The line to get in the Dallas Pen Show Friday Morning

Dallas Pen Show Friday Recap: Nagasawa Pens and more!

September 30, 2023

I’m getting ready for some extended time away from my day job, so what better way to kick things off than to take a quick weekend trip to the Dallas Pen Show - a Show I’ve never visited before! In addition to visiting a new show, I get the opportunity to enjoy a pen show as a pen show, without my own table, and spend some time exploring the two ballrooms and many of the vendors there. I’ll have more to report via Instagram and on social media in real time, but there are many independent makers at this show and a very large vintage scene.

Dallas Pen Show Vendor Roster and Map — The Dallas Show organizers conveniently post the roster of exhibitors next to a large map, so you can see where each are located.

For most of the day yesterday, I assisted at the Vanness Pens table. Dallas is a bit of a unique show in that it’s only two days, with Friday being the longest: 10am to 8pm at night. While it makes for a 12-hour day for most vendors (once you include setup time), the late Friday hours are favorable to attendees who may not be able to get off work in time to attend the show on the first day, and the organizers are adamant that all vendors need to remain open until closing time to accommodate evening shoppers.

Sailor Kobe Nagasawa Pens Purchased in Dallas — My two pickups from the table I was working: a Sailor Pro Gear Mini in Mouette, and a Sailor Kyomachi Legend Blue 1911 Full Size with the gold weighted section.

There was a steady stream of traffic through the morning, a bit of a lull for lunch, and then another rush between 4-6:30 as the after-work crowd arrived. The main draw at the Vanness table were the Nagasawa exclusive collaboration pens, which Vanness is now authorized to carry as Nagasawa’s exclusive U.S. retail partner! These pens include the Kobe Affection Kyomachi Legend Blue series (which comes in King of Pen, 1911 Large, and 1911 Standard sizes), exclusive Pro Gear Slims and Minis in multiple colors, and the Demonstrator Pro Gears and “Profits” (1911s) with black-plated, gold, and antiqued/rose gold trim. Many different models and colors fall into these latter categories, so I won’t link to them all individually but you can check out the full selection of Nagasawa pens here. (You can also check many of them out in person at the Dallas Pen Show, since Vanness brought a TON of these pens.)

Nib Grinds from Dallas 2023 — I had two nibs ground: I asked Matthew Chen to clean up the broad nib on my Montblanc 149 to give it some more line definition and narrow the stubbish tipping just a bit to make it more usable, and I also had my Pro Gear Mini ground to a mini-architect!

For Saturday, I plan to focus on visiting with friends and possibly checking out some vintage. It’s been a while since I’ve added any vintage pens to my collection, and Dallas also includes a collection of local vendors (including Fountain Pen Revolution!) who don’t typically attend many pen shows. Stay tuned for more show pics!

The store remains open and all orders will ship within the typical 2-3 business day timeframe. Since it’s a pen show weekend, use the coupon code “PENSHOW10” at checkout to take 10% off most orders, with some brands excluded. Many thanks for all your support!

The Gentleman Stationer is supported entirely by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program. This post does not contain paid third-party affiliate links.

D.C. Pen Show Friday Brief Recap and Some Details on Where to Find Me!

August 5, 2023

It’s safe to say that Friday at the 2023 D.C. Pen Show was the busiest I’ve seen it since pre-Pandemic (and we may be talking about some of the epic shows from 2017 and 2018). While things started out somewhat quiet early on, by lunch the main ballroom started to fill up, as weekend passholders made their morning purchases and the doors opened to the public at 12:00pm. The real rush came to our tables at around 2:00pm, as our table neighbors Pilot started giving their handwriting analysis seminar and raffling off pens (crowd above).

2023 DC Pen Show Table Setup — I brought the remainder of the T.G.S. x Hinze Pen Collaboration fountain pens with me, with both red and black nibs AND the ink and Penwells!

The DC Pen Show is always a smaller show for TGS, as we try to bring a selection of stuff to the show while also leaving enough free time to circulate and take pictures to share with the readership. This year we have Lochby cases for sale, and as per usual the in-person winner on Friday was the Lochby Venture Pouch, the reversible stationery pouch that has two separate compartments that includes a slotted pen case. The Lochby Tool Roll and Field Journal also sold briskly. If you come looking for The Gentleman Stationer, I’m at the end of the Vanness Pens setup to the right in the hallway outside the main ballroom!

The 2023 Release by Vanness Pens and The Good Blue Company — Vanness has released a second exclusive collaboration with The Good Blue, in case you’re looking for a pen to tuck into your new Lochby case! This is “Vanness Green” splattered over black Cerakote! You can read my review of their first collaboration here.

Bags by Rubbertree After-Hours Pen Show Carry — The renovated show hotel has a MUCH better setup this year for after-hours socializing, and each year the “Pen Show Carry” bags you see keep getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger….

I Almost Forgot Our Annual DC Pen Show Promotion! Use “PENSHOW10” at Checkout for 10% Off Most Orders!

Some exclusions will apply (like TWSBI), but most items are eligible for our annual DC Pen Show Sale that will run through Sunday at 11:59pm CT. Use the PENSHOW10 checkout code to claim a discount for those unable to attend the show in person, or for those who came to see something in person but found that I was unable to bring it with me!

Most of my show photos will be posted in my larger show recap next week, and I’ll have lots to talk about, both in terms of reactions to the show itself and a few things I’ll have picked up! Meanwhile, it’s time to go set up the table!

The Gentleman Stationer is supported entirely by purchases through the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program.

2023 Travelogue: What I Consider When Visiting Pen Stores and Shopping at Smaller Retailers in General

July 22, 2023

As you may have seen from my Instagram feed, I took a short trip to New York City to visit family for the long weekend, and as usual ended up with a bit of free time. I have a solid list of 3-5 stationery stores in NYC that I regularly try to visit when I’m in town, including Yoseka Stationery, Kinokuniya, Goods for the Study, and sometimes Fountain Pen Hospital. As someone with fairly easy access to pretty much any stationery products I want to see, I often get asked what I look for when shopping in person.

Exclusive Items. These days, so many things are easy to find online that when I’m traveling, I spend most of my time on the lookout for store-exclusive items, including product collaborations. As I’m well-aware, lots of work goes into developing these products - they can require large minimum quantity orders and a huge leap of faith - and I often go out of my way to pick one up if it’s something that even remotely interests me. Consider it my way to do what I can to support other retailers in the community. For example, when I visited Yoseka Stationery back in January, I made sure to pick up one of their exclusive Yoseka Green Stalogy 365 Days notebooks.
Products I Want to Learn More About. Sometimes I need to see a product in person to understand it better before I decide to purchase. Case in point: this trip I picked up one of the Uniball Kuru Toga Dive mechanical pencils at Kinokuniya. I’ve been following the hype/controversy surrounding this fairly pricey capped mechanical pencil - which not only includes the Kuru Toga rotating lead mechanism but also an auto-feed that advances the lead automatically - and was hesitant to purchase one “for science” with the online prices ticking up past $100 on the secondary market. (For those who have not been following this “drama”, the pencils first launched in the U.S. at around $60, and apparently were promptly snapped up by scalpers, which then prompted a general price hike by Uniball.) The design of the pencil intrigued me enough in person to pick one up at a price point in between the launch price and secondary, and I’ll be posting a review at some point in the future.
Stuff That May Not Be Exclusive, But Not Typically Sold Online. While you can find almost anything online these days, many store exclusives and brand collaborations are more difficult to locate at reasonable prices, and some stores simply don’t list all of their less common stock online. Kinokuniya in NYC often has interesting multi pens (including variations of the Uniball Jetstream) and other versions/colors of the Kuru-Toga mechanical pencils. I’m sure some of the items pictured here have been around for a while, but they’re new to me, and I don’t spend a ton of time in online forums or on Reddit so if I hadn’t visited Kinokuniya in person I might not have discovered them.

I have another day of exploration ahead of me! If you have a favorite NYC-area stationery store that’s not mentioned here, leave a comment and let me know!

This post does not contain paid third party affiliate links. The Gentleman Stationer is supported entirely by purchases through the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program.

Kinokuniya Uniball Jetstream Edge Display

Pen Shows After Dark Prizes — Cary and Shawn draw the door prizes at the Saturday night event.

2023 Arkansas Pen Show: I Like the Smaller Shows (or Shows That Feel Small)

March 22, 2023

Each pen show has its own vibe, driven mainly by the attitude of the organizers and the care they take in putting the show together. For example, the San Francisco Pen Show is a very large event that still manages to feel friendly and personable, solely due to the effort of the group running the show. That said, you can only make a massive hotel ballroom so user-friendly to navigate, and with hundreds of people cycling through every day, you might not have a real opportunity to interact with vendors, as they’ll mostly be swamped. The smaller shows, on the other hand, are something else entirely.

The Arkansas Pen Show, held in Little Rock, is run by the Arkansas Pen Club, currently led by penmaker Shawn Newton of Newton Pens. This was my second visit to Little Rock, with the first back in 2019. The show itself fills a single ballroom, with a 1/3 devoted to modern stationery; 1/3 to vintage dealers; and 1/3 to custom penmakers. If you’re looking to visit your first pen show, or you don’t like overly crowded events that can be overwhelming, smaller shows like this one offer a great opportunity to browse leisurely and have casual conversations with vendors and other collectors.

Vanness brought their collaboration with The Good Blue Pen Company - a “Titanium Blue” Cerakote finish that I couldn’t resist taking home with me.

