Writer and pen fan favorite, June Thomas wrote a fantastic piece for Bloomberg about Nakaya. I have been fascinated by them but did not know enough about them to consider making a purchase. After reading this article, I just might be ready to jump on board.
Once again, Mary Collis revealed a very personal story of what the pen community has brought to her world. I have to say that her experience reflects what a lot of us feel. We are so glad that you found your tribe and that we found you!
No, that’s not a typo. This morning I thought I’d share with you all the inks I bought at the San Francisco Pen Show. After four pen shows in as many months, I finally lost all control and bought ALL THE INKS! Well, not all the inks but I did buy a lot.
Since I spend the better part of almost every show selling ink, I get a chance to see all the inks people are buying. I can often get ink crazy or ink overload by the end of the weekend. And sometimes by Sunday, the colors I want are all sold out.
But in San Francisco, I not only got many of the colors I wanted but was also able to get some new, never-before-seen inks from PenBBS from China.
I bought the PenBBs inks ($16) at the very last minute, literally as we were packing up the Vanness Pens “inkvan” so I selected my colors off a sheet of paper and what I could find in the already packed crate. I chose three colors: No. 178 Rose Quartz, No. 220 Watermelon Red and No. 224 Tolstoy.
The boxes are orange with quotes printed on them. Inside, the bottles are hexagonal with different graphics printed on the labels. This makes them considerably more unique and easier to identify.
Of the three bottles, a couple had really unusual embossing on the cap. This was my favorite.
The No. 220 Watermelon Red is super bright and vivid pinky red. It’s more red than Kosumosu or Sakura Mori but not as orangey as KWZ Grapefruit. I was worried it was a bit too similar to the considerably more expensive bottle of Bungbox Lycoris Red I had purchased earlier in the day but as you’ll see further down, there is enough difference in the color that I feel like its okay to have both bottles. And while there is definitely some shading in Watermelon Red, Lycoris Red has major sheen so that was totally worth the money. I haven’t put it into a pen yet but I’m definitely looking forward to it.
No. 224 Tolstoy turned out to be a total win. I put it into my Peyton Street resin slim bamboo fountain pen and have been using it for over a week. Every time someone tries it, they say, “Oooo, what is this ink?” Every. time. It writes a good deal lighter in the fine italic than it appears in the swatch but it shades beautifully and then gets lovely light olive-y spots in the writing. Quite lovely.
I was hoping that the Rose Quartz might be a good match for my new Carolina Pen Company pen but when I swatched it, the color ended up being lighter when wet and dries darker– almost like a sunbleached, terracotta color. I don’t have any other color like it in my ink library. Tonally, Black Swan in English Roses was the only thing even close. Everything else was either too red or too pink.
I don’t know if anyone remembers my adventure last year in trying to find the perfect shade of lavender purple but I think Viola by Robert Oster might be it. It’s a little bit deeper than Australian Opal Mauve which I freakin’ love and a bit more purply. Viola still maintains lots of shading though so its feels textural and interesting. I put it next to a couple other complex tonal purples for comparison. There is definitely more color detail in Viola!
I also got a bottle of Kobe #43 which is loosely translated to include “fresh green” in the name. It definitely has a happy yellow green aspect to the color that I’ve been looking for for years. It’s edging into “signature Well-Appointed Desk” territory!
The other bottle of Kobe purchased was the #48 Marchais Blue which is unlike any blue I had really. The closest comparable color I had is the Kaweco Paradise Blue which I really like and its quite a bit darker and greener. I added a swatch that was bluer (Lamy Pacific Blue/Turquoise) and one that was darker Oster Fire & Ice just for reference because I really didn’t have anything else close. Most turquoise colors are more like the Lamy Turquoise/Pacific or darker like Fire & Ice. This Marchais Blue is the coelacanth of ink colors.
Oh, Bungbox Lycoris Red! You out sheen Sailor Irori Red!
So, here’s a little Col-o-ring secret fact. When we were testing papers, Irori was THE ink I used to verify that the papers we tested would show sheen. I tested other inks but I always tested Irori and if the gold sheen didn’t show, the paper didn’t make the cut.
But Bungbox Lycoris Red is a brighter red with MORE gold sheen than Sailor Irori and that’s saying something. Initially, I thought Lycoris Red was going to be more pinky red but it actually ends up being a vivid red. I think the gold sheen helps to temper it. I have a pal who swears by J. Herbin Rouge Opera as the perfect true red ink, however, I find the J. Herbin inks to be a little watery and ill-tempered in some situations. Bungbox, being Sailor inks, are well-behaved particularly in finer-nibbed pens and so I’m inclined to argue for the premium price. Plus, gold sheen out the wazoo!
