LA Pen Show 2014 Report

[AltecGreen]

Saturday


Saturday last year was inexplicably dead followed by a crushing Sunday. This year Saturday had good traffic all day. As usual, the modern guys star to set-up on Saturday although really their business is on Sunday. There was still a lot of vintage business to do on Saturday. On Friday, John Mottishaw announced that he was going to sell a bunch of parts on Saturday morning at 9 am. We’ll see how that played out.




Saturday morning around 8:00 am. Pen people get up early for this stuff.











Sarj the “one man pen show”



He does have a nice inventory of pens covering both modern and vintage



The Monster drink for pen show energy






Still no shortage of 51 nibs.





Good deals can be found at pen shows at all levels.








Darlene from Vegas Pens was in attendance for first time in a few years.

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The outer hallway was filling up for the weekend crowd.



YAFA was the primary sponsor and they had a nice display out front.






















Back to John Mottishaw’s sale.

I told a few people who might be interested. Said person camped out at John’s table. This was not normal behavior.



I get over there and I see this. Something is wrong with this picture. Why is John on the other side of the table?




More camping. Cue the Jaws theme.




Release the Kraken.



If you are wondering about the weird camera angles, it was the only angle I could get. :-)










I felt kinda of bad for Tony, one of John’s new employees. I think this was his first LA show. He was trying organize the parts while Todd and Tim were just grabbing whole bags. In the end, Todd and Tim took the bags outside to feed on the good stuff. Then they got Loren to bring back the remains.


In the pile I found this “Kilroy was Here” ballpoint.





In the aftermath, Todd and Tim bought up a bunch of parts. I ended up with a Japanese pen from the 50’s with the original box. It was all good.

[AltecGreen]

Saturday was the day I scored big on OPM points. Earlier, I mentioned Brian and Christina from our Pen Posse. Brian made the mistake of asking me about vintage Omas pens. He had acquired a couple of black vintage Omas and loved them. However, he was interested in pens with colored celluloid. That was all the opening I needed. Marc Shiman could not make the show but sent two trays of vintage Italians pens to Mario Campa to sell for him at the show. I had options on one tray of pens. On Thursday, I did my business but there still a lot of juicy pens for sale. So I hooked up Brian with Mario. I sat down and explained the remaining pens and facilitated the pen buying. I scored big OPM points and I think Brian and Christina are happy. Fortunately, I did not have to bank. Several times that weekend, I acted as an ATM machine on two legs to facilitate several purchases by my Pen Posse cohorts.


Here are some of the pens on offer.








Even though I don’t buy a lot of modern pens anymore, it was good to see some of the latest OMAS offerings. They are truer to their heritage.










Kenro had a nice display. I especially love the non-pen items.











This was the first year I saw modern Onoto pens at the show.












So Loren and I were bumming around and came across this Parker Princess pen. The debate can now commence on gender of a pen.




Mike was busy at work with his mystery guest.

[lsmith42]

Mission accomplished!

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David Issacson has a lot of really nice pens. He showed us a tray of fabulous Parkers. I’ll let David comment more on these pens.


Stunning!






Here is An Tran. He has a lot of nice vintage American pens.











Friday Miscellany




Doug Berg. I hope he wasn’t trying to fix the pen. :-)





I love the furry pen cases at Penopoly made by Steve Curnow






Osman Sumer




The tools




The MBs




Ariel Kullock caps

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Joel and Sherrell






Marta's (aka Plitsumi) new Paul Rossi. At least the first one she bought this weekend.





Farmboy using Farmkid to look for 51s








Michael Sull





Roger Cromwell and Ron Lee





A happy customer





A 51 cap made from a piece of copper pipe.


















Finally, more on that MB stylus. Loren saw that thing and had to buy it. The process by which Loren came into possession of the stylus is too long of a story for this thread. Those styli were meant for old Palm Pilots and do not work on modern capacitive tough screens. Loren did some checking on the internet on how to modify the stylus and I contributed some other complicated schemes. So we set out to try to modify it at the show in an attempt to impress the seller. So Loren dragged Feed and I to Fry’s to find conductive foam on the premise Radio Shack would only have cell phones. We get to Fry’s and Loren asked the employee, “where do you keep the conductive foam?” I’ll leave it at that.

[tandaina]

Wow! So many gorgeous pens!

[AltecGreen]

Point taken about proof reading. I usually do that after I put everything up since people are anxious to see the pictures. It becomes a balance of speed versus proper grammar. What I should do is write this up while I'm at the show so I have more time on Monday to proofread. Although based on the alcohol consumption, that might not be a good thing.

[Crazyorange]

Thanks for all the pics. It's great to view the action, people and pens.

[joiedwards]

I thought I snuck through on Thur and Fri but you got me in a picture!
Can't wait to see the rest of the days.

[kia]

Thank you! Ah, the LA Pen Show report fix is just in time.

[Jon Szanto]

Point taken about proof reading.

Dude, not to worry. I know everyone is enjoying this!

[AltecGreen]

Point taken about proof reading.

Dude, not to worry. I know everyone is enjoying this!

It's funny because I get grammar corrections on this site and content corrections on FPB. It is very funny.


I have made some edits to the most glaring issues. If you analyze the grammar mistakes you can get a glimmer of the different thoughts going through my head while writing that section. I might have to do an addendum later in the week because I left out a few interesting tidbits.

