and filling mechanism can’t provide enough of a counter balance. The Visconti clip is what it is. It polarises people - either you like it or don’t, but I have grown to love it. The only comment I will add is to pick up a point made in the FP Geeks Awesome Review of the Homo Sapiens, which complained that the clip looked cantilevered but wasn’t (true) and that it needed two hands to clip to anything. I have actually found it quite easy to use the clip one handed by pinching the middle of the clip between thumb and index finger and then squeezing, which pushes the cap away from the clip.

View fullsize

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Overall? I love it. It is an unusual, eye catching pen yet remains conservative enough to use in the office and draw admiration rather than ridicule. It is the best writing of my four Visconti pens, and shows that when done right, limited editions can be truly beautiful¹. I feel very fortunate to have stumbled across it at auction.

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¹ Although my opinion is not generally so favourable - see upcoming post... ↩

"My god, it's full of...pens"

I promised to share some pictures of my pen storage solution - here they are! I’m very happy with it - it folds back down to a very small box, but opens up in a rather spectacular way to show off the whole collection - side on it puts me in mind of a pilot’s wings, which is pleasing to me for some reason…

The double layers work quite well, particularly the fact that the top drawer’s top layer can sit in the top of the lid when folded out.¹

At some point I will do an annotated picture with a description of the pens if anyone is interested.

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¹ The great advantage of this set up is the ability to hide pens that arrive, and casually bring them out later on when no parcel is in evidence, “This? Oh no, I’ve had this one for ages!" ↩

Cryptic crossword status update

Quick update on the crossword progress so far - several entries submitted, two standout entries, both from people called Joe.

Neither has got 100% right, so there is still time to swoop past them before 14 September!

Send them to me at: apropensityto@chrisgottlieb.com

The Pennovator's dilemma

One of the foibles of accumulating pens is the question of where to store them. Do you want to store them? Display them? Keep them out of reach of little fingers? And yet there are so few options out there that appeal. Most of my research turned up such gems as:

If you can't say anything nice... but $700+? Seriously?

Nice in their own way, I suppose. But not for me. So I started to think laterally. Early on I found an artists drawer on eBay and lined it with felt. That was OK for the first pens I had, but wasn’t really too attractive. I upgraded that by gluing an toolbox to the top to store ink and assorted whatnots, but it was still functional rather than attractive.

Functional, but not exactly inspiring...

I started to think even more laterally, and came up with three options - a scientist’s specimen cabinet, a machinist’s toolbox and a cantilever sewing box. These are all wonderful, handbuilt objects that aren’t generally made at high quality today, and so antiques are the way to go. The machinist’s toolbox and specimen cabinets were too rich for my blood, but I still think either would be a great option.

Would probably have replaced that green felt...

I briefly considered a cigar box ¹, but it would have been too small. So it was the sewing box - I wasn't sure at first but I am delighted with the way it turned out. The steps were nothing more than:

1. Find appropriate box on eBay
2. Rip out the internal dividers
3. Find some wood varnish and stain the internals a similar colour to outside
4. Line the lids with felt
5. Cut some pen tray inserts to size² and drop them in
6. Realise that you have too many pens too fit in the box and more on order
7. Cut some more pen tray inserts to size, make a notch in the middle and thread a bit of ribbon through to form a loop and hey presto, a second layer! It’s like a box of chocolates³.

I’ll do a post with pictures of the end product and a catalogue of the contents later - interested to hear how others have found novel ways to store their pens!

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¹ There were huge bonus points for Henri Winterman’s based on Girl from Mars though... ↩

² I got mine from gopens.com - cheap, look good and easy to cut to size with great service. ↩

³ My momma always said to me, “life is like a box of pens - sometimes it goes smoothly, sometimes you can find it hard to get going, and sometimes its bloody expensive" ↩

The (Unofficial) Pen Addict Prize Cryptic Crossword! **LAMY Vista and more**

"At the intersection of two very boring hobbies"¹

UPDATE The entries are starting to trickle in! Once you are ready, just take a picture, scan or otherwise digitise your answers and send them to me at: apropensityto@chrisgottlieb.com

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"And lo, there was much rejoicing". The ailing pen industry received a boost this week with the Hurley-Dowdy stimulus plan. The Pen Addict boys are back! In celebration, I give you the Pen Addict cryptic crossword ² .

