In Which Tom Zoss
Tells of His Trip
to London, England
-----
People and Pens He Met There

In March 2000, facing a somewhat long job search but knowing my travel options would be limited as soon as a college decided I'd make a good fundraiser and communications manager administrator, I decided to schedule a trip to London, England. Our daughter, a theatre major at Indiana University in Bloomington, was spending her third year abroad at Middlesex University, on the north of London. Northwest Airlines helped with a really cheap air fare and my trip was scheduled for March 12 through March 23, 2000.

I'd been to England several times before but it had been years and years. My goal was to see my daughter but not get in the way of her class and rehearsal schedule, so I spread the word on the Pens Listserv and thought I'd meet a couple of list members to fill the time.I also had a collecting goal - to trade a few U.S. pens for UK pens, because I had few pens made in Great Britain.The following report will share some of my thanks and successes, and won't really be a travel show (you know, let me show you my slides...?).

A Trip to Canterbury

My first pen-related experience involved David Wells, who lives in Herne Bay, a part of Kent, which is east and south of London near the coast, Dover, etc. The big city is Canterbury, and I took the train to visit David in his home territory, at his kind invitation.

Several people told me in private e-mails that I should try to meet David on my trip because he is such a fine gentleman, and they sure were correct. David met me at the train station and I was complimented that he had taken the day off work to be my guide and host. We spent the day touring Canterbury and its sights, talking, discussing England, pens, our families (he and his teacher-wife have two children), and pens.

David specializes in collecting English pens, especially Conway-Stewarts. A fairly recent arrival on the collecting scene (1980s), David has acquired some impressive repair skills and has a large collection of mostly-UK pens. He displays some of these in a unique coffee table display case which I've pictured here, along with a photo of David himself.

A friend of my family had given me an old Onoto pen some time ago. It was not working, and had a broken clip, but I brought it along in hopes someone would be able to help me get it working again. David not only knew about Onoto piston fillers, but he had the parts and did a complete restoration including washers, gaskets, etc.

He then showed me how the pen worked, including the need to retract the plunger a little or the ink supply won't feed the point. I never would have known this had he not given me this "insider" information.

I also traded several pens and left Canterbury that evening with a smile on my face, a working Onoto (although I still had a broken clip), several UK Parkers, a Swan, a couple of Conway-Stewarts, and some extremely pleasant memories of my first pen contact of the trip.

Bonham's Auction House

My next pen-related activity involved meeting up with Graham Oliver, another long-time Pens List subscriber. He lives in Grantham, Lincolnshire, where he collects pens and runs an antique railway and museum. He was coming to London to pick up some pens at Bonham's Auction House.

Bonham's has held several important pen auctions in the past several years. I had heard about their beautiful sale catalogs, and we scheduled to meet at their establishment.

Bonham's is well located in Knightsbridge, an area where I wouldn't want to take my family shopping very often, because of the expensive shops. It's the home of Harrod's, a huge and exclusive store which is just a hop and skip from Bonham's.

After Graham did his pen business he located and introduced me to the Associate Director of Bonham's, Alexander Crum Ewing, who is also a well-known author and something of a real expert in vintage pen collecting. He, Graham, and I had a nice talk about vintage pens and pencils and things that were happening with pen prices and auctions. It was very interesting to see two people so interested in the beauty and utility of vintage pens.

We walked out of the auction house still talking about pens, and I with a couple of older Pen auction catalogs, a gift of Alexander.

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On to Harrod's

My London pen guide, Graham Oliver, then took me to the corner and we entered Harrod's. Going to the lower level we entered the stationery department and passed through to the pen department. It is not only huge, but well lit and arranged, and with pens on display I had only heard about. This is a wonderful place to browse, ask questions, and generally see in real life what is only in catalogs for a guy from South Bend, Indiana. They stocked just about everything, in every brand, in every color.

Graham then introduced me to Martin Lesny, manager of the department. He took me on a guided tour of some of the special items they had on dislay including a pen designed for Harrod's. Martin has a great fund of knowledge about vintage fountain pens (I heard such trivia as the connection between Lamy and the Parker 51 design, for instance). He's an expert on Lamy, and I did buy a nice Lamy roller ball for Bernadette, which was quickly engraved for me, with the name "flipped" to be right side up for a left-hander.

I also picked up a couple of catalogs, was given a display piece from Parker, and also bought a few other items (supplies and gifts). I will never forget my visit to Harrod's, and the kindnesses of Graham, Alexander and Martin. (Unfortunately, I have no photo because of security restrictions at Harrod's).

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Portobello Road

Portobello Road is a section in northwest London, but it's also an event, a gathering of sellers and buyers that really boils over on Saturday mornings. This open air flea market has turned into an institution with stores, antique malls, food sellers and other enterprises.

I had made an appointment for Saturday to stop by the booth of Simon Gray of The Battersea Pen Home, who works out of 101 Portobello Road on Saturdays. There my daughter Emily and I met Simon and saw his stock, and also met Donal Higgins, a list subscriber who had come from Ireland on a short trip, partly to meet me. What a courtesy!

Simon has a nice stock of very high quality restored vintage pens to look at. I did acquire one Parker ball point to match a FP I had traded Graham Oliver.

Simon pointed us to a couple of other possible pen people in the area and we soon found the site of Henry Simpole, a dealer and manufacturer. Henry manufactures a line of expensive overlay snake pens. While I enjoyed looking at his products, he did help me out by selling me a replacement clip for the Onoto pen that David Wells had repaired. Thanks, Henry.

Around the corner was another pen dealer, Hans Seiringer, whom I recall having met at the Chicago show some years before. His stock was also very interesting and offered an excellent selection of many brands including some really nice vintage Conway-Stewarts. Unfortunately, my budget wasn't very flexible so I mostly watched.

Emily and I did some general browsing along the Portobello Road, then moved on to the underground station to make our connection for the bus to Bath, where we enjoyed the remainder of the weekend in the sun while visiting Roman ruins, etc.

The Results

Well, how did I do on the trip? It was restful, I lost a couple of pounds thanks to the exercise, and I returned home with a nice selection of pens new to me. I also had a chance to meet several list subscribers and enjoy the benefit of their company.

To see the results of my trading, CLICK HERE for a picture of what I brought back.

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Thanks to you all (and especially to Bernadette, who watched the list while I was gone!).

Sincerely, Tom Zoss

Thomas Zoss
Zoss Communications, Inc.
3431 S. Weeping Willow Way, Bloomington, Indiana 47403 USA
Telephone 812-332-2334, E-mail to Tom Zoss