Tag: Pen Show | Page 2 | Rachel's Reflections

Welcome to part 3 of my BWIPS 2018 experience write-up. If you didn’t read part 1 or part 2, I highly suggest you do so before continuing with this. I’d like to take a moment before I start to mention that the more I “got into” the pen show, the less I remembered to take photos. So you’ll be seeing less for this installment.

As I was leaving the Herbert Pen Company table, I spotted Jim, and went to grab him so he could pick up his own pen. Of course, in doing so, I lost Te along the way. These things happen at shows. We’re walking along, happy as can be, then suddenly, “Oooohhh!! Shiny!!!”

Jim was a very happy Pen Sloth once he got his hands on his pen. I may be biased, but I think my pen is a little bit nicer. ;-). His is beautiful, though. It reminds me of Thai iced tea.

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March 6, 2018

Rachel

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2018 Baltimore Pen Show – Part 2

Posted in Fountain Pens

Welcome to part 2 of my BWIPS 2018 experience write-up. If you didn’t read part 1, I suggest you do so before continuing with this.

– – –

I walked into the large room through the second door. The table immediately to my right is, for some reason, completely lost to my memory. I’ll blame it on pen show excitement.

I walked down the row and spent a few minutes staring at the Kanilea Pen Company pens. They’re absolutely beautiful, but, for some reason, they just don’t call to me. I’ve yet to figure out why.

Just past Kanilea was Jonathon Brooks/Carolina Pen Co. Unsurprisingly, the pens at his table were absolutely beautiful.

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March 5, 2018

Rachel

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2018 Baltimore Pen Show – Part 1

Posted in Fountain Pens

I, like many of the fountain pen lovers in the Washington, DC area, attended the Baltimore Washington International Pen Show this weekend. I only went on Saturday because Friday I had to work and Sunday was my release party, but it was still fantastic. You may recall that I blogged about my experience at the Washington DC Fountain Pen Supershow (my first ever pen show) last August. I had so many positive responses, that I decided to blog about this experience as well.

Let me start by saying that the two shows are nothing alike. Well, ok, there are pens, and pen people, but the atmosphere is so different. DC is frenzied, Baltimore is calm. Baltimore is a significantly smaller show, but I think it benefits from that, because it’s a more intimate show. It really feels like everyone knows each other.

The shows were also different for me because I knew more people, and I knew more about pens. I recognize that this will color my impressions of the two shows. You might want to keep that in mind as you read about my BWIPS (I love that acronym! It’s so fun to say!!) experience.

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August 10, 2017

Rachel

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2017 DC Pen Show #4

Posted in Fountain Pens

Alright, this is it, the final installment in my 2017 DC Pen Show series. I can’t believe that when I set out to write my overview, I thought it was all going to fit in one post. Silly me.

Allow me a moment to geek out over Brian Goulet commenting on and tweeting about yesterday’s post (W-O-W!) and Brian Gray commenting on — and Edison Pen Co retweeting — my post about getting a pen from them. That felt pretty awesome.

Ok, enough fangirling. Yesterday’s post ended with heading off to check out the rest of the large room after my epic meeting with Brian Goulet.

First stop was the Modern Chocolatier booth. Because chocolate. They had little sample pieces cut for people to try (unfortunately, without signs, so you didn’t know what you were tasting). The piece I tried was really tasty, with an intense chocolate flavor. If they were local, I’d probably check them out. But my money for the day was earmarked for pens and ink, so I gave them a pass.

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August 9, 2017

Rachel

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2017 DC Pen Show #3

Posted in Fountain Pens

Welcome back for the third installment of my experience at the 2017 DC Pen Show. I finished yesterday with spotting Brian Goulet of The Goulet Pen Company. Allow me a few moments for some backstory here.

I was really getting into fountain pens, mostly because you have such a rainbow of inks to choose from. Hooray for color! If I recall correctly (it’s been a VERY busy year), I discovered Goulet Pens when I was looking for pen subscription boxes. I found some posts about their Ink Drop ink subscription box. Unfortunately, it had been discontinued a few months prior, but there was a silver lining. Goulet Pens sells ink samples! So I could test out any ink I wanted for a couple bucks. Needless to say, I quickly placed an order.

It was soon after that I discovered their YouTube channel. If you have any interest whatsoever in fountain pens and haven’t seen their channel, do yourself a favor and check it out. If you have seen their videos, I’m sure you can understand why I was hoping to meet Mr. Goulet. He’s so personable. But it goes beyond that.

On June 21, I ordered the super limited edition Stipula Etruria Rainbow Prisma 88 from Goulet Pens. It was an impulse buy, but after seeing the photo of it on Instagram, I just fell in love. And I have no regrets. After I placed my order, it occurred to me to ask for pen #19. After all, I’d spent so much money, I might as well ask for my favorite number. Not only did I get a quick reply assuring me that it wasn’t a silly request, a few days later, I got pen #19!

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August 8, 2017

Rachel

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2017 DC Pen Show #2

Posted in Fountain Pens

Welcome back for the second installment of my experience at the 2017 DC Pen Show. I left off yesterday with finishing my perusal of the small room. I met up with one of my friends in the lobby. He hadn’t been able to find us, and assumed we’d made our way to the large room. A couple of texts took care of that. Ah, technology, you are amazing…when there is signal.

Even the hallway between the small room and the first entrance to the large room was absolutely packed. There were a few booths, the table to sign up for a subscription to Pen World magazine, and a smallish table with a metric butt-ton of flyers and brochures that I didn’t stop to look at because they weren’t pens or ink. What can I say, I had my priorities in order.

I did stop and ooh and ahh over the ARTUS pens. They are beautiful. If you love one of a kind, hand-painted pens, even if you don’t, do yourself a favor and take a look at them. As I mentioned to my friend, it’s a good thing they didn’t have a Queen Elizabeth I pen, or I would have been in BIG trouble.

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August 7, 2017

Rachel

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2017 DC Pen Show #1

Posted in Fountain Pens

This weekend was the 2017 DC Pen Show. I’ve been waiting to go since I learned about it in fall of last year. My fiancé, Jim, and I are moving soon, so we’re busy doing all the pre-moving stuff chores and errands. That means we didn’t have a full weekend to devote to the show, as it deserved. We were only able to go for part of the day on Saturday.

I didn’t think I had any real expectations before the show. When we got there, though, I realized that I had formed expectations because they were blown completely out of the water. The show was much bigger, and MUCH better attended than I could have possibly imagined. There was so much to see that I’ll be dividing my overview of the show into three pieces. Stay tuned for the other two!

We met three friends there, all of whom happened to arrive early (while we were just on time). The show was already packed, despite officially starting at 10am (when we arrived). They’d already run out of the “official” swag bags several minutes earlier. But it was ok, I’d come prepared with my bag of holding.

Photo of my Bag of Holding

The admissions procedure confused me as, once you paid, you weren’t given anything to prove it. So anyone could just walk right in. But perhaps that was just a result of being in a new location this year. “Growing pains”, as it were.

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