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Southport Flower Show

Neil

Fellow
Joined
May 21, 2013
Posts
3,132
Location
Hitchin, Hertfordshire
First Name
Neil
Mike,

PM me your mobile and I'll see if I can get you in as a freebie, no guarantees, depends on how many tickets left over from the organising staff quota. I'll be in the Rural Crafts Pavillion if I don't manage to meet you before, dont pay for a coffee on arrival, kettle behind the stand!
 

MikeD

Registered
Joined
May 8, 2013
Posts
237
Location
Southport, Merseyside
Thanks for the offer Neil, unfortunately I have already bought the tickets. I'll certainly take you up on the coffee though :love_it:
Let me know if you need a hand, I'll PM my mobile number in case you forget something - it's a long trip back to Hitchin
 

MikeD

Registered
Joined
May 8, 2013
Posts
237
Location
Southport, Merseyside
Met up with Neil at the Southport Flower Show.
We spent more time talking about woodturning and ignoring customers than anything else
 

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Jim

Grand Master
Joined
Oct 19, 2011
Posts
15,617
Thanks for adding Mike, Neil certainly has a very good stock of pens which are displayed very nicely ... :thumbs: :thumbs:
 

Neil

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Joined
May 21, 2013
Posts
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Location
Hitchin, Hertfordshire
First Name
Neil
Knackered and back home from southport. By all accounts the show is going to struggle next year, no body had a good days trading there, even the food hall which is virtually unheard of. The nursery stalls were ordering more vehicles to come and pick up unsold stock, some had to order extra vehicles to come from suffolk! Not a show I will be repeating but managed to buy some cuff link boxes on thuja burr from a trader who has workshops in morooco and is hopefully going to get me some more raw material that I can cut into pen blanks. Also met up with a guy who imports olive wood, he runs out of his workshop in Lytham st Ann's. He imports the stuff three container loads at a time!

Interesting thread a while back, can't remember who was after Bethlehem olive wood but decided to settle on some other European source. Well the law about harvesting olive wood in Italy is that the tree must have ceased to produce a viable crop and the owner must replace the felled tree. Same in Israel I believe. Anyway, you may all have seen stocks of Bethlehem olive wood on eBay for silly postage prices.?? Well, the guy who sells to this guy I met (who incidentally managed to find a couple of feet of the end of a 25mm thick board, 300mm wide that he didn't want) told me after we had talked about olive wood for quite a while that his suppliers biggest customer was located in, wait for it, Israel, and the specified dimensions for the wood were as pen blanks. Now unless thers a village just outside Milan called Bethlehem, I reckon there a big con going on there!

Nice to meet Mie and his wife, Helen the sneaky photographer! There weren't too many viable customers milling around on Friday morning, the mornings were pretty dead, but it did pick up a bit in the afternoons. Saturday was a wash out, drainage at the show site was non existent, and I think I have trench foot!
 

Old Corky

Full Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2013
Posts
54
Location
Pine Island,Texas, USA
Hello Brother Mike, just saw the pictures of your display table. I was shocked and amazed. Just a rough guess would put the number of pens between 300 and 400. AND, a small fortune invested just in the plastic pen holders. Where in the world did you find those beautiful posters above the display table, or did you design them yourself? I would almost come to England just to see it all in person and talk pens. But alas, at 85 I have to give up the dreams. Besides, my fountain pen would leak in my pocket on a plane.:nooidea:
I did wave at England however when our troop ship came down the channel in March 1954. The US Army Engineer Battalion I was in had spent a year in France assigned to the US Air Force building NATO air bases there.
 

edlea

Lobbygobbler
Registered
Joined
Aug 1, 2013
Posts
4,693
Location
Blackpool
First Name
Ed
Now unless thers a village just outside Milan called Bethlehem, I reckon there a big con going on there!


I've pondered this question before, I would imagine over many years not only pen blanks but tons of other touristy type stuff is sold as Bethlehem olive wood and that there would need to be an olive forest the size of Wales around Bethlehem to sustain demand. I would think that most if not all supplies come from various countries around the Mediterranean or Lincolnshire ( I have some Lincolnshire olive) and providing the wood has passed through Bethlehem regardless of where it was grown then it is deemed kosher.
 

wm460

Grand Master
Joined
Mar 16, 2013
Posts
23,095
Location
Tennant Creek, Northern Territory, Australia.
First Name
Mark
Knackered and back home from southport. By all accounts the show is going to struggle next year, no body had a good days trading there, even the food hall which is virtually unheard of. The nursery stalls were ordering more vehicles to come and pick up unsold stock, some had to order extra vehicles to come from suffolk! Not a show I will be repeating but managed to buy some cuff link boxes on thuja burr from a trader who has workshops in morooco and is hopefully going to get me some more raw material that I can cut into pen blanks. Also met up with a guy who imports olive wood, he runs out of his workshop in Lytham st Ann's. He imports the stuff three container loads at a time!

Interesting thread a while back, can't remember who was after Bethlehem olive wood but decided to settle on some other European source. Well the law about harvesting olive wood in Italy is that the tree must have ceased to produce a viable crop and the owner must replace the felled tree. Same in Israel I believe. Anyway, you may all have seen stocks of Bethlehem olive wood on eBay for silly postage prices.?? Well, the guy who sells to this guy I met (who incidentally managed to find a couple of feet of the end of a 25mm thick board, 300mm wide that he didn't want) told me after we had talked about olive wood for quite a while that his suppliers biggest customer was located in, wait for it, Israel, and the specified dimensions for the wood were as pen blanks. Now unless thers a village just outside Milan called Bethlehem, I reckon there a big con going on there!

Nice to meet Mike and his wife, Helen the sneaky photographer! There weren't too many viable customers milling around on Friday morning, the mornings were pretty dead, but it did pick up a bit in the afternoons. Saturday was a wash out, drainage at the show site was non existent, and I think I have trench foot!

Neil has a great stock of pens which are displayed very nicely,better luck next show.

A few years ago a mate of mine down south was ask by some one in Bethlehem about selling olive wood to him.

tree must have ceased to produce a viable crop

How old would these trees be?
The wogs in the city used to come and pick the olives off the trees outside dads block, I would give them a hand and next year they would give me a couple jars of them, When I was older the old fellas would give me a couple bottles of their homemade wine. These I would later swap them for a couple bottles of wine. :winking:
These tree were 150+ years old.
 

Neil

Fellow
Joined
May 21, 2013
Posts
3,132
Location
Hitchin, Hertfordshire
First Name
Neil
Hello Brother Mike, just saw the pictures of your display table. I was shocked and amazed. Just a rough guess would put the number of pens between 300 and 400. AND, a small fortune invested just in the plastic pen holders. Where in the world did you find those beautiful posters above the display table, or did you design them yourself? I would almost come to England just to see it all in person and talk pens. But alas, at 85 I have to give up the dreams. Besides, my fountain pen would leak in my pocket on a plane.:nooidea:
I did wave at England however when our troop ship came down the channel in March 1954. The US Army Engineer Battalion I was in had spent a year in France assigned to the US Air Force building NATO air bases there.

Corky,

Your guess is about right. Regarding the plastic pen displays, rule 1 - never pay retail!! They are expensive but I pay around 5USD for a display, not the exorbitant price that the pen display resellers charge. I designed the racks and had them fabricated and buy them in batches of 10. The posters are designed in principle by me and them tarted up and put in to marketing jargon by a friend who charges mates rates for the trouble.
 

Old Corky

Full Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2013
Posts
54
Location
Pine Island,Texas, USA
Hello again Brother Neil,

Maybe you should consider expanding your line and selling a few vendor items on the side. I wouldn't mind paying about $10 each for 10 of the 10 pen displays and a reasonable price for a copy of the 4 posters plus shipping. Of course I can't read the posters from the pictures, but can see that they are very eye catching and would attract customers to the booth.

Anyway, you really did good.
 

Buckeye

ペンメーカー
Executive Member
Joined
Oct 15, 2013
Posts
9,697
Location
UK
First Name
Peter
Neil, I see you have a lathe with you at that show, do you give a demo or is it to reinforce that your pens are hand-made?

Peter
 
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