(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!.)
While I may have way overspent and underslept at the 2025 San Francisco Pen Show, it still doesn’t diminish the anticipation of the next show. Like I said in last year’s recap, the Dallas Show is one of those shows that is reliable from year to year, which means that this year’s recap will be similar to last year’s (and the year before, and so on).
Welcome to THE Dallas Pen Show!
Once again, I had the opportunity to work at the Franklin-Christoph table, so my picture-taking and shopping opportunities were done in short breaks.
This is one of the few two day shows on the US pen show circuit (Friday and Saturday); while most shows are Fri-Sun. There are also trading hours on Thursday afternoon, but I didn’t get there in time. In the past, the Friday show hours were 10am-8pm and Saturday hours were 9am - 5pm. This year, they shortened Friday hours by an hour (10am - 7pm) and I’m pretty sure all of the vendors were grateful for that “early” finish (I know we were!). The Sunday hours remained the same. There are murmurs of changes to the 2-day schedule, more on that later.
As in past years, the Dallas Pen Show was held at the DoubleTree Hotel Dallas, Galleria, in two adjoining ballrooms, with the silent auction, Pen World and show registration desk in the area outside of the first/smaller ballroom.
In the first ballroom, Gee from Karas Kustoms was busy most of the weekend (though I took this pic during a brief lull), and worked the table single-handedly!
The Austin Pen Club sponsored the Pen Collectors of America (PCA) Scavenger Hunt program, “Pens For Kids”. The PCA also holds a seminar that teaches kids how to use and take care of fountain pens! The club had friendly volunteers working this table all throughout the show.
There were four seminars again this year - a Journaling Meetup on Friday, and on Saturday, Discovering Fountain Pens, Pens for Kids, and Managing Your Collectibles. It would be great to have more classes (paid or otherwise).
Pen Addict Slacker, Beth Lowell, had a great sign to make sure everyone knew about her Journaling Meetup!
After passing the Austin Pen Club/PCA table, you reach the main ballroom - this is the view of the left side of the ballroom, with Dromgooles in the far back left corner.
Darrell Davis of D2 Arts with his resin blanks and pens.
It was relatively quiet back at the Dromgoole’s Corner shortly after the show started because it takes a while for the crowd to make it all the way back there.
Michael (left) and Larry Dromgoole had additional tables away from the corner for their Pilot and Montblanc wares.
Do you know how difficult it was to get Retro 51 owners, Jeff Velker, Adam Finer, and Joe Corona together at the table?! Very!
What is Joe doing now?
Joe hiked up his pants to show off his Retro socks! Now that’s some company spirit!
Dromgoole’s & Retro 51 always launch an exclusive rollerball at the Dallas Show and this year, the exclusive is Outlaw, which was also designed by Marty Henderson!
Pilot’s 2025 limited edition Vanishing Point, Link Midnight.
This is the “right” side of the main ballroom. It was pretty busy both days.
Francisco Lopez of Hinze Pens lookin’ good with his cowboy hat.
Both Matthew Chen and Kirk Speer were busy tuning and grinding nibs at the show, as they have in past years. This year, Pilot brought their “pen doctor”, Tsuchida-san, to do tunes for Pilot pens!
Matthew Chen (right), along with helper Alex, and Momma Chen (aka Nina).
Kirk Speer (far left) breaks out his cowboy hat just for this show. Also present were Josiah, Elizabeth, and Crystal Speer - it’s a family affair!
Members of the Pilot USA and Japan teams were in full force at the show!
Tsuchida-san (center) is taking a look at my Myu which wasn’t writing as well as it should. The lady on the right is translating for him (and me).
Starting with some writing to see how it’s behaving.
I love this Pilot-fitted squeeze bulb which Tsuchida-san used to clean the pen.
The tuning begins.
Once again, I forgot to take pictures after he took apart my Myu (with my permission, especially since they don’t have replacement parts for this long-discontinued model), and he discovered that the feed was kinda gross. A quick ultrasonic bath and reassembly and the Myu was good to go. Now it’s definitely a keeper!
In addition to having their pens on display for folks to try, and having Tsuchida-san tuning pens, members of the Japan team also conducted a short survey about types of paper. Can’t wait to find out what paper they will be releasing and in what format!
The big news of the weekend was the announcement that Chartpak will no longer be distributing Pelikan in the US. Instead, Pelikans will now be distributed by Coles of London, known for representing Visconti and ST Dupont. Side note - Coles of London was not involved in this year’s Pelikan Hubs (nor Chartpak in prior years), so please continue to direct any Hub-related comments to Pelikan Germany.
