Trieste (Italy) - 18 May 2003 - The Seventh Trieste Pen Show.
The Stazione Marittima conference hall is the setting for Italy’s most important pen event, the Alpe Adria Pen Show. The event is organized by Enrico Lena, owner of the Trieste pen store La Stilografica, in collaboration with Trieste Scrittura.

Stazione Marittima
The show was held in the Congress Centre Stazione Marittima which is a beautiful setting on the ancient harbour and near the Piazza Unita. The Piazza Unita has many shops and restaurants that are very popular with residents and tourists.

One of my favorite pen shows in Europe is Trieste, Italy -a very beautiful city in northeastern Italy, on the Adriatic Sea very near the borders of Slovenia and Croatia.

The show this year was on Sunday 18 of May, from 10 am to 6 pm.

The organizer of the show is my friend Mr Enrico Lena, the owner of a very nice writing instruments shop. The show only lastsone day, but many collectors and dealers arrive one or two days beforehand! Why? Because in Trieste you can find hundreds of reasons, not least of which is the food! Fantastic Italian food and also fantastic wine. This is a good reason! True?

This year I can't make it a day or two in advance, so I start very early in the morning - 6 am - by car from my lovely Zagreb (Croatia) where I live. I drive through Ljubljana (Slovenia) and from Ljubljana the short distance to the Italian border. Trieste is on the harbour near the Italian border. Zagreb to Trieste is about 140 miles, but this early in the morning there isn't much traffic and so I arrive at 8 am. Having parked the car near Stazione Marittima , I enjoy the beautiful morning and the smell of the sea for a few peaceful moments before going inside to reserve my exhibit table. Then the most important thing to do is to go to the cafe and drink the best Italian espresso! Without this I can't even start the morning.

Around 8:30 am collectors and dealers start to come and set up their pen tables.
The room is set up with about 40 to 50 dealers and exhibitors showing a wide variety of vintage and modern pens. Many people come to look and buy vintage pens like Pelikan, Omas, Montblanc etc. Some dealers buy, sell or trade very rare pens and some simply come to look over the wonderful collections.

Here you can meet collectors from all parts of Italy or Europe. It is a wonderful mix of people from many places.
From outside of Italy come Gerhard Baur from Munchen (Germany), Mohamed Khediri from Geneva (Switzerland), David Parisi from Hamburg (Germany) and myself from Croatia. Also Mr. Giuseppe Fichera came, he is the author of the Montegrappa book; and many other very interesting people. Every year Mr Lena organizes an event for school children with an award for the best poem, song or painting about writing instruments. This year we try to find a winner for the best painting. This proves to be a very popular event, drawing many children and their parents to the show - it's a really nice aspect of the show, and very original.

Some of the children's pen art

After the children leave the show, the parents and others will start to buy and sell pens.
Something interesting happened here, one lady brought a very large lot of spare parts for pens. She came from Venezia (Venice) and we spent lot of time looking in hundreds and hundreds of small boxes for valuable parts we needed to fix our pens.

I found something for myself also- a nice original Waterman's advertising from the 1950's.

The show was attended by many important Italian pen companies such as Delta, Omas and Montegrappa. Parker and Waterman were also well represented.

At this showe you can learn some calligraphy amongst many other things. All in all around 40 exhibitors were present. Business was brisk, but around lunchtime in Italy all visitors and exhibitors go to the Ristorante and by 1 pm the show room is empty. After a nice lunch with David Parisi return for more serious pen business. Also after lunch dealers and buyers return to find a lot of new visitors.

Fiorella Donati and display from Penna Magazine, the leading pen magazine in Italy and Europe. Penna Magazine is a principal supporter of many pen shows and events.

The last two hours of the show is very busy with many questions from people, looking for information or just happy to learn about fountain pens.

When the show was finished, Enrico Lena gave some very nice gifts to all the exhibitors representing the show's sponsors. Each gift box had some very nice things, sweets, famous Illy cafe and of course a lot of pasta and some really nice and unusual spaghetti at that. This is also another reason why I love the Trieste Pen Show

I leave the Stazione Marittima at 7 pm very tired - with lot of emotions in my head - nice emotions. I see that many of the exhibitors did not go home immediately after the show, but choose instead to stay a day or two longer. As I mentioned earlier the really nice wine and food is the reason. But I can't stay this year, I must go home to the many busy projects waiting for me. I get into my nice car and drive through small and beautiful Slovenia to my big and lovely home town of Zagreb.

I love pens...I love my job...I love my pen friends.

There are many very nice pen shows in Italy, Germany, Denmark etc., and I plan to attend many of them. I will be happy to send more reports and pictures to show our friends in other parts of the world.

Photos from 2002 and 2003 Trieste Pen Show by Miroslav Tischler

You can visit Miroslav Tischler at the Penkala web site