One of the best things about fountain pen use and collecting is that it is a great reason to travel to far flung corners of the globe in the hunt for new additions, and at the same time meeting fellow pen, ink and stationary enthusiasts.

Member of the Bath U.K. pen club, Tony Binns, recently found himself in Somerville, Boston, Massachusetts, USA on the same date that the tenth annual Commonwealth Pen Show was taking place. Not someone to miss an opportunity, Tony attended the show and very kindly agreed to provide some photos and a write up of his experience. Thank you Tony! Over to you….

“The Oxford Dictionary definition of Serendipity is “the occurrence of events by chance in a beneficial or lucky way”. This is how I ended up visiting the 10 th edition of the Commonwealth Pen Show in Somerville, Massachusetts. I had just booked a three week visit to South Portland, Maine, to visit my partner Jenny’s son, daughter in law and two teenage granddaughters. That evening I watched Hemingway Jones (Tim Steiner) latest YouTube video and he mentioned this Pen Show. It was on over our last weekend and South Portland is only a two hour drive to Somerville. Needless to say that I jumped at the opportunity to go to a USA Pen Show.

Entrance to the show….let the fun begin!

The show was hosted in the Arts and Armour Centre in Somerville. Somerville is a distinct town but basically a suburb of Boston being only about 5 miles out of the city. The Arts and Armour centre is a white stucco building that was purpose built in 1903 to provide accommodation and Drill Hall for the Somerville Light Infantry. The building looks like a Mediaeval English castle with towers and castellated walls. It was restored in 2004 to be used as a multi purpose arts venue. I joined the short queue to pay my entrance fee and was joined by Tim Steiner and his family.

Serendipity again!

Hemmingway Jones - nice to meet you Sir!

We had a great chat about the event and how I ended up there. A delightful gentleman and lovely family.

The show was being held in the main arena of the Arts centre, a large high ceilinged space with a small mezzanine at one end. It was packed with exhibitor tables and visitors. Very crowded and at times difficult to get around because of this. The lighting wasn’t the best and so some exhibitors had brought their own supplementary lights.

The visitors were a good mix of ages. A lot of seniors, like me, but a good number of students and younger. Somerville is adjacent to Cambridge where Harvard University is sited which probably helped.

The Show was very “vintage heavy”. Many tables stacked with boxes of vintage and used newer pens. Almost too much choice! One vendor specialised in Montblanc pens but most had a range of manufacturers to select from.

There was a handful of manufactures. Esterbrook had a stand displaying all of their current range. I was drawn to a tray full of Esties, all inked up and each with a nib from their complete range of nib styles. I found one with the Gina Salorino Journaller nib. It took about 10 seconds for me to impulse purchase the piston fill version in Nouveau Blue!

Omas had a stand and they were displaying some beautiful examples but out of my price range. I found out later that they were exhibiting some pens with stacked nibs, not available on-line and apparently very popular in the Boston area.

Another manufacture, new to me, was Top Drawer pens. Their main offering is the Tino, which is a resin pocket pen. Nice looking but I thought that it was a bit over priced, starting at around 190$.

Having broken my not very solid resolution not to buy anything with the Estie purchase I remembered that I hadn’t packed any ink for the trip, relying on my vacuum fillers. So I then started to look at what inks were on offer. There were several vendors offering mainly the usual suspect inks at list price. I don’t recall seeing any Noodlers on sale but I might have missed that. I think that the Diamine 30ml plastic bottles are good for air travel so I grabbed a bottle of Writers Blood. The ink vendor had some lovely Girologia pen cases and was selling a three pen magnetic case in Oxblood, just the one I had nearly bought online the night before. I didn’t order it as the shipping cost to the UK from Italy was around £50. So not quite an impulse purchase but definitely an unplanned one.

My next step was to see what the exhibitors on the Mezzanine had to offer. On the way there I stopped for another chat with Hemingway Jones about the show. I also passed a couple of craft pen makers displaying custom made pens in both wood and resin. I am a hobbyist pen maker so I always like to see what the professionals are making.

The first stand on the mezzanine show was branded Inkii and appeared to be selling cakes as well as journal covers. I had a lovely chat to the stand owner Natasha and didn’t really look at the “cakes”. I found out later, too late, that these were chamois leather wipes packaged in leather covers made to look like Cannoli and are re-useable pen cleaning wipes!

Among more vendors of vintage pens I found Richard Binder, the famous nib master waving his magic grinder over some nibs. He and his wife had their stand there all weekend.

Well after two delightful hours at the show I left for the long drive back to the family in South Portland. I had met some lovely people. In addition to the Steiner family I bumped into a couple of British ex-pats and some delightful locals.

When I had settled down to have a rest later on Jenny, my partner, saw me writing with the Estie. She asked “new pen?” I replied “no, had it for ages”.”

Thank you again Tony - great to hear about your experiences, no doubt your forgetfulness over the date of acquisition of your Estie will resonate with many of us! :-D

The Commonwealth Pen Show 2025

Global Pens UK

The Commonwealth Pen Show 2025

Birmingham Pen Show 2025

Global Pens UK