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Hello, We are writing to inform you of the service of our Chinese lacquer workshop. Our workshop named "Zhizhai". Our lacquer workshop in Guangdong that introduces traditional Chinese lacquer techniques. At the end of this year, we plan to have a fun project for fountain pen lovers. We are professional lacquer ware craftsmen. Our main works are lacquer ware and furniture, interiors of hotels and luxury cars. From time to time, at the request of a friend, I apply natural lacquer to their private fountain pen. We don't know how to use this site at all. Should I write in this comment section if I have an event for this fountain pen lover? If you know how to effectively inform us of an event, please let us know. We started Instagram with the help of Japanese friends because of internet regulations in China. Because Chinese lacquer techniques are little known in the world. In the future, we will post many rare Chinese traditional patterns on Instagram. And although they are mainly samples of authentic lacquer ware, we can express the pattern with a fountain pen. This is our Instagram account. @zhizhai_lacquer This is our website. We have prepared a basic knowledge page for real lacquer. Chinese lacquer culture uses so many colors, all of which are real lacquer. https://www.zhizhai.shop/ We look forward to your support and advice. Thank you very much for your interest in lacquer culture. Zhizhai Xiao Guan

Dear pen friends, I hope you are all doing well, I was wondering for my Canadian friends, where do you buy your Visconti pens? what is the cheapest place to buy Visconti in Canada? I want to buy the Orchards in blossoms pen which. Also, what is your experience with buying pens from the US? is it cheaper or since you have to pay customs its actually more or the same? Thanks

With the introduction of the new sailor x plus shop Ancira, sailor introduced custom pro gear making, do you think sailor would expand that and offer special nib customization or grinds to it too? Ps why haven’t we still seen other nib sizes to the kop model or sailor triple stacked nib ?

My wife has a vintage Parker Vacumatic that is a family heirloom. Does anyone know of a repair shop with an online web page that "specializes" in "complete Parker Vacumatic restoration"?? I have seen Danny Fudge at The Write Pen mentioned here, and Ron at Main Street Pens . Are there others (other than the above) in the USA that are reputable (Vacumatics), do great work. Thanks for your help. jim

I have a Conway Stewart in excellent outside condition. I sent it to a pen repair person for a complete restoration, new sac, nib tuned and polished. I got it back and all it got was "grease" and does not fill or write. Charge was $17. (restoration quote was $40) Rather than pursue with this fellow and waste my time, are there any reputable pen restorers, repair persons in the USA, with an online website, that I can send my pen to for restoration and nib tuning and polish? Thanks for your help. jim

Today I did it! As I live currently only about an hour away from Hannover, home of Pelikan, I used my one week summer holiday to visit the factory outlet of Pelikan today: http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2818/9349963639_a79732c241_c.jpg The little (one large room) shop can be found at Werftstrasse 9, D-30163 Hannover and is open from 1230 - 1630 from Tuesdays to Thursday. (Not exactly readily accessible opening times when not on holiday) The shop mostly holds school accessories and other products by Pelikan. Next to the door is a table that displays a fair amount of the "upper echelon" of Pelikan pens. The Souverän pens in true black and green, blue and red striped versions ranging from M200 to M1000. Some of the limited editions were also displayed. The whole is overseen by a very lovely lady who is not only very friendly but also extremely knowledgeable. Prices are somewhat 20 to 30% below the cheapest offers I found on the German market I estimate. What the shop offers depends heavily on availability - if you visit with a certain pen in mind I would advise calling in advance to check if it is available. Today for example the The lovely saleswoman worked her "Pelikan magic" on me - and instead of just having a look I ended up with quite a bag full: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7352/9349963271_4a6a55908f_z.jpg The white M400 has a F nib if you are intrigued. Conclusion: If you are in the area and can arrange a visit - it is definitely worth it! Have a nice chat with the saleswoman and if nothing else buy some Edelstein ink at very reduced rates! PS: Sadly no affiliation with Pelikan PPS: In a way I am already sorry for writing this as I know many will have a hard time getting there. But if you ever happen to visit you should definitely do so!

Hi fellow (fountain) pen enthusiasts, I will be visiting Zürich, Switzerland in the foreseable future and people told me I can get Caran d'Ache pens for much better prices than in other countries. So I'm looking for a good shop in Zürich where I could go and take a look and hopefully buy some beauties. My priorities are: good prices,good acccessibility from the city center with public transport or by footgood selection of Caran d'Ache pens. I'm interested in both ballpoint and foutnian pens, depends on what budget I will be able to have. So if you know any good shops which fill some or all of these criteria then do not hesitate to share your recommendation. Thank you for your help, I appreciate it.

