The Well-Appointed Desk

Standard Bindery Store in Australia has introduced a new lineup of original ink colors; these inks are now available at Vanness Pens! Due to feedback from my previous ink overview posts, I am laying out the entire lineup of 6 Standard Bindery inks.

I purchased my ink samples from Vanness Pens – samples of Road Trip, Clear Seas, Stargaze, Old Friend, Canyon Walk, and Luna Tone. As a side note, have you ever noticed that Vanness ink sample labels come in the color of the ink? I love that little detail.

I have to say that this is a very original layout of colors – not your standard ink color from Standard Bindery.

The first ink in the lineup is Road Trip – a yellowish-green that is very legible and has great shading.

Road Trip is a bit darker than Bungubox Sunlight Raindrops but is in the same region of color.

Luna Tone is a dark blue-black that has a subtle reddish-black sheen. I accidentally tested the water resistance – it isn’t. However, you can see that the writing is still legible after the water dried and the color spread in the water is beautiful.

Luna Tone has a strong purple undertone, close to Penbbs 524 and ColorVerse Proxima B

As I first swatched Old Friend, I was a bit disappointed – it is the one purple in the group. But as I wrote with this ink, just a touch of shading started to show. A faint sheen showed up and I started to love the ink.

Callifolio Bourgogne is the closest to Old Friend and I believe the two will look even more alike when writing with a fine nib.

Standard Bindery Stargaze also surprised me. When wet, Stargaze is nearly black, or a very dark grey. However, the ink dries to a greenish-grey that shows a bit of shading and a faint dark halo.

Stargaze is close to both KWZ Midnight Green and 3 Oysters Giwa – a group that I would classify as green-black and quite appropriate for work writing.

I predict that Clear Seas is going to be the most popular in the Standard Bindery line. It is a bright, cheerful teal-turquoise that leans towards green. The writing is haloed by a darker teal or green and letters can appear as light turquoise or dark teal.

Clear Seas matches Kobe #13 Emerald closely but behaves like ColorVerse Photon. If you missed out on Papier Plume Lake Michigan Summer, grab a bottle of Clear Seas!

Canyon Walk is my favorite color of the bunch. It is a rusty reddish-orange that likes to shade a bit, has a halo around letters and the halo in the swatch (not apparent in this photo, but definitely there) shines a dark brown.

Canyon Walk is close to another hard-to-find Papier Plume ink, 011 which was created to go along with the TV show Stranger Things and designed to look a bit like dried blood. In writing, it reminds me strongly of Monteverde Copper Noir.

Standard Bindery inks were average when it came to cleanup time and wrote a touch on the wet side for me. They are not water-resistant, dried quickly (15 seconds or less), and did not smear once dry. At a price of $21.95 for 60mL of ink, they are a great price per mL. Vanness Pens quickly sold out of Clear Seas, but they will be restocked – you can sign up for a reminder on their website (I will be getting a bottle of it myself!). I am glad that a new ink line has come out with such unusual colors!

Disclaimer: The items in this post were provided at a discount for the purposes of this review. See our About page for more information.

In Link Love

Link Love: Dancing about Typewriters

AnaMarch 4, 2020March 4, 20201 Comment

I drove to Baltimore with Lisa Vanness from Vanness Pen Shop and then we drove back to Little Rock and I drove on to Kansas City. It took a total of about 25 hours each way for me and I got home last night around 9pm. I collapsed in bed pretty much the moment I got home. So, it wasn’t until this morning that I saw this lovely message left on the chalkboard inside our front door from Bob. The Baltimore Pen Show (BWI Pen Show) was very busy for me, despite it being the first time I have attended. I was asked to participate in the live Erasable Podcast recording on Friday night, I hosted a Meet the Makers: Paper Panel (the first few minutes sound is dodgy until the hotel staff brought in some microphones for us) and then I acted as a judge/Vanna to Brad’s Pat Sajak in the first-ever Pen Show Jeopardy Game Show. I also helped Lisa with her ink emporium.We were directly across from Kenro Industries, The Gentleman Stationer and Nock Co. so I felt surrounded by friends.

We were showered with gifts from friends including Berger’s Cookies, Zeke’s Coffee (Jesi ran away with that!) and Unreal peanut butter cups and chocolate gems (AKA vegan M&Ms).