The last ink I bought was my first from the Kyoto TAG series. I bought the Kyo-Iro #5 Cherry Blossom of Keage.
Photo from the official Kyo-iro product page.
I am too enthusiastic about the packaging for pens and I seldom make much about the packaging for inks beyond it’s usefulness but the Kyoto TAG packaging is so quintessentially Japanese its hard not to appreciate it. The boxes are stunning white heavyweight paperboard with printed spatters of ink and debossed lettering. Inside the design on the small, squat bottles in simple and understated. Besides a single bottle of Akkerman and some vintage ink bottles, this is the only bottle that will live on my desk. It might usurp the Akkerman bottle.
Colorwise, Kyo-Iro #5 is a bit deeper than Robert Oster Cherry Blossom in my swatch but I think it will work out to my benefit because, in writing, the RO Cherry Blossom is a bit too light.
I bought this ink with plans to use it in my new Carolina Pen Company pen. It might not be a perfect match to the pen and maybe it doesn’t need to be. I didn’t find the PenBBS ink until after I had purchased this ink and I still think this will be a better pairing. But who knows? I think it’s a beautiful color and it will definitely get used.
So, is there anything you go crazy for at pen shows? For Dallas, I’m looking forward to checking out Retro51 table, Dromgoole’s and hopefully partaking in some delicious snacks from the Dallas area. I hope the horrible weather doesn’t keep people away as I’m so looking forward to seeing everyone from last year and new folks this year.
The Aurora Duo Cart fountain pen ($180 in burgundy and gold) is a re-creation of the original Duo Cart of 60 years ago. If the photo on the box is any indication, only minor alterations have been made to the original design. Originally, the name came from the pen’s ability to carry two cartridges, the one it was using and a spare. Hence the “duo cart.” The modern version comes with a converter which occupies the majority of the barrel and modern cartridges appear to be a bit longer making it difficult to fit two in the barrel, though the name lives on.
While I don’t make a big deal of packaging, a well-placed vintage photo on a recyclable cardboard box is always welcome. Inside the box was the converter, cartridges and a small bottle of ink. Everything needed to start off on a fountain pen adventure.
Inside, was the vintage clamshell box with satin lining that was legendarily found in the Aurora basement. It even smelled like vintage attic! From what I understand, the stash of vintage clamshell cases has already been depleted and sadly, I don’t even get to keep this one (its just a loaner) but at least I got to sniff it.
The pen is pristine Mary Tyler Moore bordeaux red with a gold tone cap engraved with fine vertical lines. The ends of the pen are flat and smooth. On the barrel end is an embedded, smooth, gold disc, Very modern and understated.
Between the barrel and the grip is a matching gold band with engraved rings. This is a case where you can definitely put a ring on it.
The nib is hooded, similarly to a Parker 51 though there is a bit of a step down to the nib. Visually, I noticed it but once I started using the pen, the step pretty much disappeared.
The nib is listed as medium but it is a very blunt, almost italic-style medium. If there was anything that I would want added to the Duo Cart line, other than a variety of pen barrel color options, it would be nib size options. Not everyone is going to want a nib that is quite this broad and flat. It certainly has a lot of character is much more of a stub in the range of a 0.8mm to a 1mm than it is a traditional round medium nib. So, from that perspective, I liked it a lot better than I thought I would. It took a page or so of writing for me to find the sweet spot and get the feed good and wet so that it was writing smoothly and consistently for me and that may have had more to do with my being left-handed than the pen.
That said, once the Duo Cart and I got going, it was pretty smooth sailing on the Rhodia paper. The nib actually ended up reminding my of the Esterbrook 2442 Falcon that I like so much so we ended up getting along swimmingly.
The Duo Cart is also available with a black barrel with silver trim ($156) if you are feeling a bit more Mad Men and a little less Laura Petrie à la the Dick Van Dyke Show.
A little more about the ink: I used the new Robert Oster Soda Pop Blue ($17 bottle but everybody is sold out!) for this review which is a vivid bright blue with a bit of a red sheen. In writing, a bit more of the turquoise shading shows through particularly with the wider nib. I suspect the color would be darker overall in a finer nib.
