After-Action Report

Saturday was a little less busy than I’d hoped.  Those who missed out, missed cookies.

Made fresh the night before!

However, it was not without some business, and some items to contemplate.  As with the October version of the clinic, I filled in some time between visitors by messing with the in-store stock.  Based on what is admittedly a small cross-section, I can suggest universal truth:  Italian pens may look better than German ones, but they lag in the ‘being useful’ department.  I found one out of seven Faber-Castells of various model that needed any attention to be decent writers, while three out of three Viscontis needed a good deal of yelling at and physical coercion to do what they ought.

It’s that almost invisible silver thing at the bottom of the cap.  Easily overlooked.

The scandal of the day was also one of those Viscontis, which only got the yelling-at portion of the treatment.  A Van Gogh Irises, arrived in the store only the previous day, I was admiring the colours before a close examination of the works… and something struck me as amiss.  Stare. Ponder.  Realization!  “I say… the cap band is missing on this pen.”  I’m going to nip an image off the web so you can see how subtle this flaw is, and how easily it might have gotten out of the factory without someone spotting it.  I was not the only one doing the yelling.

Lamys were also in good form, which is a nice change from last time.  I looked as a Lamy Logo which was there to collect a new cap (something had reduced the original to a mere husk, and I didn’t want to pry) which needed to be made slightly less damp and get a tiny sharp bit seen to.  This counted as the part of the day in which I felt the cleverest, as the whole adjustment took under two minutes and the pen’s owner was, if I may say it, amazed by the amount of difference that short time had made.

I also added a paradox to my collection, as one fellow brought the pens that I was both most pleased to work on and least pleased to have to work on.  The pens were a Dunhill Sidecar and a Montblanc Starwalker, and while the problem (a baby-bottom in both cases which made for hesitation) was both easily dealt with and shouldn’t have been there in the first place, this was not the source of the paradox.  I was very happy to work on those pens, as they were models I had never handled previously.  I was sad in the same measure, because the circumstance of that handling meant I wasn’t going to be able to add them to the site.  I will just mention, therefore, that both are about as nice as you would expect pens of that price to be, discounting tipping problems, although I thought the Dunhill a little heavier than it needed to be.  I really like the shape of the point on the Starwalker, too.

The proprietor of Paper Umbrella tells me that this is routinely a slow time of year, and we both admitted to dropping the promotion ball a little on the whole affair by making not enough noise too late.  We mooted the possibility of another one, so there were no fatal disappointments on either side.  For my part, it was a fine day, with the handling of those two newly-met pens. the confirmation of a prejudice regarding Italian pens, and the collecting of my latest pen.  Oh, yes, there was a new pen! I had mentioned that I had a gift certificate to do something with, and now it’s done… but until I get a page made up for my new treasure on the site, I’ll say no more.

Today’s pen (was in attendance on Saturday): TWSBI Mini
Today’s ink: Diamine Denim

 

Advertisement