Most of the pen shops are concentrated in the southern part of Mumbai particularly in the Fort area. Generally I travel on my trusty Enfield Bullet and park it near VT (Victoria Terminus) station. From there walking towards a place called the Flora Fountain both the sides of the road are lined with a sprinkling of pen shops. The first good shop on the left is the Mitha Pen mart owned by Mr. Taher. He generally has good vintage as well as modern pens on display. He repairs pens himself and is a master pen engraver. Yesterday he had on display for sale a vintage Omas, a snorkel filling PFM, some Parker 75s, some GF MBs and a Duofold.
They are also the service collection centre for Parker pens.
Mr. Taher showing me a PFM:
The next shop you can't miss to notice is the Apsara Pen Mart bang opposite Flora Fountain. This shop has been around in the same place from the 1940's. They usually have a nice collection of moderns and a separate vintage pen chest. Yesterday they had about 50 NOS Sheaffer No-Nonsense pens in original blister packing at a throwaway price of approx 4USD. Of course, I picked up three.
The Vintage pens' chest, They had some nice Duofolds, but were pricey.
The No-Nonsense pens, notice the blister cards at the back.
In the lane adjacent to Apsara pen mart called the Nagindas Master Lane is another reliable shop called the Shukla pen mart. I had bought my NOS old style Pelikan M800 from him at a very reasonable price. Yesterday he had only moderns. He keeps the entire waterman range.
There is a large wholesale Stationery market in Mumbai which caters to the needs of the whole of India. This is located in on the Abdul Rahman street, bang opposite Crawford Market. Needless to say there are lots of shops here who have been doing business for more than 60 yrs and they do sometimes entertain pen lovers and even sell them a couple of pens at wholesale rates.
The first shop on the left is Enayat Ali and Sons
Adjacent to it is the Bombay Fountain Pen depot from who I have bought my Rotring 600 with 18K nib and various Watermans at fantastic rates.
Yesterday he showed me this Chinese pen that had a lever in the feed to floss out the nib slit!
Two shops away is the sole national distributor of Airmail pens, Vrajlal. Whatever Airmail pen has been made, you can find it here.
A little further away to the left on the Sutar Chawl lane is a shop called Pen Point owned by Mr. Pradeep Gala. He has a good collection of Pelikans, and sometimes vintages also turn up with him as consignment sales.
There are a lot of other good pen shops also in Mumbai. I hope you enjoyed this little Pen Tour of Mumbai as much as I enjoy on every weekend.
Cheers,
Hari
) with all those beautiful pics