Found a Brick and Mortar that carries some fountain pens!

[miatapaul]

I found a local art supply store that carries some fountain pens. I may have made a bit of a mistake, I picked up a Shaffer VFM and I like the way it writes, but I did not realize it was an international cartridge only. They carry some Pelikan pens and inks only had Pelikano JR and a fp and ballpoing set that I was not too impressed with. I got some Pelican 4001 in brilliant brown, as I needed some ink for my Pilot 78g that just arrived. I like the color a lot and love that pen. They carry some Parkers and I really liked the Parker Sonnet that they had on display very nice looking pen. They also had a few Shaffer pens including several colors of the VFM and I got Blue. They don't know much about the pens and he sold me a converter for the VFM that obviously won't fit, well it fits but the pen barrel will not fit on the converter. He also sold me some Shaffer cartridges that won't fit either they are too thick and long. I may go syringe route for now, but may do the Nemo hack. I also picked up a Clarfountain notebook in french rule and a lined Rodia pad. I think they thought I was crazy looking at the notebooks for about 20 min!

Oh the store was Catskill Art and Office Supply in Poughkeepsie NY.

 

[Hidesuru]

There is a B&M in Tucson (about an hour and a half drive) that sells only pens. Next time I make the trip I plan to drop in there, but not sure when that will be...

 

[Slivovitz]

Staples office supplies stores have fountain pens. Our local one has some Cross and Parker models from time to time, Sheaffer viewpoints, Parker and Waterman cartridges, and I've even seen a lonely, dusty bottle of Parker black Quink at the bottom of a shelf. You can also order anything in their catalog to pick up in the store. That said, I haven't bought any fountain pen stuff from them.

 

[Groat]

Staples office supplies stores have fountain pens.

I bought my first fountain pen from Staples. While it was good in that it got me to start using FPs, I now know that I paid way too much. For the same price, I could have gotten a Lamy Safari (which would have been a much nicer pen), a converter and a bottle of ink.

 

[orchestrion]

The most I've ever seen in a non-dedicated store has been Pilot Varsities and overpriced Parkers. Shame!

 

[ChefJohnBoy-ardee]

There is a variety shop nearby that has a lot of stationary, journals, gag gifts etc within an hour's drive of me (everything is an hour's drive of me so it makes no difference). They have some vintage pens but they don't sell non-working pens and they have an amateur doing the repairs. I know you have to start somewhere but they price things really high compared to what you can get one for on ebay or FPN's classifieds. They at least have Noodler's inks and I noticed some Pilot VPs in a case and some LAMYs. I need to go peruse their vintage stuff again. They have an etsy shop but that is overpriced hardcore... Zanbroz Variety is the name of the place in Sioux Falls. They have other stores in SD aswell.

 

[rearviewmirror]

There is a B&M in Tucson (about an hour and a half drive) that sells only pens. Next time I make the trip I plan to drop in there, but not sure when that will be...

TGN's store is in Scottsdale.
http://www.penworks.us/

 

[miatapaul]

They had like 6 or 7 different pens, not a lot, and had like 4 colors of ink, strange ones too, they had red, green, turquoise, and brown, no blue or black. Ok because I wanted brown, and I found some skrip in blue-black at another art store. I don't know where the nearest pen only or even good selection of pens. I got my first fountain pen at Office Depot, they had a lone Cross Aventura on clearance. They also had a few pens by Monteverde. The thing I liked was I could hold them at Office depot I had to chaise some one down to buy it.

 

[Hidesuru]

TGN's store is in Scottsdale.
http://www.penworks.us/

Pardon my ignorance, but is TGN one of our own? Still don't know everyone here...
I'm pleasantly surprised to find out that there are not one but two fountain pen stores in Scottsdale. http://www.scottsdalepen.com/ being the other one.

 

[oc_in_fw]

I see you got Pelikan ink, that is good (I have Brilliant Black). But one word of advice, as art stores tend to also carry this- do NOT use any India Ink in fountaing pens. NEVER. Not meaning to shout, I just want it to be clear that India Ink will ruin a fountain pen.

 

[Hidesuru]

I see you got Pelikan ink, that is good (I have Brilliant Black). But one word of advice, as art stores tend to also carry this- do NOT use any India Ink in fountaing pens. NEVER. Not meaning to shout, I just want it to be clear that India Ink will ruin a fountain pen.

I hear this all the time here, and thats a good thing. But what exactly IS India ink for anyway that it gets sold all over the place?

 

[Groat]

I hear this all the time here, and thats a good thing. But what exactly IS India ink for anyway that it gets sold all over the place?

India Ink contains shellac. From my understanding, it is used for art. Because of the shellac, you can use it in a dip pen but it is essentially permanent when dry and will clog a fountain pen's feed.

 

[Telecaster52]

If you got one of the skinny slide type piston convertors, there is a bottleneck/bulkhead in the body of the vfm that can be bored out (carefully) to accept the shaft of the converter. If you have the twist type convertor, it unfortunately won't, but the convertor from a benton clay grid is the correct slide piston for the modification, and i think he just dropped the price

 

[Hidesuru]

India Ink contains shellac. From my understanding, it is used for art. Because of the shellac, you can use it in a dip pen but it is essentially permanent when dry and will clog a fountain pen's feed.

Good info, thanks.