Pen Shows: The Arkansas Show ReviewPosted on: Friday, March 15, 2013

Week 2 of March Madness took us to North Little Rock, AR for the Arkansas Pen Show.  We left Thursday as we usually do, around 5:30 pm or so and arrived at the hotel around 8:15 am, just in time to get things set up.  We met Tim Byler right away who gave us a little secret to a good spot to park and unpack, showed us the new hospitality room, and then we were on our way to unload and set up.  After about two hours we were pretty much set up where we wanted to be.

There were a number of dealers getting set up in the room quite early on, and with the more relaxed pace of the show were able to chat with many of them while we set up.  The members of the Arkansas Pen Club were friendly and helpful in stopping by and checking to see if there was anything we needed, including bringing us some much needed coffee!

About half way through our setup, our good friend Mike Byler arrived.  We stopped what we were doing for a while to give hugs and see how he was doing.  Once we were fully set up it was nice to catch up on the latest news.

Friday was your typical Friday.  Not a lot of traffic but enough to make some money and to also get around and chat with our friends.  Joel Hamilton and Sherrell Tyree were seated across from us so it was nice to talk with them about pen repair.  They had some tempting Pelikan pens and some nice Vacumatics (including a Christian Olsen Danish Maxima) that caught my eye, among other pens.

Mike came back to our table and pulled out a pen I knew he was going to have.  I just had to have this one when I heard about it.  I have a fondness for the 1990’s era Sheaffer Legacy pens, particularly the Legacy I with the touchdown filling system.  I have a Legacy I in Blue with GF cap and a Legacy II in all gold filled.  The Legacy II is a bit more rounded off on the ends, and less like a PFM than the Legacy I is.  Well, Mike presented me with a Green Legacy I with a two tone chrome and gold cap with a factory Stub nib.  Say no more, the pen was mine!

Our friend Rob Bader showed up Friday only to look around.  We didn’t get much of a chance to talk with him and then realized later on, Friday was his only day at the show.  Oh well, we’ll see him at another show sometime soon.  Sam Elardo was also present showing off some of his amazing overlays, bringing some of the most fabulous Aikin Lambert pens to our table and tempting me.

Friday also saw the opening of the Pen Museum, a display of pens in a tall Parker Display case.  There was an example of every color snorkel, including fern and sage green so you could tell the difference, a Black Giant, a Waterman 20, a whole tray of early and very clean Sheaffer flat tops, some nice English Swan full overlays by Tim Byler, and perhaps the most astounding desk set anyone has or ever will see, a ginormous desk set with something like ten or twelve elephants on it.  This thing was HUGE.  I brought a tray of overlays as well, including pens by Aikin Lambert, Diamond Point, and Wirt.

The show closed on Friday at 7:00 pm and immediately after the show closed we proceeded to the hospitality suite where we were sponsoring a party with pizza from one of the local pizza parlors.  We had 20 pizzas ordered, and a good selection including cheese, veggie, sausage, supreme, and pepperoni.  The sausage was particularly noteworthy as it wasn’t your typical blob of sausage, but cut from an actual sausage and was YUMMY.  Unfortunately, our eyes were bigger than our stomachs and we ended up with about ten extra pizzas which we kept for lunch the next day.  The club provided soda and some local tasty brews and a good time was had by all.

Saturday morning comes early and it was nice to have had a few hours of sleep.  A breakfast buffet was included with the room charge so we had some eggs, hash browns, and sausage along with coffee and orange juice to start the day.  While not as good as the breakfast in Baltimore, it was still nice to have something to wake up to.  After breakfast, we got into the room, rearranged a few items on the table and were ready to go.  Some additional pens could have been found on the tables Saturday, as there were some late comers Friday, but for the most part we were fully operational and rocking right away.

In the lessons learned department, I lost out on a pen I just could not commit to, an Edward Todd eyedropper with two gold filled bands, primarily on the fact the nib was incorrect.  The price was ridiculously right, but I just couldn’t pull the trigger.  At some moment in the afternoon, I decided I could use the nib for some straightening practice and despite having picked the pen up several times over the previous day and a half, it had been purchased.  Its spot in the tray was vacant.  Oh well, the lesson is if you want it, buy it when you see it because it may be gone later.

At some point late on Friday I realized Joel Hamilton owed me some money.  This amount, somewhat coincidentally, was about the same price as a pen which he had been tempting me with for the past four or five shows.  I decided this was a good way to get a pen without really paying for it, and the John Holland taper cap eyedropper with overfeed was mine, and a second item from the wish list was secured!

Lunch was leftover pizza from the night before and many a pen dealer could be found in the hospitality room in the afternoon eating some leftover pizza, all while discussing the cold vs. hot pizza debate and showing off recent finds from the show.  I’m not sure how many pizzas were left at the end of the day, but had we lived closer, you can bet we would have taken some of that home!

Several of the members of the Dallas Pen club made their way to the show in the afternoon and there were some great stories to be heard.  While not a case of one-upmanship, a simple question like “where did you get this pen?” led to a tale of a wacky auction with a Parker 51 red band demonstrator, which led to an even wackier story of an auction with 15 (yes, 15) Black Giants and 18 Waterman 20 pens. This was no wives tale, as the person telling the story was actually there to inspect the pens.

Saturday night saw us eating again at the restaurant, and despite having had a pretty good experience there last year, were slightly disappointed with the food this time around. One of the bartenders who had recognized us offered us a free drink to start off dinner, so that was nice.  The salad bar is reported to be one of the largest in the city, and that was ok, but the chicken carbonara was a bit on the soupy side.  The french onion soup to start off the meal was ok, but not great.  The pre-dinner rolls, however, were fantastic, and combined with some honey butter were a real treat. Hungry yet?

We snuck back into the hospitality room after dinner and grabbed a beverage to take back to the room and relaxed a bit before going to sleep. One more day awaited us.

Sunday saw the departure of several of the dealers, so tables were jostled and moved around in an effort to keep the room full.  We expanded some paper on to another table, as did Susan Wirth with her “Suzies Annex”.  As with most shows, Sunday was slower, but you just never know what may or may not sell.  Sometimes stuff you’ve had for a year moves on Sunday, as was the case this time as well.  I managed to find two black Esterbrook pencils in a pencil box, both with Tennessee Coal & Iron Railroad imprints on them, in working order, for the price of parts.  I like some of those imprints and it was apparent some of the railroads used Esterbrook pencils a lot because you see them show up often.

At one point on Sunday someone came up to the table and was talking to me about some of Henry Simpole’s overlay pens.  He showed me one of his pamphlets with some of his designs in it and discovered one of the pens I had brought for the museum was basically a model for one of Henry’s overlays.  I grabbed the pen and sure enough, on Henry’s table was the exact same pattern, in sterling to my gold fill, and in a slightly larger size with a clip.  He had noticed my Aikin Lambert in the museum display, and we compared them.  Wendi Gregory was helping out at his table all weekend, and looked it my pen and commented on some of the fine detail work on the Aikin and made some remark about it to which Henry said, “Well, I did the best I could” in his British accent.  It was hysterical, since Henry makes the finest overlay pens since any NY jeweler at the turn of last century.

Since it was a short day, we closed up shop at 3:00, then managed to get everything packed up and in the car by 4:45.  This included a nice gift of some left over local craft beers.  There’s always room in the car to take some of those home!

All in all a good show, lots of friendly people, raffles and drawings every day, and seminars to boot.  A little more traffic and it would really be even more of a terrific show.  We managed to pull in the driveway around 7:45 am Monday and promptly headed off to take a nap for a few hours.  Bring on week three of March Madness!

Cheers!
Brian & Lisa