As I am surrounded by pens that came home with me from the recent pen show, it seems timely to share my haul in a post.

I am embarrassed once again to be talking of a “haul” when I genuinely thought I did not need any more pens. And yet, here we are! This comes of blurring the distinction between needing and wanting. I ended the day with eight additional pens for myself, albeit of relatively modest cost. Only one of them (a lovely vintage Swan Self Filler) topped a little over £100.00.

First though, I had to haul myself to the Novotel, Hammersmith. Owing to anticipated travel disruption on the tube and overground railways, I decided to take an e-bike. This was both more enjoyable and quicker door to door, than public transport. The 10km journey took 45 minutes, including numerous stops at red lights (which I noticed, many cyclists ignore).

On arriving in good time for the 10 o’clock standard admission, my first stop was to visit Mr Kirit Dal’s Aurora tables, to enlist his help in finding a suitable pen for my good friend in Melbourne. He had requested that I find him an Aurora, steel nibbed model as he was keen to try one and they are hard to find in Australia. I always enjoy browsing Kirit’s tables. He had a few steel nibbed pens from the Ipsilon and Style range, as well as a Duo-Cart. I settled on an Aurora Ipsilon in dark green resin and an Aurora Style in cream-white for my friend, with three packs of Aurora cartridges.

Next I looked at several tables of vintage Parkers. I had a thought of looking for a Parker Maxima Duofold, the largest of the Duofold range with its #50 gold nib with Parker arrow emblem. I did spot a couple of these but the prices seemed a bit high for their condition so I passed these by. Bear in mind that these are likely to be some 60 years’ old and to have seen some regular use.

Then at Mark Catley’s Vintage Fountain Pens’ tables, I chose a Parker 45 Custom (the Custom is the version with the rolled gold cap) in Burgundy with an unusual Right Oblique nib. I then dithered over whether to include a £5 bottle of NOS Waterman Blue Black ink. I already have a bottle of this opened from the last pen show. I decided (you’ve guessed) that I would buy the ink too. Mark kindly added it with the pen for no extra cost.

At the tables of Justin Janse van Vuuren (Van Vuuren Antiques) I then found another lovely Parker 45 Custom, this time in black with what turned out to be a superb 14k gold Medium nib. I have bought from Justin a few times now and it is always a pleasure.

To complete a trio of vintage Parkers, I picked up a smart Parker Senior Duofold (#35 nib) in black; a classic if ever there was one. This one was from Carneil Pens and on dip-testing the pen, we agreed the nib to be “on the fine side of medium”, or vice versa. I do have a soft spot for Parkers, which still take me back to my school days in the 1970’s, especially when I find myself sitting in front of a pad of Basildon Bond letter writing paper.

Another enjoyable purchase was from Ms Kasia Stier (Pen-spa) where I picked out a Swan Self Filler from her table. The moment is captured on a reel on her Instagram @kasia.stier_penspa. I saw later that she had been able to buy a good stash of vintage pens for herself, to restore and put back into circulation.

My pen club friends had arranged to meet up for a Thai meal at lunchtime at the nearby pub. This was a good opportunity to take a break, re-focus, compare notes and share our enthusiasm at what we had picked up thus far. Several were tempted by the 40% discounts from Joost, of Appelboom, over from the Netherlands.

My other purchases were a Pilot Parallel 1.5mm calligraphy pen and inks, a couple of 30ml bottles of Diamine ink in Ancient Copper and Earl Grey (which I had long wanted to try) from Cult Pens, and a pair of Schneider cartridge pens from a selection of designs and colours, priced irresistibly at £5.00 and £2.00, firmly within my “no-brainer” category.

My shopping was almost over, or so I thought, when I sat for a chat with Christine, a keen journaler from our pen club, who showed me a beautiful pen that she had just bought: an Arclayer, 3D printed, eye-dropper filler with an intriguing demonstrator barrel showing a double-helix “DNA” ink reservoir. I had seen these at a distance, on the table of Arclayer, from India, but after closer inspection, I was overcome with FOMO! There was still time to bag one and I chose the clear demonstrator/double helix, DNA version. (There was also a ribbon spiral version and one with an hour-glass ink reservoir, narrowing in the middle, available in a clear, green or blue demonstrator versions). I was able to choose what nib I wanted and opted for an Extra Fine. The pen comes in an unusual cylindrical box, which I assume may also be 3D printed. The pen stands upright in the threaded, bolt-like base. The threaded lid can be placed on top of the base and released to spin down under its own weight.

I later found that five of our pen club had bought one of these! I predict that Arclayer will do well.

So, another successful pen show concluded. This year for the first time, the London Autumn Pen Show took place over a whole weekend. It was expected that most would come on the Saturday and that Sunday would be quieter. I chose to go on Saturday only and apparently, the daily number attending hit a record. As always, my thanks are due to the organisers and all the stall-holders whose work makes the show so enjoyable for the rest of us.

Finally as a post-script to this post: my friend in Melbourne unexpectedly gifted me the Aurora Style which I had picked out for him, whilst the Aurora Ipsilon is now on its way to him in Australia.