One of the joys of attending pen shows is discovering new products. At Wagner’s year-end event, I picked up a type of paper called Null Refill. It wasn’t the first time this paper was sold at a pen show I attended, but for some reason, I had missed it until now.

Null Refill is based on a synthetic paper called Yupo, known for its water resistance. Because of this property, it is commonly used for e.g. posters and shampoo labels. It isn’t considered fountain pen friendly, as it takes forever for liquid ink to dry.

Wagner is a Japanese pen club that I have previously written about. On December 30th, Wagner held a year-end meetup and sale event at their favorite venue in Ryogoku.

As usual, there were plenty of exotic pens available, including Wagner-commissioned limited runs, various vintage pens, and other rare items such as y.y Pen Club’s red Sailor Realo.

A new ink, a turquoise iron gall one called 喜望峰 (Cape of Good Hope), was available for testing and pre-order. This ink has been developed by a Wagner member and ink mixer called Gary, who’s also worked with Platinum on their classic inks.

This autumn was a busy time for stationery fans in Tokyo, with no less than four events between late September and early October.

Starting it off was Pelikan Hubs. The one in Tokyo was held in trendy Meguro, in Atlas Tower near Naka-meguro station. It was my first time joining, so I didn’t know what to expect, but around 20 people showed up, almost half of them foreigners.

Most people had brought far more exotic pens than I did, including vintage Pilots, rare anniversary Sailor KOPs, Bokumondoh-customized Pelikans, and more. My own pen case contained, among other pens, a vintage Sailor with soft nib, a pre-production PenBBS vacuum filler, and a pen with a Franklin-Christoph SIG flex nib. The last one garnered most interest.

My first PenBBS pen was a white 309 piston filler. I liked the nib a lot, a #6 size fine steel nib slightly bent upward, almost like a waverly nib. However, the rest of the pen wasn’t quite to my liking: Too light and with a somewhat cheap overall feeling, especially the piston mechanism. So I ended up selling it after a while.

After watching chrisrap52 repeatedly singing praise of PenBBS, I was keen on giving the brand another try, but I wanted a pen with a bit of heft, as I find it more comfortable to write that way. When PenBBS 350 came out, I quickly ordered the brass version.

Last year, Leo of Inquisitive Quill fame posted on Reddit about a new pen called Bronze Age, from Taiwanese pen maker Fine Writing International. I was taken aback by the beauty of this pen but quickly gave up trying to purchase one for myself, as the only method of payment at the time required a bank account in Taiwan.

A few weeks ago, this pen started showing up on my Instagram feed for unknown reasons, which rekindled my interest. This time I decided to make an effort to purchase the pen, so I searched for a found this Taiwanese pen maker’s website, and although I didn’t understand a word, I managed to find an email address.