Writing

Handmade wood-barreled pens

This past weekend, I attended the 17th Annual Washington D.C. Collectible Fountain Pen Supershow in Tysons Corner, Virginia, at the Sheraton Premier. I'm not an avid pen collector, but the friend who invited me along is. I wasn't sure what to expect, but knowing her propensity for pens and penmakers whose names mean nothing to me--Parker 51s, Viscount, Swisher, Libelle, Tibaloi, Airline International--I had a sneaking suspicion I was in for a treat. In short: This is not your trading-Bics-on-the-playground gathering. These folks are serious.

L: Pens by Argentine artist and silversmith Juan Carlos Pallarols
R: A barrel being handpainted in watercolor

The Washington D.C. Collectible Fountain Pen Supershow is the largest in the world and brings together buyers, sellers, retailers, distributors, artisans, and collectors from all over the world. I met handcrafted penmakers from California and Argentina, Maryland and Italy. The range and variety of pens, not to mention some of the prices, were astounding! I met a retired police officer who refurbishes 1930s and 1940s Parker Golden Arrow Vacumatic Fountain Pens and turns them into ballpoints. I saw promotional pens for oil companies that included a cap of oil and garland pens whose tops featured corporate logos from days long gone by.

A colorful assortment of pens by Libelle of New York.
The barrels of the pens in the bottom right corner are made of leather!

L: Just a small, infinitesimal sampling of the wares available. And these aren't even the nicest pens!
R: Buyers and sellers hawk their vast pen collections. Easily 40% of exhibitors were Joe and Mary Public
selling pens from their personal collections. The remaining 60% were retailers (40%), distributors (10%),
and artisans (10%).

Not surprisingly, collectors of pens have their own special jokes. Case in point, one pen seller took an interest in my camera and wanted to know how it performs. I told him about this blog and then gave him my business card. Ironically, I didn't have a pen on me. (I was like a person dying of thirst in the middle of the ocean. There I was at the largest pen show in the world and I didn't have a pen on me. How sad is that?! But I digress...) So, I said, without thinking, "Do you have a pen?" I caught myself and then said, "I'll bet you get that all the time, don't you? Really unoriginal, huh?" To which the man graciously replied, "Oh yes, I have many pens. The question isn't incorrect, it just isn't accurate. The accurate question is 'Do you have a pen that writes?'"

The pens I bought: a replica of a blue crayon and a wallet-size ball point.
Small potatoes compared to what could be had at this pen show.

Ha! Ha! Ha! Droll. Pen humor at its best. All in all, I had a great time. And I even bought two pens: a pen made to look like a crayon and a teeny, tiny, itty-bitty pen about the width of a business card. If you ever have a chance to attend a pen show, do it. It's a lot of fun!

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 08/08