The Well-Appointed Desk

I got to spend the final day of the SF Pen Show being a legitimate visitor, shopper and participant which was a pleasure. I was able to wake up a little later than usual, chat with friends and visit with vendors and sellers. Several of us were a little hung over too so a slow start was nice. Shhh… can everyone talk a little quieter? Thanks. Those Aurora pens are so lovely in the morning light of the atrium.

The best thing about shopping on a Sunday is that the pace is slower. Most vendors made their money on Saturday so there’s a genuine feeling of relief on Sunday. If they make money on Sunday that’s great but the busiest part is over and Sunday is gravy. For shoppers, its not as crowded and most folks are making their second, third or 12th pass over the tables seeing if they missed something or if something they saw earlier in the weekend is still there. Or if maybe a vintage seller might be willing to make a deal on Sunday if its still there. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t. And sometimes its a chance to try a new style or type of pen because sellers are not as busy and have more time to talk through a filling system or brand of pen you might not be as familiar with.

I like Sundays at shows. Its a more familial environment by that time as everyone starts to recognize each other but there’s a bit of melancholy too as you know it will all be ending soon and it will be time to pack it all up and go home.

And then you get goofy, fun moments like this and they remind me why I love pen shows and pen people so much. I got expressions like this from lots of people, I just didn’t have my camera out for them. Who loves ink and pens? WE DO!

Even on Sunday, the ink testing station was still busy and pens still had ink. There were some folks who were disappointed that not all inks were available for sale at the show but I think it was hard for the organizers to know which inks were limited edition, discontinued and be able to provide a list to vendors to be able to cross reference. The whole thing is pretty epic. Any way you slice it, the chance to try all those inks, discontinued, rare or easily available is awesome and worth the price of admission right there. I know how much work it was to clean and fill all those pens and I tip my hat to the folks who put in nights and weeks to filling all 600+.

I loved seeing this tray of Peter Pan fountain pens. The vintage dealer selling them kindly let me rearrange his display to put a Pelikan in the middle for scale for my photograph. Pretty amazing, huh? And most of them had flexible 14K nibs too. Swoon.

Once again, Mr. Michael Sull was amazing. Kind, generous, dapper and epically talented. Watching him work is mesmerizing. Like those ice skaters who spin and jump so effortlessly, he makes Spencerian look so easy and effortless. Then I pick up a pen and I feel like I’m all thumbs — or toes or something.

I met Greg Weddig who got a wild hair to make his own iron gall ink because he found oak galls on the trees near his house. I had no idea that galls were things that grew on trees but I’ll go into more details when I write a more detailed review about the ink. How cool is this?!? Its dip pen ink only but Michael Sull has taken a shining to it so, of course, I had to buy a bottle. I’m hoping it will imbue some Sull Spencerian magic on me. Think it will work?

In the afternoon, Amanda McKay hosted a letter writing social which she called the “anti-social social” as we all settled in to quiet contemplation with our paper and pens and envelopes. Amanda provided lovely stationery, postcards and envelopes plus stickers, hand cut rubber stamps and stamp pads for folks to use. She even had a pile of pens so you really didn’t need to bring anything but your address book.

It was a lovely break in the day, dotted with occasional conversation and pen, ink and tool swapping, and I hope that it is an event that will be added to the dockets of other pen shows.

After the social, there was just an hour of shopping time left before the boxes and crates came out and the vendors had to pack everything back up and load up the vans and head home. I wrapped up my ridiculous quantities of ink and crossed my fingers hoping that Southwest Airlines will deliver them to KC without any damage. Cross your fingers for me too because I finally got a bottle of KWZ Honey and I want to review it this week. You want that too, right? Collective finger crossing starts now!

Boarding my plane in ten minutes and will be back to real life soon. Miss all the folks I met in SF already and I look forward to chatting with everyone online — both those who didn’t get to a show yet and those I’ve met this year.

xoxo, Ana

Since I spent my Saturday helping out at the Anderson Pens table, I didn’t get to see much more of the show than the four tables in front of me and the people who came to it. But a LOT of people come to the Andersons tables. And they are awesome people too. Some people came especially to say hi to me which was amazing and awesome and other people I was able to help buy their very first fountain pen which was equally amazing. But I thought it would be funny to show the upside down world view from my side of the table.

And what it looks like from behind the giant wall of ink. Not as exciting, huh? Nope. Just brown boxes back here. What you can’t see is the pile of tissues, Altoids, half-consumed lunches, bottles of water and lip balm. The things we do to keep the show going!

And it was busy, busy, busy, busy. In a rare moment of quiet I snapped a quick shot of the moment of comtemplation that I saw all through the day of someone trying to decide which ink they wanted to buy.

Here’s a late afternoon long view down the trays of fountain pens with the Anderson and Jason (one of the helpers this weekend) along the right and potential buyers and friends on the left. At several points throughout the day, there were often people three deep on the lefthand side. Crazy!

In the evening, there was a band that played well into the night and everyone had a good time listening to a mix of country and rockabilly. We got a little drunk and eventually got them to play Rockytop that led to a couple of us UTK alums to get pretty goofy. Yeah, free drink coupons. I’m hoping no Instagram videos surface of that!

More reports of Day Three will follow and there will be more shopping and a mail social today. If you get a chance to come for one last day of the show, this has been a really great show and totally worth the trip to Redwood, CA. Hope to see you!

I tried to get some photos from the San Francisco Show on Friday. Many vendors were still setting up throughout the day but it was a good day to walk around and talk to vendors and friends.

I even got to do a bit of shopping including getting one of those much-coveted show special editions from Franklin-Christoph. I got a Pocket 20 in a beautiful teal/turquoise swirly blue. I’ll have more details about it in a future post but its always such fun to get pictures of Jim at work tuning nibs and filing pens so that each customer leaves happy with their pen purchase.

I also got to see all the delectable colors of the Ranga acrylics and resins from Peyton Street Pens. I fell in love with in particular that Peyton Street fitted with a vintage nib. I’ll have more details about that later too but aren’t they beautiful? Like a tray full of candy!

Another eye catching offering in SF this year is the Snake Inks from Australia. They brought fabulously packaged 8-pack sample sets of all the colors in their range which sold out on Friday. They still have full-sized bottles available for the rest of the weekend which are equally well-packaged.

And of course, if you’re coming to the show, please come by the Anderson Pens table and say hello where I’ll be helping out on Saturday. Lots of fun stuff to buy too including the “wall of ink,” lots of paper and tons of amazing pens like Sailor, Lamy, Pilot and more. See you soon!