As I have gotten deeper into my stationery hobby over the past year, I’ve stumbled across so many new (to me) retailers. Who would have known that some of the best pen, ink and paper stores were based in Houston, Arkansas, or Virginia? (Surprisingly, California doesn’t really make the list… I do occasionally hear about Bittner in Carmel and of course, there is Baum Kuchen in SoCal.) And a recent find is Appelboom in the Netherlands. What a great site, with a huge variety. I recently received an order of some cool stationery from Appelboom that I wanted to share with you.
Appelboom has a huge selection and seems to get some things before other retailers in the US. It does seem like they have to place special orders for some orders, which can delay the shipping. (For example, my new Opus 88 with a 1.5 stub nib- love!) But once it leaves the Netherlands via DHL, it is (usually) only a few days before it arrives.
This particular order was a little different- apparently US Customs in LA was quite suspicious of my fountain pen inks. The issue was unclear- was it an import duty issue? Questions about what fountain pen ink is? I won’t bore you with the details- but after a week of back and forth with DHL, US Customs and me, the shipment was released. And I had the order in hand 2 days later. Of course, this didn’t stop me from dreaming up a great movie plot involving the smuggling of some illicit substance through fountain pen ink!
And there was a small snafu- I did not order 90ml of Verde Prato, which is quite a vivid ink. It will take me most of my lifetime to get through 90ml of this color! Luckily, Appelboom was kind enough to refund me for the erroneous item. And now I have a lot of grass green ink to use when writing letters!
I also like the little gifts included in the order, including the stroopwafels and a nice notebook for testing out my new pen and inks.
There can be some benefits from ordering from overseas. Sometimes the exchange rate can work in your favor. And if you can find a coupon code on top of that, there can be a significant price difference. Plus in the case of Appelboom, the selection is unique- for example, I haven’t found my new Paper Royale stationery in the US. It’s fun to use something different and hard-to-find. The thrill of the hunt, right??
