• Vendor Name: Richard and Barbara Binder
• Business Name: Richard Binder • Fountaina Pens
• State/Country: NH, USA
• Email and Website. richard@richardspens.com richardspens.com
• Brands/Description of your products/Services: Nib tuning, repair, and customization.
• How long have you been active in the fine writing industry and accessories? About 25 years.
• About your business/What was your inspiration, and how did it get started? My son-in-law, who changes hobbies every few years, dragged me into fountain pens. I found that I liked pens and soon learned that I could repair and restore them. Nib work was a natural outgrowth of that. Soon people came to me unbidden.
• What do you think sets your products/services apart from other vendors/exhibitors? I do not have competitors; I have colleagues. I pioneered the techniques many of my colleagues use, and I have shared those techniques by training people who want to be able to do what I do.
• What’s an interesting fact about your business that most people don’t know? When I set up my business, online dealers didn’t tune pens except on request, and many pens then being sold didn’t work out of the box. Buyers were unhappy. I created a new business model, one that has been good for the entire pen community, by tuning the nib on every pen that I sold, in addition to offering customizing. Today, dealers I’ve trained also do this, as do some others.
• What’s a project you’re working on right now? Why is it meaningful to you? Extending my writing about personalized pens and about historic pens.
• Why you are excited to be at the Baltimore/Washington International Pen Show 2024 (BWIPS)? I get to see many of the friends I’ve made in the last quarter century.
• What unique and distinctive products/services are you offering specifically to the BWIPS attendees that they might not find elsewhere? I offer what others have said are the best nib services available. I invented the nib shape now customarily called the architect’s nib.
• What do you think sets the BWIPS apart from other pen shows? Its size: neither too large nor too small. Its camaraderie. Excellent management by the organizer.
• What advice would you offer to first-time attendees of the 2024 BWIPS? Plan in advance what you are coming to the show for. You will see/buy/do other things, too, but don’t leave disappointed because you missed out on something that you really wanted to see, buy, or do.
• Do you have any hobbies? Besides pens and writing about them? Yes. I’m an amateur historian focusing on World War II.
• Favorite place you’ve traveled? Galway, Irelend.
• Fun fact that people probably don’t know about you! In ROTC, I was a member of a precision drill team.
• Where are you from? Origianlly? Southwestern Montana.
• What’s your go-to comfort food? My homemade New England clam chowder.
• Describe what a perfect day outside of work would look like for you. Can’t. Different things on different days.
• What would be the theme song of your life right now? Alte Kameraden.
• Who is someone that made a big impact on your life? Why? Barbara, because she married me 57 years ago.
• What excites you the most right now? Discovering and publishing information that is virtually unknown today.
• What is the best restaurant you’ve ever visited in Baltimore, Maryland? Ah, that would be telling. I will say that the one I most enjoy is a small one that the locals frequent.
• What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever done? Taught myself to grind nibs.
• Are you a morning person or a night owl? The latter.
You can view a vast selection of Richard Binder writing instruments and experience his services in person at the Baltimore/Washington International Pen Show 2024.
Buying your admission tickets in advance for the Baltimore/Washington International Pen Show 2024 will save valuable time—no more standing in long lines or wasting precious moments of your day.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
