I arrived Thursday late PM, and spent Friday walking around and chatting with familiar faces. I did not set up Friday as I want to spent time enjoying the show as I won't have the chance to do once I am set up. I did bought a couple of pens from Stan... which I will post pictures later. Let's just say, they are pens you can't get here :-) Both of my brothers and my sister in law flew in today... The Cheng Gang are good to go!
We sat up Saturday early AM, and early traffic were brisk. Saturday is a good day to spent time and chat, as Sunday is often a very busy day and the place would be like a zoo with not much time to chat. One of the overseas customer of ours who collects only #5 pens bought Danitrio's newest offerings, so these pens were gone by Sat. Noon. Thank God we were able to have #8 set for Sunday's display.
The amount of quail egg shells used to create the design is simply stunning. Talka about patience! It is also very nice to see Danitrio has employeed their second female maki-e artist "Mayumi"
Personally I prefer this one and quickly add this to my personal collection. I love the fact that the urushi is manipulated to give ia a polished stone look and the seam for the ED shut off valve is hiding so well:
We have many close out pens on display which were also quickly snatched up by early show goers. Due to weak dollar, we quickly notice we have more overseas buyer this year than previous. One buyer from France quickly snatched up 13 pens from us. He told us since there are no dealer carrying Danitrio, he wants to purchase as many as he can afford. It is very exciting to see that Danitrio has slowly over the years becoming more popular and more of an household name, and attracted buyers not just in US, but users and collectors from Europe and Asia.
Saturday night is my wine tasting party which has become a tradition for us since our first LA pen show in 2004. We have all our usual suspects there and a few new faces. For me to see old friends is one of the highlight of the show. I brought 11 bottle of wines from Bordeaux, Napa, Argentina, Italy, Oregon and Sake and plum wine. Few other folks also brought their own selections. All in all, by the end of the night, 15 bottles were empty, with last few guests left around 11:30pm. I had great fun, but I was pooped. I realized I am not 18 anymore and can't keep up with all the late night partying
Special thanks to a few local folks: Andy, Dan etc. for providing muchies.Suandy is the public day, and the line were already forming around 9:30AM. We have a lot of foot traffic once the show officially started.... thank God I did not have any hang over from last night.... though I did quote a customer "Twelve hundreds" on the pen by Mayumi. My ever so trusted brother Tom was there to quickly corrected me "Twelve thousands".
Had some more coffee to sober me up more 
Sunday has been traditionally our best day and this Sunday is no exception. Our French customer were there again and added a few more pens. We had a father there with his young son who decided to buy his son's first fountain pen. I am truly honor to have him consider his son's first FP should be a Danitrio. Of course, we have many return customers. I also thought it was kinda cool that the famous pen maker Paul Rossi stopped by and chat. He picked up a pen and was impressed with the built quality and bought the pen. I have no idea whether the pen is for personal use, or if he is going to do his pen making magic to modifiy the pen.We were all very tired by the end of the show. We could have stayed longer and sell more pens, but I decided to called it a day by 5:30pm. For me, the pen show is also about friends and family. Over the past few days, I certainly have seen and spent times with my pen friends, and I thought it's time to spent times with my family. You see, Tom, my youger brother is alos a physician and we worked in the same hospital, so I see him frequently enough. My yougest brother Steve and his beautiful wife (David Broadwell agrees that Steve has great taste), who flew in from Minnesota to help me out, I don't get to see them much. While Tom and I are just 1 1/2 years appart, Steve and I are 6 years appart. Despite the age differences, and the fact that he lives miles away, we have remained close. Though I have not forgive him for saying that I am not a real doctor unless I play golf.
We spent the rest of the night having a nice meal at local restaurant and catching up on good old days to finish up the night.... I can assure you we did not discuss anything pen related. It was a nice way to end a fun but hectic weekend..... now I am looking forward to next year.Will post my other haul from the show later when I have a bit more time.
Kevin
