What a weekend! The only other pen show I have attended that I can compare to the San Francisco Pen Show is Baltimore, and that’s because the focus remains on ensuring people have a positive experience, as opposed to cramming in as many people and vendors as possible. I’ll certainly return to the San Francisco Show, and next year (fingers crossed) I plan to have my own table. I met so many readers and customers over the weekend, and it was wonderful to match names (and online handles) with faces!
A little Pen Shows After Dark on Saturday night.
Some General Observations from the Weekend and What I Loved about the San Francisco Pen Show
It’s Truly “The Fun Pen Show”! As I noted above, you can tell that the organizers focused on ensuring that everyone had a good time, with events organized most nights for vendors and weekend pass holders. Highlights included a vintage pen auction on Friday night (rare these days), and live music on Saturday. The Pullman San Francisco Bay is also one of the nicer pen show hotels on the circuit, with breakfast available in the morning, an espresso bar (key!), and a bar with good drinks and excellent food.
Three Vanness-exclusive Robert Oster inks: Blue River, Hemp, and Hickory Aflame. (Charred Hickory, the non-shimmer version of Hickory Aflame, sold out quickly).
A Diverse Array of Vendors. The best pen shows, like San Francisco and Baltimore, feature a balance of large and small retailers, independent penmakers, vintage traders, non-pen artists and craftspeople, and even national brands. San Francisco mixed everyone together well, and the show was organized in a way that encouraged you to walk the entire layout. Vendors I saw at San Francisco who I’ve not seen at other shows included Curnow Bookbinding & Leatherwork (creators of the “Backpocket Journal”), Peyton Street Pens (from whom I acquired two custom pens with vintage nibs), Japanese stationery specialists Maido/Kinokuniya, Rickshaw Bagworks, and international brands Pilot, Traveler’s Company and Plotter (more on them below). You can view the full list of exhibitors here.
J.C. Ament was grinding away on Sunday morning!
LOTS of Options for Nib Work. If you came to the San Francisco Pen Show looking to get a nib ground, you were in luck. Mike Masuyama, Gena Salorino (Custom Nib Studio), Kirk Speer (Pen Realm), and J.C. Ament (The Nib Tailor, in his first show as a full-time nib grinder) were all present, and most had walk-up availability.
My Plotter planner and Curnow Coptic-Bound journal with a stork pattern.
Less Crowding. While I suspect traffic was down from prior years due to a combination of circumstances (pandemic, fires, etc.), a lot of people still came through the door, Pen shows with wider aisles and vendors spread out over multiple ballrooms are more pleasant to walk (not to mention to work). Not only do you not get pushed and shoved by the crowds when you’re trying to look at a pen at someone’s table (L.A., anyone?) but it’s even more important today when everyone is already a bit less comfortable due to the ongoing pandemic and the fact that masking and other precautions are required to ensure these events can happen safely.
Swatches of Unreleased Narwhal Inks!
OK, So What Was the Coolest Stuff I Saw This Weekend?
In addition to my two custom pens from Teri at Peyton Street Pens, I picked up a pair of Ultem Fountain Pens from Schon DSGN, a Galen Leather 12-pen hardshell leather pen case from Vanness, a Parker 51 for an exceptional price from vintage dealer John Strother, a couple bottles of Kiwi Inks, and some handmade coptic-bound journals from Curnow Bookbinding & Leatherworks, which I brought home as gifts. Perhaps the most interesting, for me personally, was a planner set I was offered by Plotter USA as part of a pilot program they are running to test their planner system prior to a U.S. release later this year. Plotter is owned by DesignPhil, the same company that brought us Midori MD and Traveler’s Notebook, and the brand accordingly features a similar aesthetic, but uses a ring binding system with the same six-hole layout as Filofax and other brands (so your hole punches and other accessories should work). I received the “Narrow” size, which is approximately the same dimensions as a Kokuyo Sketch Book - a size below my lovely B6 slim Cafe Note. I’ll be providing Plotter with feedback on the system over the next few months, and of course posting photos here.
Not technically a pen show picture, but the Platinum Preppy Wa’s are awesome and worth a look!
Otherwise, I enjoyed visiting with friends new and old, from the team at Kenro where I saw the Pininfarina PF2 for the first time, to the crew at Luxury Brands, who are helping to promote the launch of the latest from Platinum, the limited edition Platinum Preppy Wa (that’s right - a limited edition Preppy), which is really cool and as you would hope, priced in a way that should be accessible to most everyone. I also got to meet with the new owners of Retro 51, and I’m excited to see what they have in store for the future. Despite a somewhat rocky start (exacerbated by the pandemic and accompanying economic uncertainty), the new team seems enthusiastic and excited to make Retro more visible to the at-large community of pen enthusiasts, including attending more pen shows.
The Plotter (“Narrow”) compared against the Nanami Paper Cafe Note in B6 Slim (left).
Plotter is a brand that I think I’m going to enjoy exploring - it’s quite customizable with different inserts and accessories. Shown here are paper folders that can be used to organize notes by topic.
In short, San Francisco has made my list of “must-attend” pen shows, and I really want to spend more time with West Coast pen friends! If you missed my Friday/Day One Recap, you can check it out here.
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