The immediate question is, "wait...what? Why?" Many of you will have a very good answer to that question, but to you I say, "have you been reading this blog?" ⁴

There is a prize for those who submit their entries - judging criteria will be entirely arbitrary based on who has the most right, or the funniest wrong answers. The crossword should be in the shownotes today, but I am going to leave it open for four weeks. None of these widgets where you click a button to enter - you have to work for this one!

Closing date is 14 September, winner to be announced in the days thereafter. The prize includes (but is not limited to - sure there will be some other goodies in there):

• A Lamy Vista
• A bottle of J Herbin ink
• A small Rhodia ice pad
• At least one Chinese fountain pen

All of the answers relate to pen parts, brands, personalities, stores or nibmeisters, so have a go!

(Below the image there are links to downloadable high-res jpeg, a PDF and an Excel spreadsheet. Once I figure out the best way to do it I'll put a mailbox up so you send me your scans or completed forms for marking before we publish the answers)

High resolution JPG
PDF
Excel spreadsheet version

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¹ A direct quote from a member of my family. I say "own it"... ↩

² For all my love of wordplay, I came to cryptic crosswords late. They are utterly im"pen"etrable at first³, but once you get the hang of the patterns and whatnot that help you solve them it is incredibly rewarding to get a particularly elegant clue. It is almost as if you are sharing a joke with the crossword compiler. ↩

³ See what I did there? ↩

⁴ Ok, so I was at my in-laws in rural Australia with very little to do. So at that particular moment I didn’t really have a good reason why not… ↩

Liam Spencer blue

Many moons ago, when Manchester United were still rubbish¹ my family would go to Old Trafford for most games. For those that know it, there is a huge tunnel under one of the stands, and when I came out of it one day thought to myself, “Wow, that’s a lovely colour they’ve painted that wall”. Only to realise that it wasn’t a wall, it was a glint of the sky, and an optical illusion from the design of the tunnel.

At 4.45 on a winter's day in Manchester, the twilight sky under the electric floodlights glowed a blue-purple that has stuck with me forever. The strange thing was, every time I saw it, I was so transfixed by the colour that I forgot it wasn't a wall, and was surprised that it was the sky every time. I was seven, to be fair.

For many years I never saw that colour again, but I sometimes thought of it. When I went on a corporate course that involved meditation, and they told us to close our eyes and imagine our body filling up with a fluid² in a relaxing colour, that was the one I chose. Then one day my mum gave me a painting for my birthday. It was a picture of Old Trafford by a Manchester artist, Liam Spencer. I don't know how he does it, but his pictures always capture the glow of the lights in the Manchester rain perfectly. And there it was. My blue, painted in the sky over Old Trafford on my wall.

(c) Liam Spencer, www.liamspencer.co.uk

Which is why I was genuinely emotional when I discovered Iroshizuku Ajisai. To be able to write with a colour that has so much personal resonance is very special. I look forward to doing a review that does it justice.

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¹ Yes, yes I know. Let me pretend the dynasty isn’t over at least for another year or two. ↩

² I won’t lie, I didn’t find that concept altogether relaxing. To recall a memory from a similar time period, it made me think of the first episode of Street Hawk³ where he has to get in a tank that fills up with foam so they can get his exact measurements for his suit. ↩

³ Look, it was the 80s. Knight Rider was popular, so of *course* they were going to make a version with a motorbike. And one with a helicopter. . ↩

One Night in Paris

I recently stumbled across a whole new world in the acquisition of writing instruments. I was actually searching for an antique specimen cabinet to use as a display case (but that is the subject of a whole other post), and found a site called Invaluable. They are essentially an aggregator of antique auctions across the globe - generally estate sales of furniture and the like. On a whim, I searched for fountain pens. I found one seller with a marbled Pelikan 100¹ that I will review when it arrives, but then it all went a bit weird.