Gary Lange will continue to work for Chartpak. For most folks, he was synonymous with Pelikan in the US, but he also represents/distributes many other brands in the ChartPak portfolio. As such, he will still attend pen shows as he continues to show off those products.
Mark Sloan (left) and Mark Cole (he’s the Cole of “Coles of London”) showing off the new Pelikan M601 Art Collection, Rudi Rother.
Pelikan M601 Rudi Rother in the box (and a wee bit of the M200 Apricot Achat on the left).
This picture doesn’t do it justice. I’m not even sure that the video I took does it justice. It is absolutely stunning. No, I did not buy this. Yet.
We (F-C) were in the same spot as last year - in the first room on the left. Unlike last year, where we had a huge rush of people on Friday morning, it felt a bit less crazy, but was mostly steady throughout the day, and then slowed down in the late afternoon. Friday has late hours to accommodate the post-work crowd, but I don’t think that was very noticeable this year - which made the 7pm close even better. It’s brutal working a show when traffic is slow - time just ticks by so slowly. Saturday didn’t seem to have as big of a rush either.
Sarah, a member of Kaligrafos, a calligraphy guild, is writing out my IG handle on a bookmark. This was taken at the end of Friday when folks were covering up their tables.
I had to take a picture of this shirt because it made me giggle. I knight thee, Sir Racha! 😁
Even with the slightly shorter Friday, it is still a very long day for vendors, especially if they spent Friday morning setting up (thankfully, we were able to set up Thursday evening). I think most folks were done with dinner and back at the hotel by 9pm, which is early enough to hang out at the bar area and lobby for a bit before calling it a night. Of course, yours truly lives for the after hours, so you know I was socializing and playing with pens until way too late (why did I stay up til 2am on Thursday?)!
One of the things I had heard at the show was that the organizers are thinking of adding one, possibly two, additional days to the show. Either making Thursday, a full sales day (like Friday or Saturday), or adding Sunday (like most shows), or both. When talking about this with several other vendors, they all said no. Dallas is a good show, people work hard (esp on Friday, which is a longer day), but I don’t think they have enough attendees to make it worthwhile for a third day. As it was, it didn’t feel that crazy busy on Saturday, at least not compared to past years. I really hope they do a vendor survey before they make that decision.
I also heard that they might be adding another ballroom to the show, which would be great because the main ballroom had some crowding and major ventilation issues. It was very warm, stuffy, and occasionally malodorous, and that’s putting it kindly. Having additional space would allow the show to accomodate more vendors and also more space for attendees to move around.
One final bit of feedback for the show organizers - the security guard, whom I believe is an active duty police officer, was extremely rude and aggressive to folks. One vendor, who didn’t have a badge on, was accosted all the way back to his table and was then told “Do you really want to do this? This is Dallas. Bring it.” In the last 20 minutes of Friday, he also approached the teenage kids of a couple because he didn’t see a wristband on them. I know that security is there to prevent non-ticketed folks from entering, but he was, in my mind, out of line.
Even with the long hours and the show only being 2 days, I still had a great time and managed to pick up a few things at the show. I’m glad I got a chance to spend quality time with friends, even if it meant staying up until 2am and being tired the next day.
Clockwise from top: Pelikan M600 Rose Gold, a giveaway pen (see below), Preppy Wa Cats, sample paper pack from Pilot for filling out their paper survey, Vanness “you matter” sticker, TWSBI Eco Carrera, Robert Oster x Vanness Oh My Stars, and RO Skipid. Not pictured is the Myu that I had tuned by Tsuchida-san.
Bonus haul: After each show, on the way out, Karas Kustoms hides a pen and I was lucky enough to find it!
Of course, I always say that the real haul are the friends we get to spend time with, whether it’s a few minutes at a table, or hours at a meal or the bar.
Thank you, Dallas Pen Show, for a great time (and for having lots of water at the show)! I will be heading to the inaugural Empire State Pen Show next week and am really looking forward to a show in one of my favorite cities. Until next time, stay safe and stay inky!
PS - If you make the trek for the Dallas Pen Show, consider spending the following day at the Texas State Fair in Dallas. As they say, it’s “the most Texas place on earth”! Here are a few pics from my day at the fair:
Matthew Chen and his buddy, Alex (not pictured), showed me around the fair.
Matthew did a great job cutting the Vietnamese Crunch Dog (one of the 2025 Savory Finalists) with two forks!
Had to have a Fletcher’s Corny Dog!
Got to see this cute lil calf that was born 15 minutes before we got to the pen! What a cutie!
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