Yesterday was the day for getting here and doing the parts-swap thing. Today, Friday, was a show day! But first, before you can run your table at the show, you have to set it up. When setup started, at 8 a.m. this morning, there weren’t a whole lot of people around. This is what the ballroom looked like from the entrance.
At the far left, in the red shirt, is Lee Chait, beginning to get his stuff out of its tubs. At the left end of the far wall you can see Susan Wirth’s banners. Susan always puts up her banners and gets her tables set up (but not populated with pens) in the middle of the night before we mortals emerge onto the scene. The white shirt near the far wall just to the right of the double door near Susan’s banners is John Martinson, who frequently works with Susan. Sitting at his front-row table in the center of the picture, with his pens already set out in their cases, is Hirsch Davis. The little flash of turquoise just to the right of center is Tom Mullane, of My Favorite Pen. Standing at the far right is Jerry Yap, president and owner of Laban Pens. The middle of the three doors on the right back wall, just halfway between Tom and Jerry, is where RichardsPens.com will set up after their chief drudge and beast of burden (that’s me) goes up to the room and carts our eight tubs of stuff down to the ballroom. Fortunately, this hotel has very good luggage trolleys, so although I can’t find a bellman I’ll be able to manage hupping all that stuff down with assistance.
This is Barbara, organizing her end of the table while my end (closer to the camera) is in rather major disarray. On the back table to the right you can see an open blue tub. That’s one of our five small tubs (22"×16"×9"), and it carries most of my tools.
Here’s a shot showing things a little livelier, as a good number of the exhibitors have their stuff out and are already wheeling and dealing. Weekenders were allowed in the room for early buying while setup went on, but at the time I took this photo we still weren’t fully set up, and my nib work list still had nobody on it. We had, however, already sold one of the New Postal Pens that we’re introducing at this show. It went to Joe Nemecek, who is a truly nice guy and arguably the world’s premier collector of mechanical pencils. The flash of turquoise in in the far left corner of the room, under Susan Wirth’s banners, is Susan herself, busily setting her pens out. Seated behind the array of pen cases nearest the camera is Paul Erano. To his right, in the black shirt and khaki photographer’s vest, is David Isaacson, the VacQuack. Tom Mullane’s back is right in the center of the picture. The pale blue back immediately above Tom is that of Bill Weakley, and the woman immediately to the right of Bill is Nadya Weakley, his better half. A little farther to the right, in front of the middle door on the back wall, is Michael “Mike It Work” Masuyama.
The final piece of setup for RichardsPens.com was the tray in the center of the photo below.
The show swung into a higher gear about then, so that’s all the time I had to play camera bug. I did, however, take full advantage of the pens people brought by. Today I bought a lovely John Holland gold overlay hatchet filler, a beautiful hand-engraved sterling silver magic pencil (the deal for which Joe Nemecek kindly negotiated on my behalf), and possibly the rarest Parker “51” I’ve ever seen. This would seem to be a very ordinary Lustraloy-capped Vacumatic-filling “51” until, on looking at it very carefully, you realized that it’s none of the known official colors. it’s Burgundy. (Say what??) Yeah, it’s a U.S.-made Vacumatic-filling “51” In Burgundy. See the color chart in my “51” profile for a possible explanation of this pen’s existence.
I’ll be back tomorrow evening with some action shots from the show floor and the auction, so stay tuned.