I noticed a Mont Blanc special edition listed for about $5,000. That held about as much interest as a UK bank account since 2008. But in the corner, in tiny writing, was the auction it was part of: “Stilos”. An outfit called Artcurial was holding an auction devoted entirely to pens with 400 lots the following day in Paris. This was intriguing, and so further down the rabbit hole I went.

First of all I went through the catalogue. Ho hum, ten thousand euro limited editions covered in as much gold as Mr. T.² I think about 100 pens were Mont Blanc alone. But wait. What’s this? Two Danitrio Genkais? Interesting… a Nakaya piccolo? a Pilot Myu? A Tibaldi Impero? And good lord, is that the Visconti Wall Street LE I have been looking for? Gulp. I wonder how I can bid?

A few frantic emails to France, bank details, IBAN numbers etc and I was in! The only thing was, the auction kicked off at 2pm Paris time, or 10pm Sydney time. I had a long night ahead of me… What made things worse was that they went in alphabetical order by brand, so the Viscontis were right at the end in the 370s.

When the hour arrived, I clicked on to the “Join Now” button, and my jaw dropped. Sometimes it is easy to forget just how much we take technology for granted when it has changed so much, so fast. It came home all the more given that this was a triply old fashioned setting. Pens? Check. Auction house? Check. Paris? Check. And yet there I was, in bed in Sydney, watching a live feed of the auctioneer running the show. In French, obviously, but auctioneers gabble so fast it made little difference. On my screen was an “interested” button. Click this and the gentlemen and ladies in Paris would pay attention to you for that particular lot. After that, it was game on. Bids would flash up on the screen, your big red bid button would show in big letters the amount you needed to bid, and each lot was over in approximately 30 seconds. It was exciting.

Man that Clairefontaine is expensive.

I just watched for a while, seeing if the lots were going for around the guide price, which they generally were. That was a relief - it would have been pretty frustrating to pore over the catalogue thinking “150 Euros - ooh!” only for them to all go for double. So I waited through all the Auroras, and Bexleys, and Caran D’Ache. But when the Ds came around the Danitrios (in beautiful purple urushi) blew past theirs (and my) limits. The same with the Nakaya piccolo - it went for about $30 less than the cost of a new one! As for the rest of my targets? The Tibaldi was heartbreaking. There was only one person bidding - get in quick! And… my screen froze. I was hammering away at the bid button, but by the time it unfroze, we were on to the next lot. Grr.

In the end, I stuck it out until 2am, and picked up the Visconti Wall Street LE, and a Visconti Aida for pretty good prices (I’ll update when they arrive). It was worth it for that, but it would have been worth it even if I had bought nothing. It was an exhilarating experience just to be part of the live auction virtually³.

Highly recommended, would buy again⁴.

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¹ Bizarrely from the auction houses 10 minutes down the road from where I grew up south of Manchester in the UK, who I had never heard of until 4 weeks ago when they handled my grandmother's estate sale. Or should I say my grandmother's estate's sale? Because she can't be selling... you know what, never mind. ↩

² I have trouble with making up to date references. I'm a lot like Bob Hope in that regard. (c) Tim Vine ↩

³ I have only attended one live auction, where I bought my wife's engagement ring. Obviously she wasn't my wife at the time. It is *scary*. I got into a bidding war with a telephone bidder, and if you think you can get swept up in an eBay auction, this was light years worse/better depending if you stress or thrive on the adrenaline rush. ↩

⁴ A word of caution. Buying at auction costs you an extra 25% of the hammer price as commission to the auction house⁵, and 5% more VAT if staying in the EU. What I did was convert 130 Euros into Australian dollars, and then use that figure as what I was actually spending for each 100 Euros I bid. Also, I noticed a couple of pens make their way to eBay located in Paris within two days or so at significantly higher prices. ↩

⁵ Guess who didn't know *that* when buying an engagement ring? ↩

On supporting your local shop, part 2

My last post was about the dilemma I face in supporting my local pen shop and rewarding them for the enjoyment I get from engaging with them, without paying literally double the prices from overseas ¹. At this point you say "stop whining and buy something". Which is fair enough, but I see no reason I shouldn't try and combine the Pen Addict and Stratechery into one article.