[AltecGreen]

Sunday



Sunday this year was a day for ‘process improvement’. For those who are not familiar with the format for the LA Pen Show, Sunday is the only day for the general public. All of the other days require a trader pass. Thus, the traffic in LA for more casual fans of pens is concentrated on Sunday. Last year, Sunday was the busiest I’ve ever seen in LA and the dealers were pretty much crushed.

This year the show organizers implemented a new admission system for the general public. I believe there were a few implementation problems.


Sunday morning is always the ‘calm before the storm’.

Early morning on Sunday


















Steve Mandell and his purple pants. He made a big point for me to capture the pants.




The scramble to set-up

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Many table holders did not make the trip to LA due to the weather. There was enough demand that many of the vacated tables were quickly picked by others. Tim managed to acquire tables right behind his usual spot. I call this the “Straits of Gibraltar” maneuver.






While the dealers were busy setting up, others took the time to shop. Thus I have renamed Ron Lee the ‘pen vulture’.







It is my tradition to photograph the first person in line so I went out to the lobby where I found no line. This also disturbed quite a few dealers when they saw no line. The show had decided to form the line outside rather than inside the lobby. Process improvement.





The show organizers also had people pay and received their tags and swag before 10 am. So in principle, people could just enter once the show opened. That was the idea.






The line














Nearly to the end of the hotel.

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Meanwhile inside



Susan Bowen of Penworld prepping the table with magazines.



Bryant and his wife setting up their table (He’s actually in focus)
















Maxim and his wife Anna







One of the nicest displays in the ballroom




Jonella arming the Nakaya deskpen holder



Mike setting up

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With seven minutes to go, I park myself in the outer hallway preparing to take pictures.


a few calibration shots










Time!
















After a few minutes, there was no rush and the line remained outside. It seems people who just entered the show were filling out forms for a drawing and a pile of people were still trying to pay in another line. So typical for LA there was a traffic jam. Eventually something happened and the line began to move.

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It takes a while but the crowd finally makes it way inside the ballroom












It was good to see Richard Lott stay for Sunday. It was an opportunity for some of the Sunday attendees to buy pen parts.











I saw Cliff Harrington spend time explaining some details of certain vintage pens.




There were a good number of kids at the show. I saw this cute Chinese family take things in.



There was a big crowd at nibs.com





There were several of the next generation manning tables




Michael Sull always attracts a crowd with his penmanship

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Mike and his mystery guest had a steady but not overwhelming stream of customers. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m not going to reveal who Mike’s mystery guess was. We were asked not to give any details while we were at the show for good reasons.







People testing nibs at Franklin Christoph




Mario answering questions




Brandon packaging up several orders of truffles. Hmmmmmm……so good.



Mary enjoying a snack during a late afternoon lull.




Stan and Miro looking at pens





Syd with a customer



Roger and Darlene








Even though Sunday is focused more on modern pens, Cliff Harrington put out for display some incredible vintage pens. A Parker Aztec, Parker Snake, Parker Ribbon pen, two hard rubber Parker pens with a gold filled and silver overlay, and a rare Parker Overlay pen. I’ve seen some of these pens before but these were exceptional examples of each.

[AltecGreen]

Sunday Miscellany


Some Peilkan porn courtesy of Rick Propas




It even still works.




Marta (aka Plitsumi) was happy. First, she made it out on the last plane to leave New York before the storm shut everything down. In my mind, I had images of her plane taking off as the ice encased New York. Then she proceeds to spend money like I do.





Here’s her second Rossi pen for the show




She bought this beautiful Stylo Art Rankaku pen so so didn’t have to buy it.




Nice Overmax Parker Vac




My Stuff




Stan had some interesting pens for sale. A rare Centro Pen from the Czech Republic (according to Miroslav Tischler), a Soviet era pen, and a hard to find Platinum 3776 in the Parker like ringed celluloid.




Lots of luxury goods






I love bargain boxes of pens. These actually all work.




Fred negotiating with David I.


Fred bought the MB Boheme from David. Loren proceeded to earn OPM points by finding a single pen MB pouch to go with the pen. Fred needed to go to the ATM because the bank of Ricky was closed.





I think this picture sums up Sunday and the show as a whole. While I was walking around on Sunday, this gentleman insisted I take his picture. I think the smile says it all.




I have some observations to close this report. Sunday was busy. It was not as heavy as last year but there was constant activity well into the late afternoon. The pace this year was much more manageable for the dealers. Last year, it was complete chaos on Sunday. I think the LA Show has been very good the last two years. It was a really good buying show this year and I think others have echoed the same sentiment. Both the tables and hotel rooms sold out early. I know people were still trying to get tables once the show started. It seems the LA show wants to be bigger.


We’ve been having discussions in our local Pen Posse about vintage pen prices. This show did not give us any new surprises. The pricing on the upper echelon pens have remained stable or even gone down significantly in some areas. The low end vintage pens like an Esterbrook or a single jewel Parker 51 have all come up the last few years. I suspect the internet has a great deal to do with the increases on the pricing of lower end vintage pens.

On the modern pen front, I sense some shifts. I don’t have any specific evidence but I think the race for bigger and wider pens have subsided. I had conversations with one particular manufacturer about their pens and the comments were surprising. Their clientele are buying less of the F/M/B nibs on pens that used go into a safe. Instead, they are asking for EF, F and M italics, and other specialty nibs. That is to say people buying these higher end luxury pens are buying them to use rather than store away.