Anderson Pens Chicago - A Quick Walkthrough

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

A couple weeks ago after the Chicago show, I did a quick walkthrough of the Anderson Pens store in downtown Chicago. My last visit was when they were setting up the store for the first time in May of 2018. For most of last year and this year, they’ve had to shut down their store when the historic Palmer Hotel, in which they are located, closed for 15 months due to Covid. The hotel has since reopened, though not to full capacity as of this writing, but this allowed the Andersons (Brian and Lisa) to reopen their store as well.

Brian and the rest of the Anderson Pens staff work at their main location in Appleton, WI while Lisa runs this Chicago location. They officially reopened on September 20, 2021, a week before the Palmer Hotel’s 150th Anniversary. As of my visit in early October, masks are required to enter the Palmer Hotel and therefore, also required for the stores inside.

The historic Palmer House, located at 17 E. Monroe Street, Chicago, Illinois where you can find Anderson Pens Chicago.

The Tiffany Peacock doors inside the Palmer House. Anderson Pens did a collaboration with Retro 51 to produce the exclusive Palmer rollerball which was inspired by these doors. I can’t believe I forgot to bring mine for a photo op!

The Anderson Pens shop greets you with its brightly lit and spacious interior.

As you enter, on the right, there is a wall of paper and notebooks from many different brands and countries.

Leuchtturm, Rhodia, and Clairefontaine, anyone? -more paper-Itoya Profolio, Life notebooks and those adorable pen cases!!

On the opposite side of the shop is another wall, this time filled with inks from Sailor, Aurora, Lamy, Iroshizuku, Jacques Herbin, Colorverse and more!

Sailor? Iroshizuku? Kobe? Yeah, they got those.

Jacques Herbin? Colorverse? Esterbrook? Caran d’Ache? That and more!

And if you need to see what those inks look like, they have binders with ink swatches (that you’ve probably seen on their website) as well as an ink testing station for the Iroshizuku inks too.

Ink swatch binders are so helpful when making ink buying decisions.

Paper and inks are great, of course, but let’s not forget the pens! Pens from all the major brands are represented here, from Pilot and Sailor to Esterbrooks, Lamy, Retro51 and more!

Esterbrook Esties, JRs, Camdens (can you spot Patience the pen rest and Honey the book holder?)

Pilot Metropolitans in a rainbow of colors (top) and along with Y-Studio, including the Classic Fountain Pen in five new colors!

Colorful Retro51s and Lamy Studios, Aions and L2Ks galore!

During my brief visit, John Lane from Coles of London was there to show off their beautiful Visconti and S.T. Duponts. I was so busy chatting it up with John and Lisa that I forgot to take pictures of the pens! I hate it when I do that, lol! Brian was busy helping a customer which is why he and some of the other pen displays are not pictured.

You can tell John Lane and Lisa Anderson are smiling underneath their masks because their eyes are smiing!! And if you zoom in, you’ll see a couple of Duponts that will be coming later this fall! (Permission was given to include the pens in this picture.)

So, if you’re in the Chicago area and want to see a smiling face who can help you with your pen and stationery needs, definitely go check out the Anderson Pens store in Chicago. Store hours are Monday-Saturday from 9:30 AM - 5:30 PM and Sunday from 12:00 PM to 4:00pm. Most of the time, you’ll see Lisa but occasionally, you might catch Brian too. They plan on looking for part-time help as the holidays get closer, so if you’re local and would love to share your passion for pens and stationery, you should definitely reach out. And if you go, tell them I said hi!

(Neither this article nor my brief visit was paid for, nor sponsored, in any way by Anderson Pens. I’m just a shopaholic with a stationery affliction and LOVE pen stores!)

The Pen Addict Podcast: Episode 484 - Don't Lie about Being in Antarctica

Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station

Are you stationed here? If so, we have the survey just for you! The TPA Slack Survey is winding down, as is Nock Co., which Myke and I spend the majority of this show discussing. It’s a great conversation on what was a tough decision.

Show Notes & Download Links

This episode of The Pen Addict is sponsored by:

Pen Chalet: Click the ‘podcast’ link at the top of the website and enter the password ‘penaddict’ for this week’s special offer, and to get your code for 10% off.

Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code PENADDICT at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

Esterbrook x Accutron: Introducing the collaboration between Accutron and Esterbrook, the new Estie Accutron.

Faber-Castell Textliner Highlighter Metallic Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)

Anything that can add a little festivity to homework reading is a good investment, in my opinion. Faber-Castell are among my favorite highlighters, so I was very excited to try these metallic shimmering varieties.

Faber-Castell highlighter bodies are a unique shape with broad bodies in a flattened oval silhouette. They are surprisingly comfortable to hold, as the narrow end of the oval rests against your hand and you hold it along its broader edge. The flat shape stops it from rolling off of desks, and even allows it to function as a decent bookmark. The clips are also broad and very bendy plastic. They aren't very strong and don't hold many sheets of paper, but they're fine for clipping to a thin book cover or a few pages of reading. The snap cap posts securely to the narrowed end of the marker.

The highlighter's chisel tip creates a 5 mm highlight when used on the broad side, and a narrower line when you use the tip of the chisel, so it's handy for highlighting large and smaller text.

What really makes these highlighters unique, of course, is the shimmer ink. I've used glitter markers before, but never in highlighter form. I would say these are marginally successful at the glitter effect. The four colors in this set are Shimmering Violet, Magnificent Blue, Precious Green, and Glorious Red, all pastel versions of classic jewel tones. They're all a little different in how they handle the glitter. Green shows no sign of glitter, red shows a hint, blue has so much that it has a mirror effect that's hard to read in bright light, and violet has the perfect balance. Part of that will be in how the shimmer particles are distributed and suspended in the ink. The package does say to make sure they are stored horizontally, which I was careful to do, but there still seems to be some issues with particle distribution, just as there often is with shimmer inks in fountain pens. The difficulty here is that it's harder to take apart and troubleshoot a felt tip marker than it is a fountain pen.

Another issue I had with these is that the ink is more flowy than normal highlighter ink. Regular highlighters generally feel a bit dry, even squeaky, which is a feature not a bug. The last thing you want is highlighter bleed-through, where it looks like the wrong side of the page is highlighted. Unfortunately, these bleed through a bit more than normal highlighters. They even cause a bit of paper buckling from the wetness of the ink. Caveat: these results were mostly on regular copy paper, which is what most of my school readings are printed on. They did not show any bleed-through or buckling on Rhodia paper. So if you're highlighting your own notes in a good notebook, you likely won't have any problems.

Apart from these issues, I do like them, maybe more as markers than as highlighters. The colors themselves are beautiful and not too bright or hard on the eyes. I think they'll be great for use in planners. The set of four costs $7.50; there's a set of 8 for $15; and individual colors are available for $1.75. That's a great deal for how long these highlighters last. I read and highlight many hundreds of pages every week and the Faber-Castell Textliners last longer than every other highlighter I've tried (I have tried all of them, as far as I know).

If you need to add some sparkle to your notes, I do recommend these so long as you have good paper, or don't mind a bit of destruction to your cheap paper.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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