Ultimately pen shops are suffering the same fate as many other retail businesses - particularly small businesses with little buying power - in the online world. The natural characteristics of the pen market are particularly suited to this disruption ², however. Pens are small and cheap to ship, they are a relatively fungible item (a Pelikan M200 is the same wherever I get it from), and fall under the $1,000 import tax exemption ³. There are very few disadvantages to purchasing from an online retailer other than "try before you buy".

What this means is that the market for sales to a genuine pen enthusiast/collector will struggle in Australia. The enthusiast will be much more price aware, and much more likely to have researched their next pen purchase. From a sale perspective the store is likely to have much more success on pen sales by focusing on price insensitive buyers. These are likely to be those with little knowledge or inclination to do research, or simply in a rush - most likely buying gifts for graduation/colleagues leaving jobs etc. The truly rich, for whom an expensive pen purchase is simply a drop in the ocean. In Australia this will likely be driven by overseas buyers from Asia.

Unfortunately, following this through will lead to a stock comprised of pens that are deeply uninteresting to the average collector. There will be a surfeit of "safe" gift pens in black - Lamys, Parkers, Cross, and more upscale Montblanc, lots of attractive leather journals, and a rotating selection of ultra high end limited editions. I'd expect these to start at the Visconti Divina end at the bottom end (over $1000), and heading rapidly upwards for the gold covered Cartiers, Dunhills and similar ⁴. Worse still, diversification into "adjacent markets" such as watches, umbrellas, wallets and the like. In a small shop, less space for pens (even ones that I am not going to buy) will just accelerate the decline.

One day ALL pen shops will be staffed by a virtual Nick Cage. It's the future, I've tasted it.

What this doesn't leave room for are the lower end, non-brand enthusiast pens (e.g., TWSBI), the more interesting mid-level pens (e.g., Pelikan ), and even the higher end aspirational pens such as the mid-level Viscontis or Pelikan M800s. This group is an untapped - and frustrated - market, however. I want this store - and similar - to survive and would like to support them, but not at double the price? While I don't think that my custom is the difference between success and failure for them, if everyone thought like that...

My personal view is that they can capture the pen enthusiast dollar, however, by taking a leaf from the technology sector. Many tech companies that struggled to compete in their traditional hardware businesses have adapted by switching to providing services. I would happily pay for handwriting lessons, or send all my nibs to be tuned by a local nibmeister.

They actually do offer these two services, but they are not actively pushing them, their capacity is very limited and they are significantly overpriced ⁵. If this is going to be a significant revenue stream they will need to address this. The good news is that my favourite young salesman is bringing a degree of innovation. He is encouraging the owner to film a series of handwriting lessons that will be on Kickstarter soon - I will link to it as soon as it goes live. In my opinion, they should push this much harder. Handwriting is ideally suited to short bursts of coaching, which fits very well for the office workers that they cater to. I'd love a 15 minute coaching session twice a week with homework. It's no more of a break from work than popping out for a coffee. This would also be a fabulous chance to up sell.

They can go further - I would suggest that they embrace their online competition. They have an online store, but it simply replicates the in store prices - they need to think differently. I would love to see them offering pen buying consultations. You could book an appointment and spend an hour with an expert looking at your handwriting style, what you want to achieve, try various pens and end up with a recommendation for a pen/nib grind even if the order will come from elsewhere. It could be priced at $100, with that as a credit off a pen purchase or similar. I would have been delighted to pay for that before placing my order with John Mottishaw for a Nakaya. We spoke over the phone, and he could not have been more helpful, but having someone watch you write would be far more helpful.