DISCLAIMER: This item was sent to me free of charge by Kenro Inc. for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
I could not possibly fit all the diaries and planners that have been released fit into Fashionable Friday this week. Moleskine released their new planners. There are 18-month planners as well as an array of 12-month 2018 options. Their paper quality is still iffy but they offer an array of formats and designs. Leuchtturm1917 planners will soon be available on JetPens and they will also be stocking Hobonichi Techo planners soon so you don’t have to order from Japan if you can wait a couple weeks. Jenni Bick has Paperblanks 2018 planners in stock. Kate Spade has all 2018 agendas and refills for her planners available now too. Appelboom has all the Filofax 2018 refills.
And, of course, I included the NockCo Seed case which is coming soon. I’ll keep you posted as soon as I know more but I had to include the teaser image that was posted on their instagram account this week. The A6 case will fit a standard Hobonichi Techo! So many options!
Thanks to my sponsors for providing some of the images I use for Fashionable Friday. Please consider making your next purchase from one of the shops that support this blog and let them know you heard about them here. Thanks for reading the blog and for supporting the shops that help keep it running.
The body features a brushed finish in purple and all the trim is chrome, making this a stylish, modern looking pen.The postable cap features a contoured end cap and the standard Parker Arrow pen clip.The nib is a Parker stainless steel fine nib.The Parker IM comes with an ink cartridge and a converter can be easily purchased separately.
When I received this pen, I was really pleased with it in terms of look and feel. I immediately filled it up with some Diamine Ancient Copper, found a notebook and took it for a spin.
I had a bit of an interesting experience with this one which, in hindsight, was related to the ink I was using. At first I had a bit of trouble getting the ink to flow smoothly through the nib, but after a bit it wrote fairly smoothly.I found the fine nib a little bit scratchy, despite switching position while writing.
Over the next few days I kept pulling out this pen, and that’s when I discovered that the ink sample I was using must have had some quality issues – each time I opened the pen there would be ink crusted all around the nib. I could run it under water, clean it off and start to write again fairly quickly, but as soon as it sat in my bag for a bit, I would open it to find the nib crusted over again. Within a day or two I went ahead and emptied and cleaned the pen and tossed the ink sample.The second time I tried filling the pen with Faber-Castell Cobalt Blue, and that has been much better.I still find the nib a little scratchy, but it’s far better with the new ink.
Empty, the pen weighs approximately 26gms.It is lighter than I would have expected given the metal body, but I still feel like it has a decent weight in my hand.
Woot! New weight chart! The Parker IM weighs the same as a Pilot Metro.
Overall, I think this pen is a pretty good starter fountain pen. I’m not sure I enjoy it quite as much as my Retro 51 Tornado Fountain Pen, which is quite a bit heavier in my hand, but I like it far, far better than the Sheaffer VFM that I reviewed a few weeks ago. The two don’t really compare, but I was carrying both at the same time and I was far more likely to grab the Parker IM and pretty happy while using it.
I just wanted to add a quick note about the notebook that I used to test the Parker IM.This was a generous gift to the desk by Julia Skott from Sweden.(Ed. Note: She blessed us with a heap ton of awesome Swedish and European notebooks at the Atlanta Pen Show this year that will be making an occasional appearance on the blog.)Appeel notebooks are made by an Italian company that wanted to create eco-friendly journals inspired by the Italian landscape.The notebooks are called Appeel because the book covers and pages are made from apple peels and selected vegetable fibers.I found a few examples of Appeel products being offered at promotional goods sites (i.e. for creating logo merchandise), but I didn’t find anywhere to purchase otherwise.
The notebook I used had a cardstock cover, though many of the journals I found online have leather covers.The notebook measures 13 x 21cm with a sewn binding, and contains 80 pages of 80gsm lined paper, featuring the Appeel logo in the upper corner. The paper is a neutral tan color.In general I enjoyed testing the paper. Surprisingly, it tolerated fountain pen ink quite well, with some ghosting, but no bleeding through even in the areas where I filled in with extra ink.
Laura is a tech editor, podcaster, knitter, spinner and recent pen addict. You can learn more about her knitting and tea adventures on her website, The Corner of Knit & Tea and can find her on Instagram as Fluffykira.
Kitten Update: Our newest resident is settling in but is still a little skittish. She is super cuddly once she feels safe and loves to play with the string toy. The other cats are slowly warming to her except “El Presidente,” our 6lb Siamese who is having none of this micro-invader. So, for the time being, we are keeping the kitten sequestered and introducing her slowly to the rest of the brood. The vets gave her a clean bill of health except for ear mites. Name is still up for debate. Suggestions?
