(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)
I was recently on vacation in Colorado at my in-laws up in the mountains (you really should visit Summit County if you get the chance) and whenever I’m in Colorado, I try to finagle a pen meetup while I’m there. Huge thanks to the Colorado Pen Posse for organizing a great meetup! It was so much fun that I barely had time to check out the Meininger Art Material store in Denver on my way to the airport! I’m not positive if the shop is “Meininger Art Material” or “Meininger Art Supply” as their website makes reference to both, so I’m just going to call it “Meininger”.
Meininger has been a family-owned business since 1881 (wow!) and have two locations in Colorado: Denver and Colorado Springs. I visited the Denver location at 499 Broadway; their store hours are Monday-Saturday from 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM and closed on Sunday. I believe they recently moved their other location to 814 S Tejon Street in Colorado Springs and may be opening up soon if they haven’t already - please call or check their website for more information if you plan to visit their other location.
First and foremost, Meininger is an art supply store. And a huge one at that! As soon as I walked in, I could see that this would be a fun place to spend lots of time (and money). There are two floors of art supply goodness here - which I didn’t have time to explore - from paper, to canvas, to paints, brushes and more, they have pretty much anything you need to unleash your inner artist.
Two floors of art supplies!
I love seeing art supplies geared towards kids so they can have stuff to check out while you’re shopping too!
There were lots of pens/pencils/markers in another section but these are the special, fancy ones like Copic and Tombow ABT Pro.
I didn’t have much time to explore, but let’s be real, I came here for the fountain pens and inks and things! So as soon as I snapped up some pictures, I headed straight for the stationery section.
Go around the cash registers to the right side of the store and voila, the stationery section!
Meininger has really started developing their stationery section in the last few years with the help and input from the Colorado Pen Posse. They are open to adding new brands or products and it’s pretty common for folks to make their way to the shop after a pen meetup (we ran into several others while we were there even though the meetup was 20 minutes away). They have a variety of pen brands including Esterbook, Kaweco, Pilot, Retro 51, Sailor and TWSBI . They have a lot of different paper and accessories brands too, including Endless Recorder, Rhodia, Fabriano, Midori, Nebula, Lochby and Rickshaw Bagworks.
Most of the pens are in these display cases.
Ooooh, the new Sailor North American exclusive LINE FRIENDS pens! Are you a SALLY or BROWN fan?
They also have a nice selection of inks and have the new Sailor Manyo multishading inks as well as the latest Colorverse 50 States colors.
Am I the only one who loves to spin notebook displays?
More notebooks, bookmarks, cards, and these adorable pads/sets from Midori.
Turn around and there’s stuff from Traveler’s Company and Maruman.
I love seeing all the fountain pen friendly paper from around the world like Endless Recorder (India), Nebula (South Korea), Midori (Japan) and Clairefontaine (France.)
You need pen and notebook cases to carry around your goodies, right?
Due to my limited time as well as the impending spending at upcoming shows, I showed some restraint and left empty-handed, but not before experiencing the friendly customer service from one of the folks behind the counter (for the locals reading this, it wasn’t Patty because she had already left for the day). They checked in with you, answered any questions and let you look around without stalking you for a sale. Their online section is somewhat limited (at least for fountain pen-related items), so don’t judge the store based on what you see (or don’t see) online. For example, they only list the Colorverse 50 States ink on their website and only 10 colors, but they actually had 15 in the store along with some from the Project series, Joy in the Ordinary series, etc.
So, if you’re in the Denver area and want to shop for pens, inks, paper and more, definitely go check out the Meininger store in Denver or check out their Colorado Springs location and let us know what you think!
(Neither this article nor my brief visit was paid for nor sponsored by Meininger. I’m just a shopaholic with a stationery affliction and LOVE pen stores!)