Taking it further still, why not partner with someone like a John Mottishaw or a Cult Pens, build up a relationship where they are happy to recommend the quality, and at least make a commission on referrals. This is hard though, because it means letting go of the notion that online is the competition - it may well be complementary in some areas, and local stores should play to their strengths, i.e., what can they deliver that online can't?

So - after that ramble, how am I going to support my local store? First off by offering some unsolicited consulting advice - we'll see if he is still happy to see me after that! I'll buy paper and ink when it makes sense, and won't ask to try pens that I am looking at online. I want to keep my chats with Curtis and get the best deal on pens without being "that guy". We need pen stores to thrive, and anything we can do to ensure their sustainability has to be a good thing.

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¹ Their cause is not currently being helped by the Australian distributor for Visconti undercutting them on eBay by 50%. Not sure how he is getting away with it - apparently they are his "private stock". They are quite rightly fuming. But an Opera Club Typhoon blue for $400 vs $800, both locally supplied? It's hard to justify buying in store. ↩

² A word of caution - what follows is a strategy consultant's outside in perspective of the Australian pen retail industry with little to no inside knowledge of the economics. Nothing new there then.... ↩

³ One of the first breakthrough online businesses in the UK was a lingerie shop. Genius. High margin, low storage cost, low shipping costs, and a market of men embarrassed to purchase in store, but more than happy to "browse" online. ↩

⁴ I want to ask them about this - I really hope for their sake that these pens are on consignment. Even a small shop will have over $250,000 of stock on hand. The capital requirements that this would place on a small business would drive significant costs. Even if this is the same globally, Australia's higher interest rates mean that their borrowing would be at a higher cost than online competitors. ↩

⁵ Handwriting lessons (admittedly from one of Australia's leading calligraphers) is around $300 per hour, and nibgrinding ranges from $100-150 a time. Given that I can have a pen shipped to Mike Masuyama, ground and returned, for ~$100, this is not compelling value for money either.↩

On supporting your local shop

As Sting so nearly put it, I'm an Englishman in New... South Wales¹. As a pen enthusiast this presents me with a quandary. Living in Australia brings with it sun, sea and a lifestyle I adore, but it also comes with exchange rates, sales tax and a captive retail market that the big stores merrily abuse². All in all, this makes the price of purchasing pens prohibitive. And yet purchase them we must.

Salvation has come in the form of the internet. Pens have arrived at my abode from the US, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Japan and on occasion even Australia. I have had some hits - and great bargains, and also a few misses that will end up on the Fountain Pen Network/FP Geeks classifieds section when I get round to posting on the forums enough to qualify³.

The thing is, there is a great little pen shop just by my office. The owner was calligrapher to the Queen; her husband is a nibmeister; and they have moved away leaving it in the hands of a wonderful young man. He is about 25 going on 1925 - for an Australian he certainly comes across as an eccentric English aristocrat. Last week he tried to sell me a long shoe horn topped with a silver lion's head. He has his own fine china tea set on the counter as he "couldn't bear to drink from anything else."

I love going into the store and chatting to him - pens and penmanship is truly his passion - and looking at the owner's incredible collection of 1940's pens on the wall. We banter, catch up on pen news, and it is a form of engagement I cannot get on the internet. He is both a fount of knowledge - he regularly visits the Visconti factory in Florence and helped design the new Aurora Oceania - and a spigot of absolute bull. A powerful combination in a salesman. And yet I know I am unlikely to buy a pen from him. I'll never say never, but their prices are generally double what I can source the pen for elsewhere. I am comfortably off, but not rich enough for this not to make a big difference to my pen buying budget. In any case, part of the fun of collecting pens for me is in the finding of the deal. (See an upcoming post for my proudest moment so far...).

