I went to my first ever pen show this past weekend. And it was an experience.
As I wrote about in my first post for this latest FWW competition, I discovered fountain pens at the start of the year. And I dove in head first, as is my nature 🙂
My brain doesn’t allow me to “take it slow, evaluate things, see what appeals, buy something and get used to it before buying more, etc”. That’s not me.
It may take me 18 months of research to buy a new TV (just ask my wife…she won’t let me forget this!), but when it comes to things that interest me, I go in hard from the start. I don’t know why that is.
One thing I haven’t written a lot about here, is that at the same time that I discovered fountain pens, I was also looking for fountain pen-friendly notebooks. And what does a good notebook need? Yes, a nice leather notebook cover. I could find plenty of leather covers online. They looked fantastic, to be honest. But I was looking for a local supplier, a store I could go into and touch and feel the leather. So, what do you do when you can’t find exactly what you’re looking for locally? You guessed it, you make your own. And that’s how my leather crafting hobby came to be.
For this hobby, I hit up facebook marketplace and found someone who was selling a basic leather crafting kit. He also gave me some pieces of leather to start with, and some other extras. When I asked him why he was selling, he said he could not dedicate the time he wanted to it, and there was no point holding on to this stuff. At the time, I couldn’t understand what he meant.
While the basic kit had all the tools, my initial use told me that some key tools needed to be of better quality. So, I upgraded some of them. If I was going to do this, I needed to give it a chance to succeed. Low quality tools would result in lower quality output, and I didn’t want that to be a reason I gave this up. It made sense in my head.
Like I said, all in from the start.
So my first visit to a pen show also gave me the opportunity to look at what is on offer in the leather bound notebook covers area.
The show was held at a local town hall. It was nothing fancy. A bunch of trestle tables lined along each wall and more in the middle, forming a figure 8 shape. It allowed people to flow along the outside first, then the inside. One of the biggest challenges for such events is being set up so the crowd can flow, and not double back on itself, causing people to move in opposite directions. This kinda worked today.
There were approximately 40 exhibitors, including a coffee cart. You need coffee at these type of events. There was also a food truck, but it was outside and behind the building. Even though there were open doors leading to the food, I’m not sure they would’ve seen much action today. People were there for the pens.
I didn’t really know what to expect at the show. I wasn’t going in with a specific goal in mind. It was my first show. I’d seen some YouTube videos of other shows, international shows, with thousands of people. I didn’t think that would be the case today, but I know the local pen scene, and more specifically the fountain pen scene, is a strong one here in Melbourne.
The show started at 9am, with 9-10am being premium access - for those interested in getting a “first look” at any of the deals on offer. Or to secure that special pen they were after without battling the crowd. I don’t know how many people paid the extra to gain access early, but I’m sure there were many. There always is.
I arrived at 10:30am and there was a healthy crowd already - a couple of hundred people, I’d say. Enough to make walking around a little challenging. I decided to do a general walk around first to see what was there. Throughout the time I was there, the crowd swelled - easy to gauge as walking around became harder, with more and more people apologising for bumping into each other.
I saw many familiar names of shops, and many others I’d never heard of, but made note of to visit. I was actually happy to see that there were plenty of vendors there that I didn’t know. It means I have a lot more to discover.
I did get to see and chat with some of the stores that I’ve purchased from previously - pens, notebooks and inks. And I got to see and touch some pens that I wouldn’t normally. Pens out of my price range. People were happy to chat about the pens and, from some of the conversations I overhead while at the tables, happy to do deals as well. The old adage of “You won’t know unless you ask” holds true,
One item I did look out for was a notebook. I’m always looking to try new fountain pen-friendly notebooks and I bought a couple of different ones - a Maruman Mnemosyne, which I’ve heard good things about, and a brand I’ve never heard of, myPaperclip, which turns out to be a new notebook brand from India.
One of the main reasons I got into fountain pens was that most pens now also take ink cartridges, making it simple to “refill” a pen. Consequently, my journey to date has included limited inks. After a few months, and after buying my third pen, I bought my first inks - Pilot Iroshizuku inks. Today I bought some Diamine inks to try. Along with Robert Oster inks (which I also need to try at some point), these seem to be quite popular. I’m looking forward to inking my pens.
As my first visit to the Melbourne Pen show, I am thankful at the size of this event. Had it been a show with hundreds of vendors and thousands of people, I feel I would have been overwhelmed and potentially left without a purchase. Too much to choose from.
For me, this was the goldilocks experience - just right.
