John Mottishaw’s Nibs.com To Unite with Emmanuel Caltagirone’s The Pen Family

[Nibs.com]

Nibs.com, the online retailer of high-end fountain pens known for the unique nib tuning and customization services pioneered by company founder and owner John Mottishaw, announced today that it is becoming a part of The Pen Family, the innovative group of pen brands guided by Emmanuel Caltagirone.
 
Nibs.com will continue as an online retailer of brands such as Nakaya, Sailor, Pilot-Namiki, and Platinum, and as a retailer of Pen Family brands such as Armando Simoni Club, Bexley, and Wahl-Eversharp. All pens will continue to be offered with the options for tuning and customization developed by Mr. Mottishaw.   
 
“This is an ideal situation for us,” explains Mr. Mottishaw, who will remain active in nib tuning and customization with the company. “Manu has created something very special with The Pen Family, and he has a vision and aesthetic and love of fountain pens that matches my own.” Mr. Mottishaw will be joined in the Nibs.com workshop by associate Sara R. Rice, herself a longtime pen repair and restoration expert.
 
“John is an artist in the work he does on nibs, and this new relationship between our two companies will allow him to devote more of his time to the nib work, and allow him to step back from day-to-day company management,” said Mr. Caltagirone, who has been involved in pen manufacturing and sales for over thirty years.
 
Nibs.com and The Pen Family will maintain their separate offices, with John and his team still working out of Los Angeles, and The Pen Family retaining its Miami, Florida office. Nibs.com will also be retaining its noted stand-alone web site, which allows customer to choose all nib tuning and customization choices during the check-out process.
 
Founded as “Classic Fountain Pens” by Mr. Mottishaw in 1994, Nibs.com quickly grew from a nib and pen repair and restoration service to a full-featured online retailer specializing in the sale of fountain pens with the solid gold nibs suited to Mr. Mottishaw’s tuning and customization work. Inks, books, and accessories are also offered on the Nibs.com web site, which has become familiar to pen users for its wealth of information on pen maintenance, nib selection, and customization options. 

[Nurmister]

This sounds great, congrats. Ultimately there can be benefit to watch brands and retailers remaining independent, but as seen with the wider luxury goods market, conglomeration (like in the case of LVMH) can help their constituents survive and thrive.

 

The first time I visited nibs.com was almost a decade ago now. I still remember your old website format, since I used to drool over the red Sailor 1911 large! I now have gone through owning three. How times change.

[TitoThePencilPimp]

Hope you cashed out :).

[mehandiratta]

On 4/11/2021 at 10:03 AM, TitoThePencilPimp said:

Hope you cashed out :).

+1

[Seney724]

RIP & thanks for the memories nibs.com

Hopefully Mr. Mottishaw will "go his own way" and remain available to his many devoted customers.

It will be interesting to follow this story along...........

[Ed333]

I do not have a good feeling about this...hope I am wrong.

[Paul-in-SF]

One data point: I had a very pleasant transaction with nibs.com at the SF pen show, about a month ago, where I was able to get the Nakaya pen I wanted on the spot (on Sunday afternoon), one they were using as a nib demonstrator. They swapped nibs for me too. I don't know if the person I dealt with was a holdover from nibs.com or not. I don't know any of those folks. 

 

There is a difference between the specific brands owned (I presume) by the Pen Family, and nibs.com. The others are all brands, makers of pens. Nibs.com is a retailer and service company. Nothing has to change for them at all under the new ownership, and doesn't seem to have done so, so far. Maybe nibs.com will start carrying some of those other Pen Family brands, but I don't have to buy them if I don't want to. I guess I will wait and see. 

[Seney724]

9 hours ago, Paul-in-SF said:

One data point: I had a very pleasant transaction with nibs.com at the SF pen show, about a month ago, where I was able to get the Nakaya pen I wanted on the spot (on Sunday afternoon), one they were using as a nib demonstrator. They swapped nibs for me too. I don't know if the person I dealt with was a holdover from nibs.com or not. I don't know any of those folks. 

 

There is a difference between the specific brands owned (I presume) by the Pen Family, and nibs.com. The others are all brands, makers of pens. Nibs.com is a retailer and service company. Nothing has to change for them at all under the new ownership, and doesn't seem to have done so, so far. Maybe nibs.com will start carrying some of those other Pen Family brands, but I don't have to buy them if I don't want to. I guess I will wait and see. 

Thanks for your report, it is good to hear.

 

My understanding is John Mottishaw is gone.  No longer involved.  If true, I think that qualifies as a significant "change." 

 

What do you know?  Is my understanding incorrect?? 

