[Music]
00:08
the real purpose of a pen is to make you
00:12
look good and to help you do what you're
00:15
doing better when you find the right pen
00:17
it can spend the rest of its life making
00:20
you look good
00:21
they're beautiful objects some of them
00:23
are absolutely spectacular works of art
00:25
they write wonderfully they're just very
00:27
satisfying object to use and hold and
00:30
see this show attracts all a lot of
00:38
different kinds of people there are
00:39
people that just like to write with a
00:42
fountain pen
00:43
or other types of writing instruments
00:45
there are collectors of vintage pens
00:47
there are collectors of new pens big
00:50
thrill is in the hunt
00:51
finding the pen they're finding the part
00:53
for the pen that you're trying to repair
00:55
a good thing about coming to a pen show
00:57
is finding a lot of weird stuff here the
01:00
kinds of people you find at the pen show
01:02
now are varied it's not just the
01:05
hardcore collectors the hardcore
01:07
collectors will go to a pen show in the
01:09
middle of the night in the middle of the
01:11
week in the basement of a bowling alley
01:13
when it's a secret but there are other
01:15
people now there are users who come to
01:18
pen shows when you test a pen it's a
01:21
little bit like driving a car that
01:23
you've always wanted to drive but you've
01:25
never driven before it's the process of
01:27
taking everything you can to get the
01:29
information you need it's how it feels
01:31
and how it sounds no the pen it's how it
01:34
feels and how it looks when you're done
01:36
our business is primarily vintage fans
01:39
though we repair modern fountain pens as
01:41
well i'm cherylin Tyree this is my good
01:46
brother and partner Joel Hamilton
01:49
we restore fountain pens the vast
01:53
majority of the pens we repair are from
01:57
1950 and before I specialized I suppose
02:01
one could call it that in Schaefer and
02:03
Joel specializes in Parker the
02:07
specialization is based built on our pen
02:09
preferences I'm the Schaefer person and
02:12
he's a Parker person but the main reason
02:16
that I think that the specialization
02:17
exists is Parker and Schaffer made a
02:20
whole bunch of Mountain pens over time
02:23
to repair them or any other fountain pen
02:26
you need a parts inventory
02:28
not to mention tools having a sufficient
02:32
inventory to repair both Parker and
02:35
Schaefer probably would require two
02:38
large warehouses neither of us are
02:42
willing to turn our houses into two
02:44
warehouses we've each done one warehouse
02:47
per house and that's why we specialize
02:50
collecting pens is very interesting not
02:54
just for the objects themselves if
02:55
you're interested for example in
02:57
business the history of these companies
02:59
is a fascinating snapshot of American
03:02
businesses in the early 20th century
03:04
Parker Pen Waterman pen those were all
03:07
household name companies at the time
03:09
because everybody had a fountain pen
03:11
there were no ballpoint pens and people
03:13
wrote with fountain pens when we were
03:15
cleaning out my grandparents house in
03:17
Lorain Ohio I found a handful of these
03:20
funky looking old crusty fountain pens
03:22
in the Attic and took them home with me
03:26
and they sat around in the drawer for a
03:28
couple of years
03:29
and I got him out one day and tried
03:32
starting to write with them and of
03:34
course they didn't work so I had to find
03:37
out how to repair them one thing led to
03:40
another and now my database of my
03:43
inventory of fountain pens adds up to
03:45
4900
03:47
my company is pen tooling dot-com I
03:49
specialize in pen repair tools I saw a
03:54
lot of restored pens also if it's been
03:57
repaired correctly and its operating
03:59
properly it's a good analogy with the
04:02
way the fuel and oxidiser flow through
04:05
launch vehicles engine and comes out the
04:08
other end the ink or water squirts out
04:11
the bottom of the pen like the fuel and
04:13
exhaust gases and the thrusts come out
04:15
the back end of a rocket there are no
04:18
days then we cannot be very bent every
04:22
now and again our mother says that our
04:24
father would be so proud that we are in
04:26
business together and happily in
04:28
business together and that is certainly
04:30
true but beyond that we're just two
04:33
little old folk trying to get our work
04:35
back we use computers today people used
04:40
fountain pens back then when they wanted
04:41
to communicate and I think their people
04:43
want to get back to some of that sort of
04:45
personalized aspect of writing and
04:48
fountain pens having the right pen can
04:51
make your life a lot better there's
04:53
really no point in using a fountain pen
04:55
unless it gives you a quality of wine
04:57
you can't get any other way it's like
05:00
having a supportive entity that is being
05:03
non-judgmental telling you when
05:05
something isn't quite right you're
05:06
taking that a little too fast or a
05:08
little too hard a curve or whatever it
05:10
is and writing it trains you it's not
05:13
just a pen it's a tool and it's
05:15
something that you used to show things
05:18
about yourself when people get a
05:20
handwritten letter done with a fountain
05:22
pen they'd sit up and take note it's not
05:25
just another of the thousands of emails
05:26
they get every week the L a fountain pen
05:28
show has surprised everyone as a lot of
05:31
us shows have by getting bigger rather
05:33
than smaller even though the generation
05:35
that was taught in school to write with
05:37
the fountain pen is sort of starting to
05:39
fade away younger people are discovering
05:41
it and the show has grown in size from
05:43
probably 80 dealers in 1989 we have 170
05:47
tables with over 120 dealers and so we
05:50
find attendance increasing every year
05:52
year over year I think people are
05:54
rediscovering writing instruments as an
05:56
alternative way of communicating from
05:57
their cell phone and email
06:01
Share
The Los Angeles Pen Show, one of the greatest special interest conventions in the business, takes place every year during Presidents Day, a fitting tribute to the fountain pen as instrumental given two signers of the Declaration of Independence went on to become U.S. Presidents -- Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and we're pretty sure their signatures weren't digital.
Common Message
Site Map
Comments