We made new friends like Rachel from Sailor and Anna who coined my new favorite nickname for Bryce at Luxury Brands.

Baltimore was a new show for me but it was filled with all the things I love about a pen show: pens, ink, friends and laughs.

Pens:

Namisu Maos 2-in-1 Fountain Pen & Rollerball (via The Pencilcase Blog)
Wilson Vacumatic – where is the Pen that drafted the Indian Constitution? (via Inked Happiness)
Does the World Need More Retractable Fountain Pens? (via Rediscover Analog)
Comparative Overview: Sailor 1911 Large & Platinum Century #3776 (via Scrively)

Ink:

Everyday Writers: The Best Fountain Pen Inks for Daily Use (via The Gentleman Stationer)
Sailor Shikiori Yozakura (via Mountain of Ink)
Robert Oster Signature Caffe Crema (via Ink Sharks)
Troublemaker Foxglove (via Mountain of Ink)

Pencils:

Lyra Robinson 2510 (2B) (via Polar Pencil Pusher)

Notebook Review: Thinkers Notebook

Laura CameronMarch 3, 2020March 17, 202015 Comments

Review by Laura Cameron

Recently I was contacted by the people behind Thinkers Notebook ($19.95) and asked if I wanted to try their Thinkers Notebook system. I’m always game to try something new so I said yes!

The Thinkers Notebook is a 6″ x 9″ landscape notebook, designed to be used in concert with an app. The notebook encourages you to record ideas, meeting notes, sketches and the like, and then scan them (along with a QR code on each page) into the Thinkers Notebook App (free for Apple and Android Phones), a system that allows you to share out images and also allows commenting/discussion on the images.

Let’s start with the notebook. The notebook itself is discbound, a system I haven’t seen before. The discs allow the notebook to open fully and lay flat, as well as be folded back on itself. The cover is made of thick cardstock, and tiny perforations in the top of the paper near the discs, allow you to remove pages from the book without tearing.

Probably the most important question: is it fountain pen friendly? YES! The paper is 100 gsm and boasts two formats. The front of each page is dot grid (approximately 5 dots per 1″) and the back of each page is college ruled (9/32″). Take notes, sketch, do whatever you want to do in the book! The book has 100 sheets in total.

Once you have written or sketched what you want to, simply open the app in your phone to take a quick scan. Edit the photo how you wish (crop, rotate, turn to black & white, etc.) and add whatever tags you wish. Several tags are included, and you can add your own easily. Then you can share the image with anyone you wish, and they can comment on your photos. They do not have to have the app to be able to comment!

A note on security of your documents directly from the Thinkers Notebook website:

We have developed a Private Cloud Storage system on Google infrastructure to securely store your files. Only you, and those you share the files with can see the pages from the THINKERS Notebook (not even our admins can see them).

You can scan more than just the Thinkers Notebook pages. You can scan any notebook pages, whiteboard images, photos etc. to store for later.

When you buy the Thinkers Notebook, you also get free access to the Thinkers Workshop, a selection of videos, articles and insights that dive deeper into how you can use your notebook.

As a final bonus, the makers of the Thinkers Notebook are so sure you’ll love it they offer a full money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied.

So, what are my thoughts on the notebook?

The notebook itself is slim (approximately 1/2″ (1 cm)) thick and the disc binding adds a bit of bulk, but not much. Though it’s not true A5 size, meaning it won’t work well in A5 sized leather covers, the size does feel portable to me, for situations when pocket notebooks aren’t enough paper real estate.

And I really enjoyed the paper. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I kind of dig having ruled and dot grid in the same notebook, allowing me to record whatever I want, whenever I want. I’m also interested that the site says refills will be available starting in March of 2020 (that means around now!) so that I could just get more paper, and not have to continually buy whole new notebooks. At $19.95 the notebook is a bit pricey, though I understand that my notebook purchase also supports the app and the other material Thinkers Notebook creates.

Now the app. I’m not entirely sold. I appreciate that the app is pretty clean looking, streamlined and easy to use. I also understand that what Thinkers Notebook has developed is a way to store photos and comments/discussion together in one place (versus just posting a photo into a slack chat or other collaboration tool). I am a very limited test case since I don’t use a lot of collaborative work tools outside of Trello, Slack, Google Docs and Dropbox, but I don’t know that I’d find this useful in my business life unless it was something that caught on and the people I worked with were using it too? I might find it useful in my personal life to capture things like knitting pattern design ideas or the like, but I don’t know that I’d be sending those out to friends for comments either.

