March was a very busy month for me. First, I exhibited at the Expo East show in Atlantic City, where I got to see many old friends, make some new ones, and share with all of the above some new ideas, products and concepts.
Not satisfied with that, I left Atlantic City on Sunday afternoon, as the Trophy Wife drove me directly to Newark Airport. There, I caught a flight to Milan, where I sat around the airport for six hours enjoying overpriced coffee and free WiFi (both were worth what I paid) while awaiting my next flight to Hannover, Germany.
My company was exhibiting at (what we thought was) the German equivalent of the Las Vegas PPAI Expo. That might be over-selling it a bit. To me, it was closer in size to the old SAAGNY show at the Concord Hotel, but without the character. Or the mold. Or the quality attendees.
As it turns out, this show was a combination of promotional products, premium items, electronics, consumer goods, barnyard equipment (wait… what?)… a total mash-up of what we thought was going to be primarily us selling to European distributors. It turns out that that while, yes, there would be distributors in attendance, there would be end-buyers (don’t get your undies in a bundle… we quoted list pricing!) there as well.
It didn’t help that neither my associate (from Finland) nor I spoke any German. Then again, I don’t think it really mattered, as most people we encountered the first day (yes, all 10 of them) spoke English well enough. I found it charming that, for the most part, all apologized to me for not speaking better English. I laughed and said that their poor English was much better than my non-existent German. Somehow, we managed to have a couple of decent conversations, but we both left the hall after that first day a bit disappointed.
Determined to have a better second day, we were on the lookout for anyone who so much as had a logoed shirt on. That’s when I encountered Finn Sorensen.
Finn was walking near our display when I corralled him, primarily because he was wearing a logoed shirt with a pen on it. I assumed he was a promotional products distributor. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
If you follow my Facebook posts and rants, you might safely assume that I’ve got something of an ego. You would be right, but at least I don’t walk around with a three-ring binder about myself (isn’t that what a tablet is for, anyway?).
Again… assuming he was a distributor whose primary focus was writing instruments, I asked him about his pen business. That’s when he opened the aforementioned binder to show me the many (many) articles written about him and his hobby. He proceeded to tell me how his life changed when he was eight years old and he received his first promotional pen, from the newspaper for whom he was delivering (we can discuss child labor laws another time). Someone at the paper gave him a Stiftstidende (oh grow up) pen, and he had a lightbulb moment. He loved this pen and wanted more.
At eight, my idea of a lightbulb moment was convincing my mother than I no longer wanted a crew cut. Like Finn’s decision, I’m quite happy with mine. I stopped getting crew cuts, and Finn kept collecting pens. As of March 2015, he has amassed a collection of over 400,000 pieces. I wonder how many of those are just misprints from Island Pen (oh… did I really go there?).
He and I went through his binder and looked at the many articles about his collection, which was fun considering that I don’t speak or read a word of Dutch. It wasn’t hard to get the gist: the guy’s got a serious collection.
The photos he showed me of his home were incredible. Wall to wall writing instruments. I could make some sort of a remark about how this must be what BIC headquarters looks like, but I highly doubt that they have walls and rooms dedicated just to the displays of 400,000 units.
I can’t swear to it, but I will bet you that, if asked, every pen had a story behind it. Visiting his website was equally eye-opening, as not only did he have photos of (all of?) his pens, but detailed descriptions of what made them special or unique, or how he attained them. Is this a healthy obsession? Who am I to say? I still have all of my baseball cards from when I was a child.
I took Finn’s card, and scribbled some notes on the back, knowing that I had my next column handed to me. I shook his hand, and he walked away.
No, I couldn’t find my pen.
Make that four hundred thousand… and one.