I'm off to krakow for a week next month and wondered if anyone knew of any pen shops I should make a point of going to? (Vintage and otherwise). Google hasn't turned up much and I don't recall seeing any shops last time I was there but I intend to visit montblanc and would like to find a faber castell shop, but ultimately I just love visiting pen shops. Ta!

G'day all. I've just come into acquisition of 5 more lovely Brause boxes and would like to know if theres any places I can buy the nibs for them? Specifically, I bought (quite impulsively) a No. 538F box, but seemingly the nib has vanished off of the face of the Earth online. Here is an image of the boxes: If anybody on here happens to be selling them, I would be also be willing to buy some!

Hi everyone, I was wondering what the cheapest site to get ink samples in Canada is. Is it Goulet Pens, where the only downside is the 10$ shipping fee? Are there sites that ship for cheaper or for free even? Thank you all very much in advance!

Wow, what a discovery. While visiting Bangkok in March 2017 i could not believe my eyes. I discovered a newly opened fountain pen shop. It is run by a very knowledgeable, very friendly and very helpful man - Khun Em. You will find a respectable selection of fountain pens, note books (yes, he has got Tomoe River note books by Taroko Design). I stopped by twice for ink, note books and a chat. And the shop is incredibly easy to find, It is a mere 2 minutes walk from the BTS station "Sala Daeng". The shop's name is "The PIPS Cafe". Address: The PIPS Cafe Ground Floor 62 Thaniya Building Silom Road Bangkok 10500 when arriving by BTS train from the station "Siam" you will need to go down one level and take the exit on the right. Monday - Saturday 11.00 - 19.30 thepipscafe@hotmail.com www.thepipscafe.bentoweb.com www.facebook.com/thepipscafe Go there! Cheers, PENaltyPEN .

Greetings! My name is Nick and I recently opened a pen shop in Pittsburgh named Birmingham Pen Company. If anyone is in the Pittsburgh area today feel free to stop in and say hi :-) 813 Copeland St., Pittsburgh, PA 15232

Chicago has never been a too-friendly city for fountain pen users. Just this year (I think... I pass in front of it every day and my memory's non too clear), Glibertson & Clybourn sold its last pen and closed down permanently. Now, Paradise Pens in Oak Brook is closing. So any Chicagoans, get there before April 1st, because everything must go!

Hey hi! Thanks for taking interest. Could anyone help me out with ink stores in India? I would prefer the ones who give an option to order online. (Of course, I cannot travel all of India just for some ink bottles :/ ) I live in a small town & all that is available here is Camlin Blue & Red inks. If you are lucky, you may find Parker Quinky. I'm looking for inkwells up to INR 500 but cannot find stores. I have been swarming the internet since last week but to no good. I've been through pensavenvue.com, pensindia.com & of course snapdeal, flipkart, ebay and amazon. Here's what I've seen: Pelikan inks (32/65ml base colors RGBY) : INR 200-400 : OUT OF STOCK Diamine inks (30-60ml base colors RGY, blue available): INR 375-500: OUT OF STOCK Waterman inks: Same, out of stock. I mean, come on! All they've got of these brands are 850 & above! You name it! Lamy, Diamine, Waterman, J.herbin, etc. Can't find varied colors in any local brands & I'm not going to use camlin. I've tried to shop cross country but the shipping charges are more than the cost of product, obviously. :/ I currently use PILOT NAMIKI IROSHIZUKU - Ku-jaku Peacock Deep Turquoise Blue (50ml) & it cost me 1500 INR. I ordered it from engeika.com. If you buy the same thing from any of the Indian stores, you get it for 2500. Now, I can't afford 1500 for ever color and just for 50ml. So, I'm looking for varied colors & a bit of quality at the same time. So, any suggestion regarding stores / places to buy would be helpful. Also, please let me know if there are any Indian brands who make good inks. Thank you!

In October 2015 I was in Matsue, Japan, and I visited Nakaya Fountain Pen Shop, which is a small shop in a quiet area of Matsue. The shop has been run by the same family since 1918. Unfortunately I didn´t meet the current shop owner, since he was obviously busy in the workshop in the back (I could hear him working, through the open backdoor). I was serviced by a very kind lady, and we managed to understand each other, despite my broken Japanese. I only bought ink, and not pens, since that was not what I was looking for, but I could see they had a fine selection of both foreign and Japanese pens. Our member VirtuThe3rd has put up some videos of the shop here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aDlFkYhZPY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rD19uo_EPI

Hello New here to FPN... Not so new to fountain pens(use them since 1st grade) Own two Waterman FP, nothing too special. I live in France, and I want to know some dedicated websites and or some FP shops. Thank you, Silviu