While traffic on Friday and Saturday was brisk, and vendors were making sales, it was nothing like D.C. or San Francisco, where you won’t be able to peel yourself out from behind the table until Sunday. Each day had quiet lulls, where you could chat with your table neighbors or customers, and browse the show yourself. This year, independent makers included Shawn Newton, Hinze Pens, Troy Breeding (Country Made Pens), Jason Neil Penworks, Darail Pens, Only Made Once, and Magnolia Pens. Modern pen and stationery retailers (in addition to yours truly) included Vanness Pens, Art Outfitters, Jimmy Dolive, Kenro Industries (Cary Yeager), and Papier Plume. Matthew Chen was there to grind nibs! Nik Pang and Michael Sull were both on-site, and Danny Fudge (“The Write Pen”) was doing pen repair. There were also a handful of vintage dealers - mostly members of the Arkansas pen club - all of whom were extremely friendly, highly knowledgeable, and had their pens clearly (and accessibly) priced. I haven’t spent time shopping vintage in a while, and I found some gems that I plan to ink up and show off soon.

After hours events included the traditional Pen Shows After Dark on Saturday night, which was, as always, a lot of fun with at least a dozen door prizes. The only downside was the location. While the hotel was fine (clean, inexpensive, good food for lunch, etc.), the lack of staffing put a damper on hangouts in the bar, which was closed by 9:30 or so on Friday and drastically understaffed on Saturday. That said, most people went home relatively early, as the smaller, club-driven shows tend to draw a more local crowd even if there were a surprising number of people who traveled in for the event.

My Arkansas Pen Show finds, clockwise from to left: Parker 51 in Navy; Parker 51 with hammered gold fill, The Good Blue Vanness Pens Special Edition; a Tucker from Jason Neil Penworks, and a piston filler from Shawn Newton.

2023 Arkansas Pen Show Haul

After not buying a single pen at the Baltimore Pen Show, I went pretty crazy in Little Rock. I scored one of the Vanness/The Good Blue exclusives in the “Titanium Blue” Cerakote finish, a “Tucker” model by Jason Neil Penworks, a Shawn Newton piston filler in a Conway Stewart acrylic whose name escapes me, and two Parker 51s from The Write Pen, including one with a customized “hammered gold” finish that might have been done by Ariel Kulloch (all I know is that it has an exceptionally good .9mm stub nib on it). I had Matthew Chen grind the other 51 to a semi-Naginata.

A close-up of the stub nib on my Parker 51 pen.

I also took home some additional pens for review, which I won’t announce quite yet, but let’s just say you’ll all be seeing some content related to Onoto, Tibaldi, and Newton Pens in the coming weeks and months.

I tend to be fairly selective about what I bring to shows. I don’t want to end up selling the same goods as multiple vendors, as it leads to unhealthy competition among vendors and a repetitive experience for show attendees. Here I was the only one selling Nahvalur and Opus 88 pens on site at the show.

Reflections on Selling as a Vendor at Shows

I love having a table at pen shows, and I have an infinite amount of appreciation and respect for those who are able to do the entire circuit in a single year. Given my current work situation, I can’t do that as it’s simply too exhausting to coordinate the travel, not to mention the work itself. But I do intend to continue to do a handful of shows as a vendor, team up with Vanness for other shows where I won’t attend independently, and visit as an attendee. I especially enjoyed bringing product lines such as Lochby and Hightide, which don’t get nearly as much exposure as they should at shows. By far, our number one seller from the weekend was the Lochby Venture Pouch, which I suspected would be a hit at this particular show.

Many thanks to the team at the Arkansas Pen Club for hosting a great event, and I’ll definitely plan to be back in the future!

2023 Arkansas Pen Show Recap, Day One

March 18, 2023

Friday from the 2023 Arkansas Pen Show is in the books! Given the relatively small size of the show, I was expecting (much) less activity on Friday, but the show ended up being quite lively at times. Towards the end of the day became particularly busy as people left work early. I spent the day between Vanness Pens and Jason Neil Penworks, across the aisle from Kenro and Jimmy Dolive, and just down the aisle from Matthew Chen! After hours, we visited the new Vanness Pens location and then headed to dinner. Some photos from the day’s adventures below. Enjoy!

Vanness Pens brought pens from The Good Blue Company, including their limited edition blue Cerakote collaboration (center). One of these came home with me.

My first day one acquisition. I couldn’t resist picking up this limited edition Montegrappa 007 Spymaster Duo set! It’s been a rough week so I figured I needed to treat myself.

JUST KIDDING. (If you hadn’t figure that out already.) Though it’s really cool (especially the refillable bullet ink cartridges), this thing is huge and heavy.

It’s an ink cartridge. Just don’t try to take it through airport security.

The 60th Anniversary Nib on the Spymaster Duo.

I always try to bring something different to each show. I was happy to send several people home with brand new Hightide Sandglasses! Interestingly, people are always asking me how I use these, and while I use mine primarily as work timers, I had a few people purchase the smaller 3-minute glasses to use with board games.

Newton Pens Hale Fountain Pens — Shawn Newton of Newton Pens had an absolutely gorgeous array of pens available, including these Hale models.

Saturday will likely be even busier, so I’m off to set up the table and prep for a workshop I’m giving this morning. Stay tuned for additional photos and more fulsome reflections on the show.

The Gentleman Stationer is supported by purchases through the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program. Even though we’re attending the show, you can visit us online and all items featured at our show table are available for purchase in our shop. Many thanks for your support!