 

 

[Paul-in-SF]

I don't know anything more than what has been reported here. What I meant by "change" was in the way they do business. Nibs.com doesn't have to design or produce products. They just have to sell them, and perform some services (nib work). A change in ownership of that type of business does not require any changes in the way they do business; of course changes may happen anyway. If he is, in fact, gone, the nib work part of the business may miss Mr. Mottishaw's oversight and supervision, something of which only time will tell. I guess I will wait and see.

[katerchen]

Since we are all reading between the lines here without a lot of concrete info ...

 

John seems like an artisan, whose main enjoyment comes from working on pens in any capacity and not the mind-killing drudgery of operating retail on thin margins. (That's actually why it made me sad when we lost the Nibsmith the exact same way. I don't think he takes on third party repairs any more, only tunes pens he sells). I really hope he made good money on this and will be able to focus on pen work.

 

"Armando Simoni Club" to me is just a huge flashing NOPE! sign. Much like YAFA, just on the high end.

[Mark B.]

On 9/29/2021 at 7:17 PM, Ed333 said:

I do not have a good feeling about this...hope I am wrong.

 

We're now more than three years out from this "merger" of sorts, and it seems you were not wrong.

 

I bought my first-ever gold nib fountain pen from nibs.com more than 10 years ago, and the experience was wonderful.  I had not bought any pens for a long time and went back to nibs.com based on my previous experience, but it turned out to be a mistake.

 

To make a long story short, they are are simply unresponsive to any communication from me.  The pen I ordered turned out to be out of stock (although the web site indicated otherwise, when I placed the order and to this day), and I only found out about that because they happened to answer the phone one time.  I've been trying to reach them for nearly three weeks now, by both phone and email, because I have a trip coming up and didn't want the pen to sit on my porch while I was gone.  I've been calling 5-6 times per day and emailing at least once per day, and have received no response whatsoever; no callbacks, no email.  Thursday last week I began requesting that my order be cancelled, but of course no response to that either.  

 

They charged my credit card the day I placed the order, of course.  If I don't hear from them by end of day tomorrow, I'll file a dispute with my credit card issuer.  Needless to say, this will be the last time I try to purchase anything from nibs.com.

 

[JungleJim]

Apparently Yoshida-san, who runs Nakaya's day-to-day operations, has been made aware of what has been going on. At Nakaya's new revamped website, Nibs.com is no longer listed as an authorized retailer of Nakaya pens.

 

 

link:   https://www.nakaya.org/en/shop/

 

[Mark B.]

1 hour ago, JungleJim said:

Apparently Yoshida-san, who runs Nakaya's day-to-day operations, has been made aware of what has been going on. At Nakaya's new revamped website, Nibs.com is no longer listed as an authorized retailer of Nakaya pens.

 

 

link:   https://www.nakaya.org/en/shop/

 

 

And yet nibs.com still displays 18 pages of Nakaya pens for sale.  And they still do not show the pen I ordered as out of stock.  

 

At this point, I'll be happy if I can get out of this transaction without losing my money.

 

[Seney724]

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Although several predicted this sad outcome, I doubt anybody is happy to have been right.

One can only imagine how heartbroken John Mottishaw must be.....he spent so many years building up the stellar reputation of Classic Fountain Pens / Nibs.com and cultivating his special relationship with Nakaya.

What a shame.

[kazoolaw]

Agreed!

[jchch1950]

18 hours ago, kazoolaw said:

Agreed!

Why is this happening? 

[JungleJim]

On 11/19/2024 at 4:40 AM, jchch1950 said:

Why is this happening? 

Sorry, but I think none of us would be answering publicly on this forum about that at the risk of being perma-banned from FPN.

 

All the Best.

---JJ

[alkman]

Just curious if anyone knows if nibs.com has relocated to Miami? My most recent purchase shipped from a FL address...

[mke]

Have you read the news which says/speculates that the pen family is out of business? 

 

 

[Paul-in-SF]

17 hours ago, alkman said:

Just curious if anyone knows if nibs.com has relocated to Miami? My most recent purchase shipped from a FL address...

 

14 minutes ago, mke said:

Have you read the news which says/speculates that the pen family is out of business? 

 

 

 

The most recent post in that thread, bar the last one, is 5 months ago. The last post is 3 months ago, and does not add any new information about the various companies. The next-to-last post says "The Miami location is closed." but it doesn't say what that location was. It may have been a storefront, and maybe they still have a warehouse or other business address there. I too have no knowledge to add to this thread. The last pen I bought from them (of the 2 that I have) was in person at the 2023 SF Pen Show. 

 

Re: Nakaya pens at Nibs.com, they have updated the status and only show one Nakaya pen in stock, a Naka-ai in tiger stripe with a clip, a pen of the year for 2022, for $2K. All the other pens show the status of "Back Order."