Nine folks called into our zoom meeting on Aug. 13, 2023. Topics covered were varied, and more detailed minutes courtesy of a most excellent scribe as the webmaster was not present:
Discussion on one member’s vintage demonstrator pens. He showed us a Parker Vaccumatic that had an amber colored clear body. He also showed us a Shaeffer Balance which had a clear body and also the cap had a cutaway section which allowed a customer to see where the pen sat when capped. He also mentioned that he collected Eagle Pencil Co button filler fountain pens. The older vintage from the 30-40s that were demonstrators were used by salespeople. He also briefly discussed the invention of ballpoint pens.
Discussion around use of some Shaeffer school pens for calligraphy and using them to grind nibs. Looking forward to seeing nib-grinding results!
Discussion on a Esterbook Dollar Pen. He’d checked into the background of his pen and discovered it was made around ’34-’42 (although due to the lack of metal he thinks it’s ’40-42). Thanks to the suggestions of the group on Facebook, he was able to get a new nib unit for it from the Fountain Pen Hospital in NYC. He was really enjoying his new pen.
Show & Tell:
- a beautiful maki-e/radon pen. It showed two birds and there was both the hand painting as well as metal dusts and raden in the urushi.
- a Pilot Falcon 743 in a beautiful blue that had a flex nib.
- Ali Express finds… bought both F and EF nib pens. The same person shared using a 192pp notebook for making a five-year memory book. He found the suggested formatting via YouTube.
- TWSBI Eco that was a glow in the dark pen purchased from Oblation.
- a Nakaya Long Piccolo in Aha-tamenuri urushi and a vintage Pilot demonstrator
- a Lamy 2k EF, Sailor Progear Slim and a Ferris Wheel Press collaboration with Esterbook pens (I think it was called Nebulous Plume), and some FWP charger sets.
- Createing pen storage using a three-drawer acrylic chest similar to this one on Amazon and she used this material from Penn State Industries. Instructions found in Instructables.