Good afternoon everyone. I thought it is about time to put pen to paper bash the keyboard once again after an interesting day out looking for pens. Saturday morning, for a change, was bright and sunny, definitely not November-ish weather at all, so we decided to go pen hunting. First off, to F.G. Thomas in sheffield to have a close look at a pen that "She who must be obeyed" spotted on one of her previous visits. Straight away, on stepping through the door we were met with a very warm welcome and were engaged immediately in conversations about, erm, pens... Then, as we had come to snare a rare Conway Stewart, the proprietor (Gary) extracted a wonderful selection of said pens for us to drool over. There were a number of model 100's, a Wellington, some of them with "Henry Simpole" bands on them, all gorgeous, all in front of our eyes. Yummy. However, we were on a mission and had come to pick up a model 58 in Lapis blue, which, was in the very last box brought out. Without any delay, we made the purchase which tonight gets wrapped up and will go under the tree to be opened december 25th. Yep, I know, mean of me, letting the missus see the present and then take it away. However, to compensate, I know she has now got something she really really wants, so no mistakes this year! Overall, the whole experience was very relaxed, zero pressure on us to even purchase anything and the welcome was very friendly indeed. Up to now the pens we have purchased have been from online retailers, which, don't get me wrong here, we have had good experiences online, but actually seeing quality writing instruments in the flesh really does make a big difference. Will we visit them again? Absolutely. Value for money? Subjective due to the nature of what we bought, but we would say yes. Easy to get to? Mainline station at the bottom of the hill, multi storey car park next to it, both only 5 minutes walk, with cafes and other shops in the area. Considering Sheffield is a huge city, this store is a little Gem. We could have stayed there for hours just chatting, but we planned on shooting across country to visit another purveyor of fine writing instruments. Next up, was "The Pen Box" (penbox.co.uk) across country in Epworth. Epworth is by contrast a small market town in the countryside and the shop itself is tucked deep in a small shopping arcade. As per F.G. thomas, we were greeted with a very warm welcome and were left to browse to our hearts content. Now, I have been hankering after a Pelikan M800 with an italic broad nib for a while and bingo, there was one in stock at a "very competitive price. I wasn't going to leave without this little puppy. In the mean time, we got chatting to the proprietor and he kindly showed us through a large number of either rare or unusual pens in his collection and it was a drool-fest. Anyone seen the S.T. Dupont Orient Express? We have now and it is stunning! Not only is there a wide variety but there appear to be excellent stocking levels as well. Would we visit again, you betcha. Easy to get to? Sat Nav took us to an open air car park with 2 hours free parking, the shop being two minutes walk away. The arcade has a number of small cafes and rustic shops, definitely a nice place to visit. So after a full day out, two gorgeous pens, two bottles of ink and a serious exercise in emptying the wallet, I would have to report that it was was definitely worth taking the effort getting out there to visit actual real bricks & mortar shops. The experience in both was positive, no pressure to buy anything and could not say if one was better than the other, as they were both top-notch. Both shops have a "web presence" and have the usual methods of contact, email. telephone etc. Having visited both and meeting the guys, I would have no hesitation purchasing online from them. My bank Manager however, may have a different opinion... As per the "usual rules" of FPN, I have taken a couple of quick snaps of the new additions to the collection.

Hi there, The famous fountain pen shop in Japan " Papylos 21 （Matsue City, Shimane, Pref., JAPAN）" was broadcast on television! I've just uploaded the video on my YouTube channel. Please enjoy watching and feel atmosphere of the amazing tasteful shop if you are interested in it. - Papylos 21 was broadcast on television! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofujSJ2pXDQ Have a wonderful week, Kota

Hi there, The other day, I dropped in at my favorite fountain pen shop called Papylos 21 ( located in Matsue city, Shimane prefecture, Japan ) to take videos for the members of the FPN. Especially, I would like the members on "Pens from the Land of the Rising Sun" to watch this new video, because I believe some persons here will visit Japan in the future. There are many kinds of vintage or rare fountain pens at the shop! I've already introduced Nakaya Fountain Pens in Matsue city where I actually live, however, I'll try to show you the quite rare fountain pen shop Papylos 21 in Japan this time. I hope you'll enjoy watching the video that I made. Fountain pen shop in Japan　- Papylos 21 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqF23K-pEoE Best wishes from Japan, Kota Adachi

Hi, fountain pens fans! I need a little help. My friend is going to go to Geneva, Switzerland and I want to ask him to buy some nibs, inks, notebooks and pens for me. But neither he nor I do not know any offline shops there. Does anyone know any fountain pens shops in Switzerland (preferably in Geneva)? I know about official Caran d'Ache boutique, but I'm interested in not only this brand. Thanks.