Link of the Week:
This is the best, most-thorough and accurate review of the Platinum Classic inks I’ve seen yet. It’s also stunningly beautiful. I wholeheartedly agree that the Platinum Classic inks exhibit iron gall-like properties but are not true iron gall inks.
I think it was Azizah of Gourmet Pens who said that one can never have too many music nibs. If my handwriting were as beautiful as hers, I could rationalize having as many music nibs as I damn well please. Alas, it’s not (in fact, I usually print in a utilitarian manner), so I’m not sure why I felt compelled to add a fifth music nib to my collection (and will undoubtedly add more in the future), but I’m happy I did. The Noodler’s Ink Neponset music nib is quite different from the others I own.
Before I get to that nib, though, let’s talk about the Neponset’s body, which is substantial. According to Pen Chalet, the Neponset (appropriately named after an airship blimp) is the largest of Noodler’s fleet. Despite my relatively small hand, I prefer pens with a good heft and girth, both of which the Neponset has. It’s also more than a half-inch longer than a Lamy Safari.
That extra length balances well with the pen’s large diameter without the cap. With the cap posted, however, it feels a little back-end heavy to me. The cap screws on and posts securely.
I chose the Calligraphy Stone color, which looked orange in the model photographed on Pen Chalet’s site, but mine is closer to a golden topaz hue with more dark marbling. Some parts of the body reflect light more than others, and the marbling varies widely, too. Made of acrylic, the body is fitted with a silver-colored clip, trim ring and band to match the nib.
The Neponset uses a plunger-style piston filler. For people who are used to eyedropper pens or those with built-in pistons, the detachable piston’s capacity may seem small. Compared to the miniscule Pilot and Sailor converters I’m used to, though, the Neponset’s filler seems enormous.
Before I move on to the nib, I must say something I’ve heard other Noodler’s users complain about but had never experienced myself until now: that smell! I noticed it immediately when I uncapped the new pen, but when I unscrewed the section from the barrel, that odor nearly knocked me out! (Yes, I have said the same thing about alcohol-based markers and Xylene pens.) I quickly inked it and put the barrel back on, hoping that would hold the smell at bay, and it did. As long as it’s completely capped, I don’t smell it. (I’ve heard that if I disassemble all the pieces and leave them out in the open for several days, the smell will dissipate, so I’ll do that before its next inking.)
Now let’s get to that nib, which is the most important part of any pen (at least for me). Called the Vishnu Victory, the Neponset’s music nib has the traditional three tines. (I have a Sailor music nib with only two tines, but the Platinum, Pilot and Franklin-Christoph all have three.)
Apparently music nibs are so named because their stub-like shape can make a thin line horizontally and thicker line vertically, both strokes being used to write music notations. I also understand that the purpose of the double slits (three tines) is to keep more ink flowing. The Vishnu Victory certainly manages well on both counts. Immediately after its first inking and ever since, it has been flowing beautifully with no skips or hard starts, and it keeps up with longer or faster strokes with ease.
Pen Chalet’s description calls it a “flex music nib,” which caught my attention; none of my other music nibs have any flex at all (hard as the proverbial nail). While I probably don’t take advantage of flexing when I write, I sometimes enjoy making deliberately slow pen-and-ink-type drawings using fountain pens instead of dip pens, and the Neponset’s nib gives me just enough spring that I can get interesting line variations. Mind you, it’s not a wet noodle by any means or even as flexy as some contemporary nibs (my Pilot Falcon and Pilot FA nibs are much flexier), but it has just enough bounce to make the nib fun.
Final Impressions
Flexier than all the other music nibs I’ve tried, Noodler’s Neponset is a versatile pen for both writing and drawing (and is therefore a welcome addition to my music nib collection whether I can rationalize another one or not). I hope that stink goes away.
By the way, if you’re curious about that quotation I used for my writing sample, it’s by Naoki Ishikawa, an explorer and photographer, quoted in last year’s Hobonichi Techo: “I want to spend the rest of my life continually astonished by things I’ve never seen. When I saw the world’s tallest mountain peaks, or Tibetan worshippers chanting prayers as they spent all day circling a temple, or the deep crimson sunsets of Africa, my body responded on its own. By the time I realized it, my finger was already pressing the shutter.”
I’d like to spend the rest of my life that way, too.
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Pen Chalet for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
Posts of the Week:
Laura is a tech editor, podcaster, knitter, spinner and recent pen addict. You can learn more about her knitting and tea adventures on her website, 
