National Handwriting Day (U.S.A.)

Today (23 Jan) is National Handwriting Day if you live in the U.S. This is the day to pick up a writing instrument and get writing, rather than clicking away at your keyboard (now... if only I could blog without using one of those!). With a traditional fountain pen in your hand, you can rekindle the sometimes lost art and true creativity of handwriting. So, if you haven't written a poem lately, updated your journal for a while or started that book yet, today is the day to get begin!

So, why January 23rd? Well, apparently, it's because today is the birthday of a certain Mr. John Hancock .... and his is the large, bold signature on the Declaration of Independence. The date was chosen back in 1977 by The Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association (WIMA).

Parker inks & refills - adaptable & inexpensive

It was only a matter of time before we added refill and ink products by Parker to the on-line pens and writing instruments shop. So, now available are Parker ballpen refills in black, blue and red, Parker rollerball refills and Parker Gel pen refills. We have also added Parker / Quink writing ink to the site.

It was of interest for us to note that the Parker ballpoint pen refills and the Parker Gel pen refills are both of an identical size and shape, which apparently fits over 90% of all ball point pens and are therefore interchangeable - you can convert your ballpen to a gel pen - or the other way around!

Moreover, we noted that, being the standard international size means that they can replace many seemingly identical - but much more expensive - pen refills supplied by other manufacturers such as Faber-Castell, Porsche Design and Pelikan. In some cases the Parker refills are less than half the price of the other makes even though Parker claim their ballpoint refills can write for 3500m and their gel pen refills 600m.

Don't forget - London Pen Event - Sun 7 October

Just a quick reminder; The London Writing Equipment Show 2007 is only just over a week away.

Venue: Kensington Town Hall, Hornton Street, London W8 7NX
Time: 11.00am to 5.00pm.

Full details of this exciting pens and writing instruments event are on our previous post.

That's it!

Northern Pen Show

The Northern Pen Show has been arranged for 20 April 2008. The venue will be The Clifton Arms Hotel, Lytham in Lancashire (UK). This year's show apparently saw several hundred visitors attending, with trading going on right until the very close of play.

Keep an eye on the Northern Pen Show website for further updates.

Pen refills - some brands are hard to find

A Google search for Schneider topball refills will, incredibly, show up only something like only 8 suppliers in the whole of the UK. If you know your exact pen model and make your search even more specific (e.g. search for Schneider Topball 850 rollerball Refill), it only shows 2 different UK suppliers! Add in quotes around that search phrase (so as to force the search engine to search for sites containing exactly that phrase) and, at time of writing, only one site pops up in the results. Quite incredible. www.pensfromheaven.com seems to have a very nice pen refills niche!

Bear in mind that Schneider is one of Europe's most popular brands and you really have to ask yourself how come they're so sparsely represented on the web. The answer lies in the fact that, while big in the rest of Europe (and certainly growing nicely in the US), they have only been represented in the UK in very recent years and, it seems, writing instrument retailers are a little slow to catch on. But not so with pensfromheaven.com ...

Let's try another make on Google, this time for a Pelikan pen refill: type in "Level L5 refill" and, again, it's www.pensfromheaven.com who are the ONLY result in the whole of the UK. And a search for (incl. quotes) "Porsche Design Ballpen refill" turns up the same result. Did I mention the phrase, "nice niche"?

So, what other difficult (and easy) to find pen refills do they sell? Just about any Caran d'Ache refills, Faber-Castell and Graf von Faber-Castell refills, Pelikan refills, Porsche Design, Schneider and Tombow writing instrument refills. So, if you're having trouble locating that illusive refill for your favourite writing instrument, you know where to look first.

Hey, by the way, in case any of you from across the pond spotted it, 'refil' is spellt 'refill' here in the UK; it's no mistake ;-)

New "Cognac" addition to the "Guilloche" writing instrument range by Graf von Faber-Castell

Cognac is the new colour in the Guilloche range of writing instruments by Graf von Faber-Castell. Guilloche describes the hand-finished texture on the barrels of these luxury writing implements. Being hand-finished means that every pen is very slightly different to the next. The whole range features a high quality rhodium coating on the cap, grip zones and lids. Also available are the original barrel colours of black, indigo blue and a version where the barrel is also rhodium-plated.

It is interesting to note that the addition of cognac coincides with the discontinuance of the sahara yellow and coral red variants - which we feel is a great shame, particularly as these had been a fun and colourful addition for the brand. Rumour has it, though, that there may be further new colours to come later in the year. We'll keep you posted.

All fountain pens in the luxury Graf von Faber-Castell range feature 18 carat bi-colour gold nibs with iridium tips. The nibs are also partly hand-finished which includes running in by hand.

The Guilloche range is available as a fountain pen in 6 nib widths (£220 incl. VAT), a rollerball pen (£160 incl. VAT), a propelling ball pen (£130 incl. VAT) and a propelling pencil (also £130 incl. VAT). Please note that VAT is only charged to customers in the EU. Outside Europe the prices are VAT-free, so for instance American customers will pay approximately 85.1% of the prices shown above.

The Pens From Heaven blog - welcome!

Pens From Heaven, is the home of fine or luxury pens and designer writing instruments from brands like Faber-Castell, Graf von Faber-Castell, Caran d'Ache, Pelikan, Tombow, Schneider, Sheaffer and Porsche Design. Available to buy online at www.PensFromHeaven.com, using any major credit card, debit card, or PayPal, our writing implements are truly “to die for”!

So, for fine, luxury or designer fountain pens, rollerballs, ball-point pens, mechanical pencils, propelling pencils, writing accessories or desk sets, pen refills and ink, please feel free to drop by the website and take a look! We have something for everyone and for just about any budget. Prices are amongst the most competitive and if you find an identical pen or product cheaper at another genuine pen retailer, please let us know and we'll do our utmost to beat it if we can, and give you a genuine saving.

With outstanding writing instruments, pens and accessories, we strive to always offer an outstanding personal service to match. After all, we want pen lovers to be happy and come back again! All online orders are personally acknowledged and subsequently despatched as soon as possible, most orders being despatched well inside a week, often the same day as the order comes in.

Come and take a look!