So I’m left with sort of a mixed feeling about the notebook. I know that I like the paper enough I’m going to be using this one up, but I’m reserving judgement on whether I’ll find the app useful enough to continue to invest in the product. On the other hand, if it becomes a favorite notebook, I might!

What do you think?

Papers: Thinkers Notebook ($19.95)
Pen: Baoer Carbon Fire Fountain Pen ($15.95)
Inks: J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche (10mL, $5.50)

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In feature

Giveaway: Sketchnote Notebook & Pen Set (Kickstarter)

AnaMarch 2, 2020March 1, 202088 Comments

I’ve been a huge fan of Mike Rohde‘s Sketchnote project and his Sketchnote Handbook and Sketchnote Workshops for a long time. I’ve also reviewed his Sketchnote Ideabook in the past.

Today I’m excited to offer one to you that I received from backing the Kickstarter project (my copy was a review copy, I backed the project separately and yours is the shrink-wrapped one I received later!), along with an Autoquill Fine Liner set of 10 fine point pens ranging from 0.05mm to 2.0 mm!

TO ENTER: Leave a comment below and tell us when you first knew you loved stationery and pens! Play along and type in something. It makes reading through entries more interesting, okay? One entry per person.

If you have never entered a giveaway or commented on the site before, your comment must be manually approved by our highly-trained staff of monkeys before it will appear on the site. Our monkeys are underpaid and under-caffeinated so don’t stress if your comment does not appear right away. Give the monkeys some time.

FINE PRINT: All entries must be submitted by 10pm CST on Friday, March 6, 2020. All entries must be submitted at wellappointeddesk.com, not Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook, okay? Winner will be announced on Monday. Winner will be selected by random number generator from entries that played by the rules (see above). Please include your actual email address in the comment form so that I can contact you if you win. I will not save email addresses or sell them to anyone — pinky swear. If winner does not respond within 7 days, I will draw a new giveaway winner. Shipping via USPS first class is covered. Additional shipping options or insurance will have to be paid by the winner. We are generous but we’re not made of money. US and APO/AFO only, sorry.

In Tools

Review: Raymay Clam Pencase in Violet

AnaFebruary 28, 2020February 23, 20201 Comment

I admit it. I am always looking for the perfect case. I must have dozens of pencil cases, pen cases, sleeves, pouches, etc. I always think the next one will be “the one.” One pen case to rule them all! I’m not alone in this, right? So, when I saw the Raymay Clam Pencase in violet ($12.50) it clearly looked different.

It’s a wide flat box from the exterior. It’s roughly 2″ (5cm) x 8″ (20cm) x 4″ (10cm). It features a snap closure instead of a zipper.

The snap is actually a magnet which makes closure easier than I expected.

The most unique aspect of this case is the rigid frame around the opening like a doctor’s bag.

Once open, the case will sit open like a tray with a mesh pocket on the lid for smaller items. The mesh pocket on the lid contains small items like erasers and a pencil sharpener. If you are someone who likes to have your tools all out in front of you when you work, this case provides a perfect, travelling “desk sprawl”.

It’s exactly the kind of interior access I’ve always wanted. I don’t have to pull everything out to get to the one pen in the bottom of a zippered case. I can just roll my fingers through the open tray and select the pen, pencil or brush I need.

It’s open shape means I can fit a new Blackwing or a regular pencil with a ridiculously long point protector in the case at an angle. Regular-sized pencils fit fine and all the various gel pens, brush pens and travel water brushes also fit.

When I’m done working, I just snap the case shut. The magnet catches the latch shut and I can stick it all back in my bag.

The only negative is the color choices for the Clam Pencase. With the exception of the navy blue, all the colors are very pastel and pale. I like having bright color options but since I tend to use these sorts of cases for art making supplies, darker colors are a lot less likely to show dirt, graphite dust and accidental pen leaks. It would be perfect if it was available in some darker colors with a darker lining. And I never want a dark lining in anything but I’m making an exception here for practical reasons.

