Hello from Flanders in Belgium !

[fountainbel]

Hello fellow penfreaks !

I am a 60 years old mechanical design engineer from Belgium.

I'm just retired & enjoying greatly my hobbies s.a restoring old furnuture, beekeeping, gardening, bow shooting, collecting & restoring old pocket knives and .... collecting & restoring old fountain pens.

I have a rather broad pen collection - approx.300 pens - lately aiming to specialize in Sheaffer's of the forties & fifties.

Being an engineer, my favorit pens are the Sheaffer snorkel & PFM, being in fact the most complex - through effective! - filling sytems ever made.

I have all different colors & nibwidths in my collection in the Sheaffer 'sentinel" range, except for the "Periwinkle" blue, which I am still looking for!

I also have a transparant snorkel demonstrator & the gold filled excection, the 14or 9K gold version is very hard to find & unfortunately a little over my budget.

I went through all possible repair problems on the snorkel, but succeded - with ups & downs - to make all my repairs succesfull ( as long no parts were cracked ! )

So I remain available if you are confronted with dragging snorkel problems !

Wishing all of you succes& enjoyment with your pen collection !

 

Kind regards, Francis

[Ray]

Welcome, Francis. I know there are many Snorkel fans here - me included; I'm using one now.

 

Ray

[Elaine]

Welcome! Ah Belgium, the land of the best chocolate on earth. (My husband would add the best beer).

 

My Sheaffer burgundy sentinel deluxe tuckaway is one of my favorite pens. I have a full size burgundy sentinel deluxe snorkel that needs repair. I bought it as a pen/pencil set for a great price. It's in my queue for repairs. I've never done a snorkel, so please stick around! I may need your advice when I get around to it.

[Roger]

Hi Francis,

 

Wow, 300 pens puts you into the "big time" category. I'm sure that Kendall will be coming in to welcome another snork fancier.

 

Elaine mentioned your chocolate and beer. How about Belgian waffles? Did they really originate in Belgium? They're good no matter where they originated.

 

If you have been reading this board before registering, then you must have enjoyed it. If you registered before reading, you'll still enjoy the banter here. How's that for a "can't lose" situation?

[Elaine]

Elaine mentioned your chocolate and beer. How about Belgian waffles? Did they really originate in Belgium? They're good no matter where they originated.

Oooooooh, I forgot about those. My favorite are Liège Sugar Waffles. The best place to get them (in my opinion) is the train stations. Hot, sticky, crunchy, yummy!!! I found a recipe for it in a Belgian cookbook but it wasn't anywhere near as good as the one's from the train stations.

 

Which reminds me Wim, if you're reading this, you owe me a recipe.

[KendallJ]

Francis -

 

Welcome! Snorks are among my favorites as well, and I restore and occasionally sell them. My collection is not as big as yours (only about 13 snorks and touchdowns), but it is growing. I have a mandarin orange valiant I just picked up that I really love and like you have not found a periwinkle version yet.

 

Anyway, welcome!

[Guest Denis Richard]

Hi Francis,

 

welcome to the Nut House™

 

Speak about timing... as I clicked to see this thread, my music playlist started reached "Les Vieux Amants" by Jacques Brel

 

Make yourslef at home, and take a walk with fellow snorks addicts.

 

Denis.

[Maja]

Hi Francis and welcome to FPN

 

That's great that you have so many (& varied) hobbies to keep you busy post-retirement...and it's nice that you retired early, too!

 

Sounds like you have a really nice collection of pens. If you have a chance to post some photos of them, we have a "Pictures" forum where people are free to do so. It doesn't have to be just pens...it could be pets, places, etc.

 

Now, just out of curiosity, where there any fountain pens made in Belgium? I know it's not a large country but I know that the Merlin brand of pens were made in The Netherlands so I thought it was worth asking.

[southpaw]

Hello Francis and welcome aboard! Over 300 pens - WOW!! Any chance of a pic of your collection? Actually, I guess I should have said "pics" as one photo would never capture all of them, at least where we could see them? Glad to have you with us and I'm sure you'll be an asset to the community. See you around the boards!

[Mannenhitsu]

Hello Francis and welcome to the FPN. The mere mention of Belgium makes me think of imported chocolates and many of the war stories my father and his friends use to tell from World War II, while stationed there in late 1944.

 

I too have developed a love for Sheaffer pens from the same era and love the Snorks and the first year edition of Touchdown series in 1949. I have a TM touchdown that has been completely restored but I like the first year edition better, because it's thicker and has a larger open nib on the "Statesman" model, which is my favorite from that series.

 

http://www.penhero.com/PenGallery/Sheaffer/Pics/SheafferTouchdown05.jpg

[fountainbel]

Hi fellow penfreaks !

First of all I want to thank all of you for the warm welcome you have given me.

I am somewhat surprised that several of you know about the excellent Belgian chocolat and the sugar wafers, they really are delicious.

And yes, we also have the best "trappist" ( monks beer) in the world.

I just drove 120 miles to get me 48 bottles of the most exclusive "Westvleteren abbey"

trappist featuring a 12% alcohol level. So I am sitting here in front of my PC with a nice glass of this heavenly nectar ! The smell alone already makes me happy !

I will surely show part of my collection in the future but I actually have problems with my camera.

And Maja, there were a few Belgian fountain pen brands but unfortunately they do not exist anymore. One of the most famous ones was "Le Tigre", then there was also "Le Merle Blanc" & "Pelletier" & several other smaller brands. One by one they closed and by the mid seventies none was left.

Dear Mannenhutsu, please note that we still remember our American liberators and the massive help we got from the US with the Marshall plan just after the war. PS : How can you see if you have a touchdown from 1949? Only by the nib ?

Dennis, You surely listen to good music ! I also like Brel, and "les vieux amants" has beautifull lyrics !

All the best ! Francis

[Roger]

Francis, I salute you sir! If ever I have heard of a man that has his priorities well set and attended to, it is you! Driving 120 miles to procure the malt beverage of his choice represents devotion to the things in life that really matter.

 

I would, of course, salute with equal passion the person who goes as far to obtain their alternative choices, be they wine, whiskey or, for those with different tastes, coffee, tea, you name it. This fervor for beverages that satisfy and put us into a contemplative state are the things in life that unite us as citizens of this planet!

 

 

 

(NB - Roger's attendant just said that Roger is now resting comfortably as his medication has kicked in and he will be fine in a week or so.)

[Maja]

(NB - Roger's attendant just said that Roger is now resting comfortably as his medication has kicked in and he will be fine in a week or so.)

[Maja]

And Maja, there were a few Belgian fountain pen brands but unfortunately they do not exist anymore. One of the most famous ones was "Le Tigre", then there was also "Le Merle Blanc" & "Pelletier" & several other smaller brands. One by one they closed and by the mid seventies none was left.

Oh, that's too bad.... but thanks for the answer!

I sort of recall "Le Tigre" pens but I thought they were made by Conway Stewart...or am I mistaken?

[Gerry]

Hi Francis. We could be brothers, I'm an EE and 61. Well, I guess in the FP world we are bro's ....

 

Boy do I envy you those Trappist nectars. 12%...?? I didn't think one could get beer to ferment to that level - are you sure they're not distilling it?

 

Welcome to the FPN, and I'm looking forward to reading your posts.

 

Gerry