Another Saturday Ramble

It had been a few months since I last checked out the downtown antique store and generally rambled around town, and today was a lovely sunny day, and so...why not?  This time around, I was on the prowl for old pen points/nibs or pen holders as well as typewriters.  Did I find any?  Well...yes and no.

First up was the antique "mall" in downtown Olympia: Finders Keepers.  As I keep saying, I really like Finders Keepers.  I don't always buy anything, but I always enjoy looking around.  There are lots of little divided cubicles with a whole variety of different goods.  As soon as I walked in, I spotted this:

Ooh, shiny!

It looks to be in pretty nice shape, but at $125, well out of my range.

The only other typewriter-like object at Finders Keepers was this odd little adding machine.


There were also a few inkwell type things, not in great shape, and this bottle of Red Quink, which I was mildly tempted by, but passed on.

I realized *after* I got home that I'd photographed the Spanish side. Ah well.

I didn't find any dip nibs though. Or any other writing related items, with the exception of this little portable desk, which I'm still thinking about going back for at some point.

Twenty-five dollars. It's fairly roughly made and nothing fancy, but I couldn't help daydreaming about finding an inkwell that would fit that hole, and keeping all my notebooks and supplies inside. We'll see.

After Finders Keepers, I finally made it to the antique store where notagain found his Royal. It's called The Rusty Roostery, and they're open rather odd hours...not until one on Saturdays. There were no Royals in evidence today, but they did have an Olympia SG-1 for $30...

It's verrrrry filthy and fairly rough, and I didn't do much testing of it...but might be worth a look to someone.

I did break down and buy some Quink at Rusty Roostery. They had turquoise Quink. I cannot resist turquoise.

It isn't a full bottle and the label and box are pretty stained with old ink, but it was cheap and I figure I can use it with the dip pens, just for play. I think I'd be scared to put it in my fountain pens. It's a neat old bottle, though!  They also had a single dip pen--a Speedball C nib of some sort (very battered) in a Bradley of Vermont holder (more battered still).  Neither looked usable, so I left them where they were.

I also found something only my family would be likely to get excited about: a copy of the same desk encyclopedia set we used for word games and such for years growing up, tossing the books back and forth during rounds until at this point they've become battered almost out of existence.

I had to buy 'em.

And then I came home to find a sampler of dip nibs from Speculator waiting in my mail box, and have been happily making inky messes for the past hour or so. What a day!