So what did I make of the Saturday of the first two day pen show in this country? As mentioned in my previous post I could only make the first day, but then in reality would you do both if you were not trading or using the show as a social event? Certainly if you are near by then the cheap tickets and discount for two days (£7 per day, £12 for both) makes it a cheap way to occupy a weekend, well cheap until your pen purchase bill bankrupts you…

First of I am experimenting with another host for the pictures, so hopefully everyone should see them. Apologies if there are adverts with them as I am using the free version of their service.

So I went for the regular ticket, meaning no entry until 10:00 though that was moot as it was closer to 11 when I arrived. First thing that hit me was how busy the show was. I took only one photo showing an area, but crowded was not the word. If you remember what it was like at the old hotel, with less space and narrow aisles packing people in, this is what it felt like. I would suggest that there were close to twice as many people present late morning than attended during the of the whole day last year.

Come the afternoon it did slacken off, but it was still busy. I asked and was told that the numbers of pre-booked tickets for the next day was similar to last year, so it does look like the two day event may well have worked. Speaking to a number of the vendors they did say they had generally been rushed off their feet and done well, though some of the small ‘one man band’ makers did suggest they got more interest but not sales. If you did attend on the Sunday please leave a comment on how well attended it was.

I am not going to cover the usual suspects but there were new stalls there or at least to me, remembering I could not make last year and in April I had just half a day and so missed a few I will mention shortly. Annoyingly my photos of Bungubox and Kanwrite did not work particularly well. The latter being one of a number of Indian pen makers present or represented.

Vazir were present again, but this time with a full range (while arguably this is their second time at the show, in April their UK rep. just had a small selection of their pens).

Lotus Pen were another Indian company making their first appearance and starting to show some original designs (unlike their early days where their catalogue was a collection of clones of Franklin Christoph models).

A fourth Indian company present was Arclayer, with many of their pens being 3-D printed. This was the place to come if you wanted a hex chambered pen.

Moving on to Poland we then had Drewnem Pisane, with some interesting faceted pens that had been lathed then hand finished. I believe others were cast (as you can see some interesting designs on their website).

Next we had ‘I was born in Poland but France, where we live, has my heart’ Michal of Tamenuri Studios. Think I can get away with that as we spent a good 10 minutes talking about fresh bread, coffee and cheeses. For those of you not aware of Michal, he was arguably the influence and inspiration behind many of the present Urushi artists in the UK and Europe (and yes I do know there was a Swiss based one before him, but that one just decorated pens, Michal talked about and demonstrated the processes, as can still be found on his old YouTube channel).

Sticking with Eastern Europe (as I assume House Geshtu is Ukrainian in origins) we had ‘Chief Inventor’ (I should have asked his name, but he uses that tag on his Instagram site), who is making his own pen with the body being from Ultem® and the nib from titanium.

You can see from the picture above how very different the nib is from the ones we are used to. Yes that brace is on the top. Both pen and nib are very much a work in progress and I know he attended another show where he could not get the ink to flow. Certainly everything was fine here. The nib was very stiff and had a specific sweet spot, lose it and writing was rather unpleasant. A work in progress as I have said though he is hoping to have sorted out the required tweaks by the end of the year with the hope of a Kickstarter project and then delivery mid next year (2026).

OK this was the second time Ryan Sirignano was present with Esterbrook, but I had to take this picture as they had officially launched the new Peanuts range that morning (still showing as coming in October on their website). Some fun pens and peripherals though not to my taste which is a bit of a shame (not to my wallet) as growing up I was a fan of Charlie Brown and the gang.

Also from the US, Darail Penz were back. This is one of the new stalls I missed last time. Speaking to Adolphus he attends about a dozen shows in the USA regularly and there does do decent trade. As far as he is concerned at present the London Pen Show is more about being seen, getting to know people, and having a good time. I hope business was good enough for him over the two days to at least break even.

From Canada and also missed by me last time was Sean from the London Pen Co, (London, Ontario). An example of what happens when you run an IT service company (we started to get geeky conversation wise) and then the world shuts down. I almost bought one of his pens made from the latest version of Jonathan Brooks’ Primary Manipulation (I messed up the photo) but got distracted else where with conversation).

Moving to Japan (well Scotland) and we had the distributors for Traveler’s Company being hosted by Cult Pens.

along with a collection of stamps normally found in the main Tokyo store. This was one table you needed to be at on the first morning as by the time I was chatting to the lasses from Edinburgh a lot of the stock had been sold.

From the UK we had Tom Hessin, who I think has been to the show before (or at least as part of the Manuscript table) but I have included for safety in case I am wrong.

Finally for the newcomers we had Thomas Slim, a new company to the pen world with a series of prototypes on display. This part of the business started off making branded gifts for regiments in the British Army (some of which were on display), a spin off from designing and crafting luxury items. While many of their prototypes were ‘safe’ designs, which they were happy to admit to as they want to get things right before moving onwards, there were certainly one or two items that caught my eye including

an EDC pen that could be attached to a carabiner. Talking with the two designers they were mentioning options they were looking at, with one being a removable barrel finial so you could swap the the ring in and out with a regular end.

Before I get on to a surprise, what did I get. Well only one thing was by accident as the ink was pre-ordered from Write Here Write Now. The pen was the result of spending too long chatting next to John Sanderson’s table and seeing a set of about a dozen abalone based pens for sale. I keep talking about trying a Silverburl Pens pen and now I have one. Expect a review at some point.

So to the surprise, with the relevant photos following. At the show was Gian Luca Malaguti-Simoni, the grandson of Armando Simoni, the founder of OMAS Pens. He was there with Count Tomasso Leonetti of Santojanni with a number of pens [I have now been informed these were the personal pens of the Count and not of Mr Malaguti-Simoni]. One of which had a very interesting nib Armando had been working on during the Second World War which was not gold but felt as if it was as it had a great level of softness and safely usable flex [update – it is Permanio and the nibs were made in 1943]. The other was the titanium pen with the 1939 14k Extra nib that the ‘true’ OMAS have virtually sold out of with the rebirth of the original company. I was going to do a piece on the complicated and potentially litigative situation that could arise amongst the various parties, but the time for that was months ago. [The question is who owns the rights to the OMAS name. Ancora supposedly bought it, The new OMAS company (calling themselves Official OMAS does not work well with me considering previous claims of one of the people behind The Pen Family) say the name was not in public use as it had not been used for too long, and the Simoni family claim the name remained with them after O-Luxe closed the business, though I have now been informed by them they do not own the rights in the UK]. Certainly the pen was not what I was expecting. It is sized more like a 1930s/40s pen or a smaller version of the Paragon or Milord, but then the 86 year old nib is perfectly proportioned to the body. I actually found the nib to be on the stiff side, but then I was not going to risk putting too much pressure on a rare nib in a €3200 pen.

Please note there are a number of corrections in the above as Count Santojanni has informed me they were his pens and also while the Simoni family do indeed own the rights to the OMAS name in specific European countries and other territories, they do not own it in the UK.

One thing I did regret was not recording an explanation Count Tomasso gave on how the traditional flex nibs actually work, where the region of actual flex is different than with the modern pen (the flex being in the rear/centre of the nib, not with the tines). He truly is a fountain pen enthusiast.

John Hall of Write Here Write Now has a video covering the above pen just here: