All posts by ultcyn

Stationery Fest 2026

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This year I decided to go to the Stationery Fest in Brooklyn, New York instead of the Washington DC Pen Show. Here is a recap of my day.

I live in South Jersey so I started out my day at 8 am driving to the River Line light rail. I took the River Line up to Trenton, crossed the street and hopped a train from the Trenton Transit Center to New York Penn Station. I then had to navigate my way to the subway to get over to Brooklyn. My Google directions told me which train to take but failed to inform me if I should take the Uptown or Downtown train. Luckily, I chose correctly and headed Downtown. I had to switch to a second subway train and finally made it to Brooklyn just after 11 am.

I found the venue, a block or so away and got in line to check in. There was a beautiful courtyard with picnic tables and tents for resting, a large ink swatching tent, washi tapes for decorating your journal as well as other activities. They had a few snack and beverage vendors in case you needed a nibble.

I headed inside the building and started perusing the vendors. There was a lot. It was a great mix of fountain pen sellers, journals, stickers, washi tapes, journal charms, rubber stamps, and a ton of other things that you never knew you wanted until just then.

Almost every vendor had a rubber stamp and I filled up six pages of my Hobonichi planner. They also gave away a lot of stickers which I will share with my many penpals.

If you are just focused on fountain pens and ink, this isn’t the best place for you but if you like to journal, share stickers, decorate with washi tape and all the other stuff you can do with fun and unique stationery goodies, this is definitely the place for you.

If you want to go to the next one, set yourself up for success with the following tips:

1.) Buy a ticket as soon as the event is announced. They did sell out this year. If you want to join a workshop, sign up for those as well. The spacewalk does require a separate ticket.

2.) Wear comfortable shoes. There is a lot of walking and standing. You don’t want to make yourself miserable with a poor shoe choice.

3.) Pack your favorite snacks and water. The courtyard menu options were limited and I don’t think you can get re-entry unless you have a VIP ticket.

4.) Carry a bag or backpack. It’s a great way to hold all your purchases and snacks, leaving your hands free to collect the rubber stamps.

5.) Bring your journal or a blank notebook for the stamps. There will be a lot of them.

If you went, please share what your experience was like!

Spring Cleaning

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For those of you who attended our meeting on June 6, 2026, I hope you have begun your “homework” of cataloging your pen collection.  For those who were not there, let me explain.  Over the last several months, I have received numerous emails and messages from people who lost a loved one and have inherited a fountain pen collection.  The person has no idea about the collection or what it’s worth.  I assigned “homework” to everyone at the meeting to go through and catalogue their collection.  Perhaps, make a binder with manufacturer, model, material (hard rubber, plastic, gold filled, etc.), engraving; nib size and grind (fine, broad, italic, flex, etc.), and other interesting details, pictures, receipts, and other important information / provenance.  You will probably quickly find your collection is worth much more than anticipated.  You may want to call your homeowner’s insurance agent and have it insured.  For inspiration, check out gopens.com, mainstreetpens.com and vintagepens.com for some formatting and description ideas.   Two excellent sites for learning more about your pens are: richardspens.com (Richard Binder) and vintagepens.com (David Nishimura). Binder and Nishimura are very knowledgeable, freely share what they know, and their websites are well organized and easy to use.

Some people prefer a digital system. One of our members set up an excel file like this:

Please feel free to leave a comment about your own spring cleaning experience.

Since I’m in a spring cleaning kind of mood, I also took the opportunity to clean up our website Pen Links page.  I fixed broken links and removed links where the store was confirmed to no longer be in existence.  That has left room for new links!  If you have a favorite pen related website, please send me an email at cstinger@philadelphiapens.com or drop a comment below and I will add it to the page.

I would also like to put together a list of resources that loved ones can use when they want to sell off a collection.  If you know of any reputable people or businesses willing to evaluate and/or purchase a fountain pen collection, please email me.

It’s all about the paper

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As a fountain pen user, you know that even if you have the most perfect pen and the most beautiful ink, if you try writing on awful copy paper, it leaves you feeling disappointed. Good news! Komorebi Stationary has put together FIVE fountain pen friendly paper samplers to suit everyone’s tastes and / or needs.

