California Pen Show 2026

Last week I was able to attend the CA Pen Show for just one day, here is how that went...

I needed to be in Orange County for consulting and managed to line that up with the pen show (yea!) but I knew I would only be able to attend on Friday so I purchased the VIP ticket. The VIP ticket gives you weekend and early access hours to shop as well as some very nice swag. That worked out well for me. I arrived around 8am and got checked in and then stood in the entry line. They let us in promptly at 9am and people knew exactly where they were going first! I stopped by Curnow Bookbinding to check out their journals and chat for a minute ( I am hoping to stock these soon!) then headed over to Plotter to buy a new binder. They sold out of that days allocation of their show exclusive in minutes. Travelers was right behind them and they already had quite a line as well. Plotter was located in the smaller ballroom where the entry is so I crossed the atrium to the large ballroom where most of the vendors are set up.

I like to do a first pass of the tables then do a second to see what I missed. I have learned that you need to grab things on the first pass if you know they are unique or your goal was to find that item. The ballroom was not busy ( it was only 9am) and some vendors were not set up yet. I got the impression some vendors thought the show opened at 10am. I knew I wanted some more Stationery Stack Alfie pen trays for the shop display so I stopped there and picked those up at the beginning. I discovered Stationery Stack at last years CA Pen Show and when I opened the retail space I ordered more but was still short spaces in the display. They sell out very quickly online so I knew I needed to pick up a couple at the show. I was happy to get my choice of colors. From there I was focusing on the vintage pen sellers. I found a nice vintage Pelikan that you don't see often and bought that. I has an appointment with Gena from Custom Nib Studio to get some nib work done. As always, she was got my pens fixed and we had a few laughs. There are several nib smiths at the show and they fill up fast so plan early for that. I was able to chat with a few other pen shop owners as well as pen distributors which was fun. It's always nice to meet someone in person that you deal with mostly via email or phone call.  

It seemed like there were fewer vintage pen sellers this year and far more stationery sellers. You do hear that the pen market is shifting from being heavily vintage to being new pen and stationery focused and this seems to track with that. 

Overall it was a great show, it's large but having those two hours before general entry let me go through it much faster than normal. It's also a growing show so I may plan to stay the whole weekend next year to have more time to talk to people and not have to be so focused on how much time I had. I will be back next year!