This is my ever-growing collection of vintage and modern lead holders. Some are clutch-style, some are click mechanism and some are revolving release. These do not include the Lady Sheaffer matching fountain pen and pencil sets. I’ll save those for later. The ones on the left are vintage, the ones are the right are modern. Lead sizes range from 0.3mm to the giant 5mm Koh-i-noor Magic Pencil clutch but most are 0.5mm, 0.7mm, 0.9mm and 2mm lead.
Posts of the Week:Following the Ask the Desk question earlier this week, Mountain of Ink has also been posting lots of black ink recently. Co-inky-dink? I don’t think so. I just think inky minds think alike.
Didn’t I say yesterday it was a good month for subscriptions? No sooner did I get the Rad + Hungry USA Kit than the CW Pencils The Pencil Box Quarterly #3: Back to School Kit ($30, currently closed to new subscribers but can be added to email list when new slots are available) arrived. Wow! This is by far my favorite kit that CW Pencil Enterprise has put together so far. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved all the kits they’ve done but this one won my heart.
Back to School is always my favorite season far and away anyway. It’s all about office supplies, sweater weather and warm beverages. What’s not to love?
The kit included an assortment of awesome pencils (of course!) but this time, it also included some wonderful other items too like the Coccina glue stick, a clear pocket-sized ruler, a Kimberly square pink eraser, and a carrying case to keep it all in.
The pencils are a great assortment of useful, fun, classic and novel. I expect no less from the ladies of CW Pencils!
The Coccina glue stick is from Italy and smells like almonds which makes it clear why kids might want to eat glue. It smells fantastic. The squishy pink eraser is also delectable and made me want to put teeth marks in it. Clearly, I have a problem.
There was a wonderfully vintage grade school writing pad. If you don’t have kids or feel nostalgic about writing on lined paper, this makes great paper for writing small gifts, using for collage or making little notes or cards for gifts. Improvise!
The kit also includes the lovely “handwritten” note with details about each item in the kit and a postcard of the contents.
For me, however, the coup de gras was the repro Futura pencil. Why? Because I have a collection of original Richard Best Tryrex Futura pencils so I was excited to be able to do a side-by-side comparison. Later, I’ll do an actual writing test.
My number one pet peeve with these pencils aesthetically is the logo. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but “Make the logo bigger.” That logo is so spectacular and needs to be seen for miles. Not to mention the logo should be more dominant than the pencil grading data in the information hierarchy.
I don’t mind that the pink paint color is a bit more pink on the Moon Products repro. The original color is a little Clearisil beige. The original Futura pencils I have feature two different ferrules: one is gold with a pink painted ring and one is burgundy to match the logo stamping. There were also inconsistencies in the ink colors for the stamping between the two versions of the original Futura: the #3 has reddish ink and the F has more burgundy colored stamping so I really shouldn’t be so fussy except I thought I was one of the only people in the world with a soft spot for Futura pencils and I’m a big design nerd so I’m all about details and black ink is just not enough! As for the ferrule and eraser, the anodized pink is fun but matching the ferrule to a dark red or burgundy and a brown eraser would be awesome.
Finally, the paint is pooled around the end of the pencil. I don’t know the process for applying the color but I don’t often see this, even on less expensive pencils (Ticonderogas from Mexico, etc) so why is this one so gloopy?
I’ll do more thorough writing tests of these pencils in coming weeks but if you love subscription surprises in your mail box, I can’t recommend the CW Pencils Quarterly subscription highly enough. It is finely curated and worthy of the price. I find that a quarterly subscription is about as frequently as I want a subscription to arrive. It gives me time to genuinely appreciate and enjoy the contents.
I pay for this subscription with my own money so my recommendation comes knowing that my hard-earned paycheck goes to paying for it. I am in no way compensated for this recommendation. See my About page for more information.
Rad + Hungry is a very unique subscription service. Every month you are subscribed, you receive a package of curated stationery goods – usually pencils and a notebook plus a print and a little extra from somewhere in the world. One month it might be Uruguay, the next month it might be Korea or the Philippines.