I am uncomfortable with taking advantage of a small business - particularly since I have gotten to know the staff. Previously I might have brazenly asked to try a pen so I knew I was ordering the right nib size from Europe, but I can't bring myself to do that any more. (It's actually quite an impressive feat of salesmanship for him to have built that relationship so quickly - they have another branch with less friendly staff where I would have far fewer qualms). All this means though is that I still buy the pens online without trying them, and if I get it wrong, send them back for a nib swap - it is still far cheaper, but the only winners in this equation are the overseas stores and the postal services.

I want stores like this to remain alive so that I can talk to someone who shares my enthusiasm (no one at the office does)! So how do I support my local store while retaining my hard earned dollars? My first thought was to purchase accessories from them - inks, paper, refills etc. But they are also double the cost, and they carry a limited range, so that doesn't fly ⁵. I am a strategy consultant, so I have been giving this some thought, but I have gone on long enough, so my conclusions will have to wait for the next post!

Thanks for reading, and if you have any thoughts on this, let me know!

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¹ (although I did used to live in New York and had that song running around my head for an entire year)... ↩

² I'm aware that this as a first post may seem parochial, but the same should apply to small local stores even in the US. You with your free shipping, Amazon⁴, JetPens, Goulet, Pen Chalet etc etc. Harumph. I actually use a drop ship company and order most things (pens, paper, shoes, underwear, guitar stuff etc) from the US. They put it all in one box and send it over. It is like Christmas. ↩

³ There is a great, and related post on buying pens online on the FP Geeks forum by murfie on Collecting Pens Sight Unseen ↩

⁴ This may be hard for some to process, but Amazon is not in Australia. Neither the website nor the river. I don't blame them, it is a small market, shipping inventory here is expensive, and a huge country to distribute across, so cost/benefit is low, but just think about that. Having lived in the UK and US, living in a country with no Amazon or equivalent is like going back to outdoor toilets. Or worse, dial-up. ↩

⁵ Although bizarrely I have just found that they carry Pelikan Edelstein ink at less than US/Europe prices - time to stock up... ↩

Hello, good evening, welcome...

Just what the world needs - another pen blog. Myke Hurley and Brad Dowdy have a lot to answer for. So why bother? Why not... Hopefully I can offer some ponderings and perspectives that add something over and above more reviews of the same pens. I'll do some reviews, but to be honest, for those you'd be better off at FPGeeks or somewhere like that, but I'll try to put a different spin on them keep things interesting.

Anyway, hi, I'm Chris! I am an Englishman now based in Sydney, which will influence some of my posts. I am an ex-lawyer (God help me!) turned strategy consultant. Again, you'll probably see some of that come through in my posts. I am a huge fan of puns and wordplay - guess what, you'll probably see... etc etc.¹ This "witty banter" is one of the things I miss most about the UK. In Australia they have the weather to play outdoor sports to satisfy their competitive urges rather than being forced to invent pun-offs in the pub. I have a wide variety of musical tastes (anything by guitar based bands from Manchester between 1985 and 2000) is fine, so if you suspect a reference may have gone over your head, ignore it - it probably wasn't worth worrying about. Icarus².

If you haven't picked it up already, my writing tends to be verbose and ramble. I have to fix this when I write at work, so this is my chance to let it all flood out. Sorry - you'll have to live with it - maybe posting regularly will drill it out of me. On the other hand, I am pretty stubborn, so I might just amp it up to spite people.

You can follow me on Twitter at @chris_gottlieb but as you might expect, I have real trouble with the whole 140 characters thing. I find it very hard to accept that I have to give up punctuation and sacrifice spelling, and sometimes just give up altogether.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the blog - let me know what you like or otherwise!

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¹ My wife calls these “dad jokes”, but I have made them all my life. Clearly training for when my two year old can appreciate them... ↩

² If you know what I mean, great. If not, it doesn't matter. But you should probably read more (and watch better movies). ↩