The Raymay Clam Pencase has moved to the top of my list of favorite pen cases. The case is also non-leather which is a bonus.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by JetPens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In feature, Ink Review

New Find: Made to Order Samples

Jessica ColesFebruary 27, 2020February 27, 20201 Comment

By Jessica Coles

There is no way to hide my love of inks. This love of inks actually drew me into the fountain pen world – there are not enough colors in the Gelly Roll line to satisfy my quest for more colors.

This is not a cheap thing, though. Bottles of ink can cost anywhere from $6 to … well, anything, really. Samples are a great way for me to get a taste of ink, try it for a while, and move on to the next quickly. I have lots of samples by now, though. Lots. But there is always more to try – more inks coming out, limited editions, inks you can only procure if you hike 50 miles up a mountain in isolated Japan and have a two-hour interview with the only person on earth who knows how to make an exact color. The list goes on and shows no sign of stopping. In fact, the pace of new inks brought to the market seems to be increasing.

Shigure Inks is new to the fountain pen world and the ink scene. This made it all the more impressive to me when I discovered they carried a variety of inks that are hard to find in the US – inks like Lennon Toolbar, iPaper, and Tono & Lims.

But with hard-to-find ink comes higher prices and usually smaller amounts of ink. I was only able to occasionally get one or two bottles of these inks and I despaired of ever being able to collect samples of each.

Then.

Then one day I discovered the ink sample order form.

I found that Shigure Ink will allow me to order ANY ink in ANY size. They are priced based on the per mL price of the specific ink plus a charge for the vial. ANY ink. I can order 1-2 mL of EVERY ink.

The sample form requires that you list the ink name and the volume desired for each sample. Once submitted, Shigure sends an invoice that, once paid, results in your order being shipped. Quickly!

A longer review of the actual inks themselves will be coming soon, but for now, look upon the amazing finds:

The last time I saw iPaper inks was at the San Francisco pen show where they were in short supply.

Take some time and look through the ink selection at Shigure. The inks have become so much more accessible! Small samples means more variety of ink!

DISCLAIMER: All items in this review were purchased by me to add to my ink collection. For more information, see our About page.

In Link Love

Link Love: Bakelite, Curidas and Abs?!?

AnaFebruary 26, 2020February 26, 20206 Comments

I got to see a Platinum Curidas in person today. The nib is excellent and the retractable mechanism seems spot-on. The translucent plastic body looks a lot like the material used on the Prefounte.

Do you see the plastic nub in the bottom right hand photo above? That is just above the nib opening. It looks like a rollstop but since this pen also features a clip, it seems redundant and makes me wonder why it’s there, right by the nib so that it could affect your grip. WTH?

Also, I got to see the new Opus 88 Omar colors. The pink and purple colorway was put into my hand with a “Does this match your hair?” question. It does not. And the pen is HUGE. I know the business direction for Opus88 is to “go big or go home” but I am going to continue to cling to my Fantasia pen until they come to their senses and make some more small pens. We are not all giants.

So, exactly where did I see all these wonderful treasures? Vanness Pen Shop, of course. I drove down on Tuesday to help load up the van and drive to the upcoming Baltimore/Washington Pen Show. That’s right, not only will Vanness Pen Shop be setting up a selection of inks and papers from the around the world but Ms. Jesi and I will also be at the show. I will be behind the ink towers at the Vanness table and Jesi will be manning a table of Esterbrook pens and a selection of other pens and such. Come by and say hi!

Now, back to the Vanness Shop… if you have not had a chance to make the pilgrimage to Little Rock to check out the store, put it on your bucket list. The Arkansas Pen Show is just a few weeks away and one of the highlights of the weekend is the Open House held at Vanness Pen Shop on Friday night. You never know who might be behind the counter (Me? Gentleman Stationer? Cary from Kenro? You never know!) or standing on tables (That’s almost always Lisa Vanness!).

So much good stuff to see at the shop.

I’m sure you’re ready for your weekly Link Love now though, right? This is a “pen week”. It’s kind of like when you go to the gym and have an “abs day” versus a “leg day”. This week, we are concentrating all our energy on pens. There’s two reviews for the new Wancher Bakelite. As a fan of vintage Bakelite bangles and assorted jewelry, the Wancher Bakelite pen didn’t capture how I think of Bakelite. Not that most people would want a vintage vibe as much as I would but why else would someone choose to make a pen out of a material that stains if not to have it imbued with the appeal of Bakelite jewelry?

Maybe next week will be a “notebooks week”?