Buying pen nibs

So, we needed to buy nibs for the calligraphy course and the art shop nearest to us is A Boville Wright Ltd - so that was our destination.

In we go to this wonderful shop full of coloured sheets of paper, card, paint, ink, crayons, felt tips, pen nibs. The lady who helped us (I think the manageress) was brilliant and when we showed her the list of things we needed she retrieved a wooden box about 18" by 10" with a glass lid from the counter for us. In the box were various nibs with each section labelled and would you believe it one labelled - wait for it ... Brandauer! I couldn't believe my eyes, a compartment in the box labelled Brandauer. How incredible was that? However, I should add that the compartment had Leonardt pens in it, the one that they make that was originally a Brandauer pen.

We had such fun selecting the Leonardt nibs we required for the calligraphy course, one of each width, along with a pen holder (rather more colourful than they would have been in the 19th century), and choosing a small number of colourful paints, mixing dish, eraser, A3 paper and much more that were on a long list from the course administrator.  What a fabulous bag of goodies we came home with from our visit to A. Boville Wright Ltd and so excited about the course the following weekend.

My mind was busy thinking about the copperplate script I was going to start studying and learning more about the Brandauer pens I had decided to take with me to show the calligrapher presenting the course...