Here is the link to peruse and, perhaps place an order. https://komorebistationery.com/collections/new-items?omnisendContactID=67c5ec3ab609ef72a6c73da7&utm_campaign=campaign%3A+20260616+New+-+Paper+Tasting+Writing+Pad+Sets+%286a30fd992f1e7eb60029b4ff%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=omnisend

June 6, 2026 Meeting Recap

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Another successful group meeting took place this past Saturday in Philadelphia. We converged at the Hard Rock Cafe and had a very large private room all to our own. A total of 27 people were in attendance. For several, this was their first meeting. In addition to our usual pen conversations, we also reviewed the results from the recent group survey. The survey was sent to our mailing list of 500 and of which, 54 people responded.

The insights provided were valuable in planning our future meetings.

To start, a lot of you really appreciate getting emails on club news. This will happen more often. Next, almost everyone drives or takes public transportation to the meetings. This will help shape the kinds of places we choose for meetings in the future. Ease of parking is at the top of the list. The largest concentration of members are in Philadelphia County but we have a surprisingly large amount of people from New Jersey as well. In addition to the quarterly PA meetings, I will also attempt to schedule one or two NJ meeting per year to include these members. Finally, I got a strong idea of what people are looking for at the meetings. I have reached out to the Philadelphia Calligrapher’s Society to see if they have any upcoming workshops or if they will host a workshop just for our club. I am also working with Bucks Bespokery to have them join us for a meeting. In addition, if anyone wants to share anything pen related at a meeting, please reach out to me.

Spring Meeting Recap

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In case you missed the Spring Meeting on March 21, 2026 here are the highlights from the agenda:

  • We are now ow on Instagram!
  • Tag us and follow us @philadelphiapens
  • We are now a part of Join Philly – A citywide guide to the communities that bring people together
  • Pens For Kids – Scavenger Hunt
    • Member Cynthia Stinger will be bringing this back to the Philly Pen Show for 2027
      • Volunteers are welcome to help with running the program at the show
  • Stickers for Sale – $5 each – proceeds support the Scavenger Hunt. Please reach out to Cynthia for more information
  • Future meeting ideas and locations? Please reach out to us. We are open to new venues and locations.
    • Meeting ambassadors needed!
    • Survey coming soon – We want to know more about you
    • Tentative schedule:
      • June  – Summer meeting TBD
      • October – Fall meeting TBD
      • January 2027 – Pen Show informal meeting

Philadelphia Pen Show 2026

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PPCG again will have a table at the 2026 Philadelphia Pen Show. Stop by and say hello!

We will be having an informal group meeting on Saturday, January 17th at 4pm at the hotel bar located adjacent to the main floor lobby. Stop by to show your latest pen finds, see what others got or just rest your feet and hydrate.

We’re looking forward to seeing you!

https://philadelphiapenshow.com/

Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown – 201 North 17th Street, Philadelphia

May 31, 2025 Meeting Recap

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We held our Spring meeting at The Kibitz Room in King of Prussia, a newly opened delicatessen that was all we would like it to be. Twenty-four members came together in the camaraderie that only a pen collectors’ club could enjoy. There was plenty of conversation about a variety of topics, not the least of which was the joys and pleasures of using fountain pens. Nearly everyone brought at least several pens for us to try out and we used up a lot of ink. It is always a pleasure to join together for lunch and conversation with people who share like interests and today was no exception. There was much conversation, laughter, and cheerful expression throughout the room.

We tried the “Share the Wealth” table again and it was a total success. The “Share the Wealth” table idea is an import from the DC Metro. Pen Club, where members leave pens and pen-related items on a table at the DC Pen and Baltimore pen shows for others to take. Our pen friends put out a large assortment of ink samples and full ink bottles, several blank notebooks with very nice, pen-friendly paper and several fountain pens. Altogether, the many who contributed to the table were more than generous with their contributions, for which we all, beneficiaries of this generosity or not, thank them heartily.

We are looking forward to our next opportunity to come together again, this time after the D.C. Pen Show, which was only one of many topics of conversation. We anticipate our next meeting will be in September.