One of the best things about the Rad + Hungry kits are how lovingly they are wrapped. Each kit is beautifully wrapped like a gift and the prints included with each kit is a beautiful piece of art that can be hung on your wall as art and a memento.
The silkscreen print was produced in neon orange ink and is hard to capture but take my word for it. It’s spectacular. Or order a kit for yourself.
The latest kit from the US included amazing finds from the Deep South and included a letter from Hen’s travels that read like a tale from a friend of her adventures from the road.
If you are a pencil collector, I think you can still get some of the rare and unique pencils through the Rad + Hungry Shop. These gems were immediately added to my ever-growing collection of pencil gems! I can hardly resist sharpening these beauties. I will breakdown soon enough, I’m sure.
The two vintage school notepads were also added to my collection of paper ephemera to be used for various and sundry purposes. This was definitely the month for excellent subscriptions.
Kit pricing starts at $24 per kit for the Quarterly (3 kits over 3 months but the prices drop to $19 for a yearly subscription for 10 kits over 12 months. There’s also a Semester Kit for $21 per kit, (6 kits over 6 months).
DISCLAIMER: This item was sent to us free of charge by Rad + Hungry for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
My good friend Father Kyle recently asked if I could recommend a good sheening black ink.
The only black ink (and I don’t use a ton of black ink so my knowledge here is relatively limited) I could think of was Kyo-No-Oto No. 1 Nurebairo ($28). It has more shine than sheen on most of the papers that I’ve tested it on but Lisa Vanness backed me up on my claim that it was the most likely sheening black.
I dug around on FPN for more recommendations and found a few threads dating back years that suggested that there were other possibilities as well like Private Reserve Velvet Black, Pilot Black, and Kaweco Pearl Black (which I used as an example as a flat black below so I heartily disagree there!).
From the swatch, its clear there is some blue in the Kyo-No-Oto black which probably helps to give the ink some depth and richness compared to the Kaweco Black which in the light areas is evidently a neutral grey undertone.
If anyone has other recommendations for a sheening black, please leave a comment. Black ink seldom gets the attention and accolades and attention that blues and its more colorful brethren do.
Review by Laura Cameron
After watching several pen and ink videos, I decided I wanted to try a variety of nibs and that I would like to purchase a dip nib pen. Ana steered me in the direction of eBay and Delike pens. I ordered a Glass Signature Pen with five nibs in blue (a few more are available here).
The pen arrived fairly quickly; within less than 2 weeks from China. The set I ordered includes the Glass Signature pen, with cap, and 5 additional nibs: extra fine (XF), fine (F), medium (M), broad (B) and extra broad (XB).
I should note that I don’t think that the pen is actually glass, but rather acrylic (which the eBay listing curiously lists as “organic glass”). (Editor’s Note: I tested the “glass” nib as well and cannot confirm if it’s glass either. It felt more like a synthetic material. That said, it held ink very well and alone I felt made it worth the purchase price. I did not get to try out the calligraphy nibs though. I really liked the “glass” nib.)
I found the naming of these nibs a little deceptive. I tried the extra fine expecting it to be similar to many of my other fountain pen nibs and it is much broader than they are. However, since I wanted this pen to test different nib widths, I wasn’t too upset by this. I also didn’t understand until I went back and reviewed the listing that the “glass nib” (also acrylic) was intended to be written with. I found the use of this nib a little problematic in that I needed to use the nib on its side to get it to write reliably. I did think that the swirled nib was an interesting and beautiful way to store the ink.
I would also note that while the pen and nibs themselves were odor-free, the plastic cap needed to be left out for a week or two before it wasn’t super smelly.
The glass pen is nice and smooth and is a nice light weight in my hand (17gms without the nib and cap). The nibs screw in and out of the barrel very easily and I’m enjoying testing inks using different nibs.
Overall, I wouldn’t characterize this as a fine pen, but I find it perfectly serviceable for playing around with different nibs and 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.
Thanks to everyone who entered our giveaway for the Diploma Excellence A, Rhombus Guilloch Lapis in Black. Now, to announce the winner:
Congrats to Adam! I hope that Cacao du Bresil looks stunning in the Diplomat! our many thanks to Points of Distinction for sending us this lovely pen and thanks to Laura for writing up this review.
