My name is Veerle De Houwer. I am a 28 years old fountain pen collector from Belgium.
I do not have a good picture to add to this bio, so I should explain that Veerle is a Flemish female name, to avoid all misunderstandings.
I live in the beautiful old city of Ghent (www.gent.be), together with my boyfriend Tim and our two cats Enola and Mephisto. Neither of these three understands my interest in fountain pens, though the cats tend to think they make wonderful shiny toys.
I have been interested in fountain pens for quite a long time now, bought my first black laquered modern Waterman of unknown type when I was fifteen and have been trying to buy more pens ever since.
Due to very limited budget and modern fountain pens costing quite a lot, I only was able to add very few pens to this Waterman over the years, two German Elys+¬es and one Kipling (big mistake), to be exact.
Then, about two years ago, I found my first vintage fountain pen, a green marbled German Advokat no less, at a flea market in Ghent.
Still nothing much happened, till we got internet and I was able to hunt ebay regularly +á Via the internet I also found dates for virtually every flea market in Belgium and a few in France and Holland as well. Flea markets and ebay have ever since (about a year or so) been the source for my ever expanding fountain pen collection.
I now must have more than 100 fountain pens. I have no rules in my collection, it depends on what I like + can find within my budget. I try to focus on Conway Stewart Le Tigre, French Bayard and Belgian fountain pen brands, though the latter can be very expensive. Well, I have recently established two rules: I rarely keep plain black fountain pens, except when they are BHR and I try not to buy 'noname' pens any more, except again for pens in BHR or RHR.
I would like to put my collection on the internet someday, but have been hindered thus far by lack of a proper scanner or digital camera.
On the occasion of the fifth annual Belgian pen show last year a hitherto unknown world of Belgian fountain pen collectors opened up for me - well, at least I now am a member of the Belgian Fountain Pen Collectors Club.
Finally I would like to make use of this occasion to say hi to Johan Thole and Michael Scharf, fellow European collectors on Pentrace. I would also like to thank again those who have answered my questions on Pentrace sofar + last but not least I send a very big Thank You to Ross McKinney, who has helped me out with all my beginners' questions and a lot more ever since I started collecting FP's seriously.
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