Jump to content

John Mottishaw’s Nibs.com To Unite with Emmanuel Caltagirone’s The Pen Family


Nibs.com

Recommended Posts

Nibs.com, the online retailer of high-end fountain pens known for the unique nib tuning and customization services pioneered by company founder and owner John Mottishaw, announced today that it is becoming a part of The Pen Family, the innovative group of pen brands guided by Emmanuel Caltagirone.
 
Nibs.com will continue as an online retailer of brands such as Nakaya, Sailor, Pilot-Namiki, and Platinum, and as a retailer of Pen Family brands such as Armando Simoni Club, Bexley, and Wahl-Eversharp. All pens will continue to be offered with the options for tuning and customization developed by Mr. Mottishaw.   
 
“This is an ideal situation for us,” explains Mr. Mottishaw, who will remain active in nib tuning and customization with the company. “Manu has created something very special with The Pen Family, and he has a vision and aesthetic and love of fountain pens that matches my own.” Mr. Mottishaw will be joined in the Nibs.com workshop by associate Sara R. Rice, herself a longtime pen repair and restoration expert.
 
“John is an artist in the work he does on nibs, and this new relationship between our two companies will allow him to devote more of his time to the nib work, and allow him to step back from day-to-day company management,” said Mr. Caltagirone, who has been involved in pen manufacturing and sales for over thirty years.
 
Nibs.com and The Pen Family will maintain their separate offices, with John and his team still working out of Los Angeles, and The Pen Family retaining its Miami, Florida office. Nibs.com will also be retaining its noted stand-alone web site, which allows customer to choose all nib tuning and customization choices during the check-out process.
 
Founded as “Classic Fountain Pens” by Mr. Mottishaw in 1994, Nibs.com quickly grew from a nib and pen repair and restoration service to a full-featured online retailer specializing in the sale of fountain pens with the solid gold nibs suited to Mr. Mottishaw’s tuning and customization work. Inks, books, and accessories are also offered on the Nibs.com web site, which has become familiar to pen users for its wealth of information on pen maintenance, nib selection, and customization options. 

ManuJohn.jpeg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 9
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • Seney724

    2

  • Paul-in-SF

    2

  • Nibs.com

    1

  • Nurmister

    1

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

This sounds great, congrats. Ultimately there can be benefit to watch brands and retailers remaining independent, but as seen with the wider luxury goods market, conglomeration (like in the case of LVMH) can help their constituents survive and thrive.

 

The first time I visited nibs.com was almost a decade ago now. I still remember your old website format, since I used to drool over the red Sailor 1911 large! I now have gone through owning three. How times change.

 

The topside of a nib is its face, the underside its soul (user readytotalk)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
On 4/11/2021 at 10:03 AM, TitoThePencilPimp said:

Hope you cashed out :).

+1

vaibhav mehandiratta

architect & fountain pen connoisseur

 

blog | instagram | twitter

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

RIP & thanks for the memories nibs.com

Hopefully Mr. Mottishaw will "go his own way" and remain available to his many devoted customers.

It will be interesting to follow this story along...........

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

One data point: I had a very pleasant transaction with nibs.com at the SF pen show, about a month ago, where I was able to get the Nakaya pen I wanted on the spot (on Sunday afternoon), one they were using as a nib demonstrator. They swapped nibs for me too. I don't know if the person I dealt with was a holdover from nibs.com or not. I don't know any of those folks. 

 

There is a difference between the specific brands owned (I presume) by the Pen Family, and nibs.com. The others are all brands, makers of pens. Nibs.com is a retailer and service company. Nothing has to change for them at all under the new ownership, and doesn't seem to have done so, so far. Maybe nibs.com will start carrying some of those other Pen Family brands, but I don't have to buy them if I don't want to. I guess I will wait and see. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Paul-in-SF said:

One data point: I had a very pleasant transaction with nibs.com at the SF pen show, about a month ago, where I was able to get the Nakaya pen I wanted on the spot (on Sunday afternoon), one they were using as a nib demonstrator. They swapped nibs for me too. I don't know if the person I dealt with was a holdover from nibs.com or not. I don't know any of those folks. 

 

There is a difference between the specific brands owned (I presume) by the Pen Family, and nibs.com. The others are all brands, makers of pens. Nibs.com is a retailer and service company. Nothing has to change for them at all under the new ownership, and doesn't seem to have done so, so far. Maybe nibs.com will start carrying some of those other Pen Family brands, but I don't have to buy them if I don't want to. I guess I will wait and see. 

Thanks for your report, it is good to hear.

 

My understanding is John Mottishaw is gone.  No longer involved.  If true, I think that qualifies as a significant "change." 

 

What do you know?  Is my understanding incorrect?? 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know anything more than what has been reported here. What I meant by "change" was in the way they do business. Nibs.com doesn't have to design or produce products. They just have to sell them, and perform some services (nib work). A change in ownership of that type of business does not require any changes in the way they do business; of course changes may happen anyway. If he is, in fact, gone, the nib work part of the business may miss Mr. Mottishaw's oversight and supervision, something of which only time will tell. I guess I will wait and see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since we are all reading between the lines here without a lot of concrete info ...

 

John seems like an artisan, whose main enjoyment comes from working on pens in any capacity and not the mind-killing drudgery of operating retail on thin margins. (That's actually why it made me sad when we lost the Nibsmith the exact same way. I don't think he takes on third party repairs any more, only tunes pens he sells). I really hope he made good money on this and will be able to focus on pen work.

 

"Armando Simoni Club" to me is just a huge flashing NOPE! sign. Much like YAFA, just on the high end.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Most Contributions

    1. amberleadavis
      amberleadavis
      43844
    2. PAKMAN
      PAKMAN
      33501
    3. Ghost Plane
      Ghost Plane
      28220
    4. inkstainedruth
      inkstainedruth
      26627
    5. jar
      jar
      26101
  • Upcoming Events

  • Blog Comments

    • Shanghai Knife Dude
      I have the Sailor Naginata and some fancy blade nibs coming after 2022 by a number of new workshop from China.  With all my respect, IMHO, they are all (bleep) in doing chinese characters.  Go use a bush, or at least a bush pen. 
    • A Smug Dill
      It is the reason why I'm so keen on the idea of a personal library — of pens, nibs, inks, paper products, etc. — and spent so much money, as well as time and effort, to “build” it for myself (because I can't simply remember everything, especially as I'm getting older fast) and my wife, so that we can “know”; and, instead of just disposing of what displeased us, or even just not good enough to be “given the time of day” against competition from >500 other pens and >500 other inks for our at
    • adamselene
      Agreed.  And I think it’s good to be aware of this early on and think about at the point of buying rather than rationalizing a purchase..
    • A Smug Dill
      Alas, one cannot know “good” without some idea of “bad” against which to contrast; and, as one of my former bosses (back when I was in my twenties) used to say, “on the scale of good to bad…”, it's a spectrum, not a dichotomy. Whereas subjectively acceptable (or tolerable) and unacceptable may well be a dichotomy to someone, and finding whether the threshold or cusp between them lies takes experiencing many degrees of less-than-ideal, especially if the decision is somehow influenced by factors o
    • adamselene
      I got my first real fountain pen on my 60th birthday and many hundreds of pens later I’ve often thought of what I should’ve known in the beginning. I have many pens, the majority of which have some objectionable feature. If they are too delicate, or can’t be posted, or they are too precious to face losing , still they are users, but only in very limited environments..  I have a big disliking for pens that have the cap jump into the air and fly off. I object to Pens that dry out, or leave blobs o
  • Chatbox

    You don't have permission to chat.
    Load More
  • Files






×
×
  • Create New...