Indelible passion When it comes to stylophiles’ caches, only the write stuff will do By: David Sanderson Posted: 6:00 AM CDT Saturday, Jul. 5, 2025

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/07/2025 (408 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In 2010 a fountain pen manufactured by Italian company Tibaldi set a record amount paid for a writing instrument, fetching an astounding $8 million at an auction in Shanghai.

Renz Adame laughingly admits the so-named Fulgor Nocturnus pen, which is adorned with 945 diamonds and features a solid-gold nib, is a tad out of his price range.

Nevertheless, the professional musician and dedicated stylophile — the term assigned to one who collects fountain pens, a style that relies on an internal reservoir or cartridge to hold ink — still plans to reward himself with something special when he toasts a milestone event later this month.

Adame turns 30 on July 25. Lately he has been tossing around the idea of marking the occasion with a Pilot Custom Urushi, a Japanese-made fountain pen that is vermillion-red in colour and, according to online reviews, is “beautifully resilient” and “an absolute joy to write with.”

While a new model goes for close to US$2,000, the West End resident is hoping to scoop one up for significantly less than that via second-hand sources.

“People might wonder who would ever spend a couple grand on a pen but I compare it to fine wine,” says Adame, an English horn player/oboist who performs with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra on a freelance basis, and who has also guested with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra.

“As your taste develops, you start liking better and better wine. It’s the same thing with pens.”

Adame, the eldest of four siblings, was born in the Philippines. He was 11 when his family immigrated to Winnipeg. He recalls his initial impression of his new home, as if it was yesterday.

It was mid-April when he stepped out of the airport. Given the glowing sun and bright-blue sky, he expected to be greeted by a warm breeze, except he was immediately halted in his tracks.

“It was absolutely freezing out. The second the cold hit me, I was like, ‘nope, I’m getting back on the plane.’”

He toughed it out, and as he got older he developed a fascination with stationery, journaling and calligraphy thanks to his mom, an expert at cursive writing who never failed to create elaborate signs for family celebrations.

Adame was studying music at the University of Ottawa in 2017 when he happened upon a store called Paper Papier in that city’s ByWard Market.

He poked his head inside and thought “my goodness” when he spotted a $50 price tag attached to a Faber-Castell Loom fountain pen that caught his eye. He left the shop empty-handed. After mulling it over for a few hours, he retraced his steps and splurged on the aluminum model.

“Because I didn’t know very much at the time, what I failed to realize was that the pen, which has a smaller nib, was more for map-making than calligraphy, so it wasn’t overly practical,” he says, adding he would bring it along to class from time to time, but for the most part it was kept in a drawer in his apartment.

Adame moved to Vancouver in the fall of 2019 to pursue a doctorate in music at the University of British Columbia. His pen predilection might never have moved past that first specimen, he feels, if COVID-19 hadn’t come along in the spring of 2020, throwing the world into lockdown mode.

Practically overnight, he went from rehearsing and performing “24-7” to being stuck at home, unable to do much of anything.

One afternoon, he was scrolling through YouTube, only to come across video after video of individuals showing off their penmanship by writing with fountain pens. There was a chat function and after posing a few queries about what he was witnessing, “the rabbit hole opened up,” he says with a wink.

Unable to shop in person, he began perusing online stores. Within a month, he was up to 15 pens, a number that continued to increase as soon as pandemic-related restrictions were relaxed.

“I lived on West Hastings (Street), a couple of blocks from the Vancouver Pen Shop. Probably once a day when I would start to lose my mind from boredom, I’d walk over to the shop and hang out for a few hours — so much so that they eventually offered me a job on weekends, since I already knew where everything was,” he says, listing ultra-fine craftsmanship along with the wide range of what’s available as reasons he was drawn to the hobby.

Since moving back to Winnipeg, Adame has maintained an Instagram account dubbed Pen.Traveller. There he regularly shows off models from what is currently a 300-strong collection, along with examples of his highly skilful handwriting.

And while a lot of his fellow collectors specialize by focusing their attention on a specific category of pen — choosing between modern or vintage, or concentrating on a certain make or shade — his cache is “all over the map.”

“I have a bunch that are probably 100 years old at least, but I also love the look and feel of new pens,” he says, citing 26 Market on Princess Street, Seduta Art on Arthur Street and the Pen Counter, inside U.N. Luggage on McDermot Avenue, as local suppliers he frequents on a regular basis.

“I get the question all the time — ‘what’s your favourite pen?’ — and I tell them they can’t ask me that. It’s like asking me what my favourite food is. It changes depending on the day.”

Pen clubs and conventions

Maja Furlong is the president of the Vancouver Pen Club, a 19-year-old organization Adame joined when he was living in B.C. Furlong grew up in Thompson. She remembers picking up a $15 Sheaffer fountain pen from Woolworth’s in 1976 to assist her with a Grade 6 essay.

“My thinking was if I used a good pen I would get a good mark, and even though I still have it, I never used that pen again,” says Furlong, seated on an outdoor patio at the Vancouver Public Library’s Kitsilano branch, where the club is holding its monthly meeting.

(Forget Stanley Park or the Capilano Suspension Bridge; during a recent trip to the West Coast, we made a point of attending the Vancouver Pen Club’s June get-together.)

Furlong bought her second fountain pen in 1992, during a trip to Vienna. No. 3 — the one that got her “hooked” — came along nine years later, by which time she was living in B.C.

“I was working at a pharmacy and one of my co-workers would use a fountain pen to write in the pharmacy’s communications book, which everyone was required to read. I asked him about it and he mentioned an online store, which in turn led me to all these other stores in Vancouver that sold fountain pens.”

“We usually average between 20 and 25 at the meetings, which are a great opportunity to be in a room for two hours with people who all speak the same language — fountain pens.”–Maja Furlong

There were only five people, Furlong among them, when the Vancouver Pen Club held its inaugural meeting in December 2006. At last count, there were 353 members, she says, ranging in age from 10 to 80.

“There’s a small handful like Renz who have moved away, but the majority live in the metro Vancouver area,” explains Furlong, who now lives in Tsawwassen, B.C.

“We usually average between 20 and 25 at the meetings, which are a great opportunity to be in a room for two hours with people who all speak the same language — fountain pens.”

Furlong has attended pen conventions in Los Angeles and Portland, Ore. She currently owns a shade over 1,000 fountain pens, which she stores in zippered pen cases, glass shelving units, even coffee mugs — anything to have one close at hand, she says.

“The problem is my husband and I don’t have any kids, and we’re not getting any younger,” she continues, noting she especially loves chancing upon pens — “the thrill of the hunt,” she terms it — that carry a personal inscription such as a name or date on the casing.

“We do have twin nieces, but they’ve both told me they have zero interest in fountain pens. So like a lot of people who collect pens or whatever, you start to wonder, hmm, what’s going to happen to all this down the line?”

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Back in Winnipeg, Adame allows that he may not be the easiest person to go for a bite with. Reach into your pocket for a pen to jot something down and right away he’s curious, be it a fountain pen in your hand or not.

“I honestly always glance at what people write with. I’ve run into a few people in coffee shops who write with fountain pens, which is always super fun,” he says.

Additionally, he’ll study still frames from movies and TV shows that other pen aficionados have posted online in an effort to determine the precise sort of pen a character is employing.

“Even when I’m at the grocery store, I always have a fountain pen in my pocket. I’ll be walking through an aisle and go ‘oh yeah, don’t forget to buy lettuce,’ and I’ll pull it out to make a note to myself.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca