I’m back from my time away. Definitely had a great time!
My Dad, Brother, and I took my Dad’s motorhome through the Shenandoah Valley, Blue Ridge Parkway, Lurey Caverns, Monticello, The Flight 93 Memorial, Falling Water, and more…
With my interest in photography, there were so many great photo locations. If you’d like to see my pics, they are here….
Next week is a much needed vacation (my first this year, so I really need it!).
I should have internet access while away, but I will probably try to stay away from emails.
If anyone is wondering what has happened with the weekly video blogs, I have decided to not stick with a weekly schedule. It’s not easy to come up with a new topic weekly, and I don’t want to force content just to have one once a week. I want to make sure that the content is valuable.
So the weekly blogs will appear whenever I have good content…probably more like once or twice a month.
With my vacation….if I’m slow on emails next week, everyone will know why.
This update was intended to be a video blog, but we’re at my parent’s place for the Holiday (I can already smell the turkey!) , and I realized that I forgot to bring my video camera! Oh well. I’ll give the updates without video….
Pear Tree/Edison Collaboration
The Edison Pen Company and Pear Tree Pens has collaborated to come up with a Limited Edition Pen.
What makes this pen unique is that it will be made from very scarce Sheaffer material.
You can see this pen here. Please note that the photos are of a prototype. We then Photoshopped the Sheaffer material into the photo. This is not the actual product, but it will give you an idea as to the shape. If everything stays on track, I’ll have the product shipped late next week, so expect to see actual photos the middle of next week.
Brian G and Brian G Teaming Up!
Brian Goulet of Goulet Pens has become a great friend over the last couple years. I’ve always enjoyed watching his weekly broadcast. Brian has been kind enough to asked me to join him on his Write Time at 9 Broadcast.
This will be Tuesday the 30th, at 9:00 PM, EDT at this link.
Topics to be covered are not finalized, but we will be announcing a Holiday Special Giveaway that both of our companies will participate in, so make sure to tune in to see how you can participate. We are also up of any suggestions for topics. Pen design? Nib tuning? Steel vs. Gold? Tune in, and we’ll talk about anything that you would like.
Two New Designs Right Around the Corner!
A Smaller Pen….
We have had a lot requests for smaller pens. I have a new design than involves a smaller #5 nib. This pen is designed for smaller hands. However, I’m about 5’11" with normal sized hands. Personally, it’s just on the verge of too small for me, but I still like it. The prototype has quickly become my daily writer. It fits perfectly into my wife’s hands. Since this pen uses a smaller #5 nib, the overall section diameter will be smaller than my other pen designs. So for men with large hands, this might be too small. But for men with regular sized hands, or for women, this pen should fit the bill very nicely.
There will be two versions. A short compact version, and a longer standard sized version.
I also have access to some truly phenomenal #5 Calligraphy Nibs in 1.5mm, 1.9mm, and a WHOPPING 2.3mm size. If you are a fan of super-wide italic nibs, these are wonderful.
And here’s the kicker – this pen will be significantly less expensive.
If anyone wants to see early prototype photos of this pen, email me. I am taking pre-orders.
I will be ready to launch this new pen in the next two weeks and also announce the price, so stay tuned!
An Overlay Pen…. I have designed a pretty phenomenal overlay, and employed the help of a good friend to manufacture it, as I don’t have the tools to do this myself.
The result really was phenomenal. The overlays are off being plated, and they should be in my hands when I return from Thanksgiving. Trust me folks, this overlay is truly wonderful.
This pen should be ready to announce and launch mid-December.
Happy Thanksgiving!
When I finish this blog post, I’m going to get into lazy mode here at my parents place! This will involve great food, football, family, and little else!
Every so often I pinch myself when I think that I’m actually making a living from fountain pens!
My family has a lot to be thankful for, and I would like to recognize my customers! Without you, I would still be working a job that I hate! THANKS!
Here’s a recent family photo…after the Toronto Pen Show, we took a couple of days vacation at Niagara Falls…
Any communication or email problems that I have had are now alleviated.
However, there is a possibility that I’ve lost some emails in the last 4-5 days, and perhaps also some archived emails.
If you are expecting an email from me and haven’t received it, or if you feel that my communication has been poor, please reach out. I most likely did not receive an email, or lost it in an archive.
Also…for those of you with orders in, I’m a couple days behind due to all these problems. I’ll be contacting those effected directly, and everyone else in the queue will get an overall update soon.
I’ve had a very serious problem with my shop computer.
I’ll get it into repair on Monday. Hopefully, I’ll return the same day with everything back to normal.
I’m hoping that I can access the hard drive on my shop computer and move it all to a new computer.
If not, everything is backed up via an offsite backup service.
Best case scenario, I’m all set Monday evening.
Worst case scenario, I’ll have to access everything late this coming week, as the offline service can take up to 4 or 5 days to completely restore everything.
Bottom line, if I’m slow on emails and correspondences, you’ll know why. If I have technical problems related to the computer, you’ll know why.
A quick website update, along with some holiday wishes….
I have eliminated the Paypal shopping cart. Paypal has been making so many administrative changes this year that I just don’t have time to alter my website everytime that they make a change.
Not only that, but 95% of my orders are custom. This means that hardly anyone uses the shopping cart, regardless.
So the way that the website will work now is that each pen page will have a slideshow showing variations and choices. Customers can also browse through more than 300 photos on my FlickR website.
From there, customers can email me requests.
I have also recently gained the ability to take credit cards.
On a lighter note, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
My family and I have a lot to give thanks for.
About a year and a half ago, I lost my pharmaceuticals job. At that time, I honestly thought that this pen business would simply be something to keep me off of unemployment until I found another job that I hated. I never really thought that pens could be a living for me, but here I am…Edison is growing every month and we have never been happier!
