I live in The Hague where the prestigious P.W. Akkerman store is located in the Passage since 1910. Akkerman had a history working together with Parker back in the heyday of fountain pens. On their 100th anniversary they have launched a limited edition of Akkerman Duofolds based on the Parken Duofold Centennial Orange. These pens had a finial depicting the Haagse Passage, three gold plated rings on the cap and an Akkerman blind engraving on the body.
Akkerman is a very special store in the fountain pen community. The store and its staff, especially the store manager, Paul Rutte is close to my heart. By the time I started to feel connected to my new home, The Hague, and the Akkerman store and also I was deep enough in the hobby to even fantasise ever buying such an expensive pen, these were all sold out.
I had been wanting to have this pen since 2017. I had conversations about it with Paul, Sarj Minhas and others who trade with luxurious pens. I had been regularly checking eBay, Marktplaats (~Dutch eBay) and just googling it to see if one surfaces.
Today I went to Akkerman unplanned to pick up a bottle of ink. I had a nice chat with Paul. As a hobby he does some woodworking and sometimes he crafts blotters. It’s every once in a while, not something regularly in stock. As luck would have it, there happened to be a blotter by Paul available. I was very happy to be able to buy one and Paul was very kind to add a pack of nice blotting paper gratis.
I’m not sure what made me to come back to the store, I wanted something trivial. I had to wait so I went around the store, looked thoroughly through all the pens in the glass cabinets. Recently the owner, Artur Akkerman decided to sell some of the pens from his personal collection. Among the limited edition Montblancs on the lowest shelf in the corner, without any label or price tag whatsoever was a set of orange Parker Duofolds. I instantly recognised the three gold plated rings but the pen was tucked in the corner and I couldn’t see the finial. However I was almost 100% sure that it was an Akkerman Duofold. Interestingly neither Sven nor Paul was aware of the set and it was not listed on the website unlike Artur Akkerman’s other private pens.
It turned out that this set is the first in the series, it is not even numbered so it’s even more special. Unfortunately the pen doesn’t have the nice blind engraving but this makes the pen sort of even more special. I immediately jumped on it. Paul told me all the caveats like being unnumbered and having no engraving, but there was nothing which could dissuade me from buying the pen. In my mind I already made the decision to buy this pen at any (sort of reasonable) price back in 2017. I was over the moon with joy to be able to acquire my grail pen.
Here is a first photo on the pen next to Paul’s blotter.
As soon as I have some time, I’m going to take more photos.