Year-End Round Up, Part II: Parting Thoughts for 2017

What do I say for my last post of 2017? First and foremost, thank you! To all my readers, I can’t express how much I appreciate your friendship and support, which allows me to write here on what’s become a near-daily basis and reinforces my belief in the importance of making space for the “analog” side of life. This has been a hard year for many reasons, both personal and professional, and regardless of what else was going on, knowing that I had at least one hour a day to spend here, focusing on something that brings me nothing but joy, carried me through the rough spots.

While there won’t be any major changes to the blog for 2018, I’ve spent the past couple of months refining my “mission statement” and thinking about where I want to focus my attention. The Gentleman Stationer is, for the most part, a product review site, but I try to write my reviews and articles from the perspective of someone who actually uses analog tools on a daily basis, often for hours at a time and in situations where functionality is key. One of my goals for 2018 is to refocus a bit on this central theme, and not let myself get carried away trying to publish the hot take on the latest new release. I have a few ideas for new features in the hopper, some of which are more developed than others, but at a minimum you can expect more in-depth reviews of products that I consider “daily drivers” - tools that you can rely on to get your work done every day. I also miss writing the monthly Digital Divide newsletter, and I’m working on a way to bring back more content that allows me to explore those themes more than I have. Unfortunately, given my day-job related time commitments, I always seem to run into the “hours in the day” problem….

My Top Five Daily Use Stationery Products

So, taking all of this into account, I decided to approach my overall “Best of” list from a different perspective than I have in the past. I want to talk a bit about those products that I end up reaching for everyday without thinking, that blend into my workflow to the point where I basically forget that I’m using them. I’ve reviewed most of these products on the blog, and for those that I haven’t, well, I plan to fix that soon.  

1. Baron Fig Mastermind Desk Pad. It’s silly to say that any stationery product is truly “life changing,” but if I had to name the one product that improved my workflow on a daily basis, it would be the Baron Fig Mastermind. This dot grid desk pad has become not only my all-purpose jotter/scratch paper, but as I've gotten used to writing in "landscape mode," it even serves as a great medium for rough drafts. Baron Fig’s paper handles all kinds of ink very well, and I appreciate the fact that it’s more absorbent and not thick, like Rhodia or Clairefontaine. This means that ink dries quickly. Both the Mastermind and the open-calendar Mastermind “Week” pad, were huge wins for Baron Fig this year. Now they just need to make a standard legal pad and and a huge desk blotter, and I’ll be set for life.

2. Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter. A product I’ve not reviewed yet, since I’m still working on how exactly I want to cover this somewhat unique notebook/binder/Trapper-Keeper. The Roterfaden is expensive, yet it’s incredibly versatile and really the only thing I’ve tried to date that’s allowed me to easily carry multiple full-sized notebooks.  I can appreciate the Traveler’s Notebook, but the inserts are too small for most of the writing that I do. It’s quickly become an essential part of my daily carry.

3. One Star Leather Baron Fig Confidant Cover. As you may have gleaned from how much I’ve raved about the Mastermind, I pretty much committed to using Baron Fig paper exclusively for the majority of my writing. I use Confidant notebooks for journaling, but the cloth covers tend to get pretty grungy, and they’re not the most durable. My One Star Leather Confidant cover fixes this, and the tan bridle leather looks great as it ages.

4. Lamy 2000 4 Color Ballpoint / Sailor Imperial Black Multi Pen. As I mentioned in my “Top 5 Pens of 2017” post, I use one of these two multi pens on a daily basis as my primary writing instrument. I can’t go on enough about how I love both these pens, and if you’re someone who likes to switch between ink colors on the fly, I highly recommend either one of these. (Note: if you need a mechanical pencil option, go for the Sailor.)

5. Filson Original Briefcase. I have four bags, but I often wonder why. 350 days out of the year, I carry this one, and apart from some (very attractive) aging and softening of the leather straps, it still looks like it did the day I bought it. One of the criteria for an item making its way onto this list is that it has to be worth the money, and this bag paid for itself a long time ago.

If, tomorrow, I had to ditch all my stationery and pick five tools to keep for the rest of my life, I’d be happy with these. No fountain pens? I use them all the time, and I’d certainly miss them, but at the end of the day they’re not essential. For most everyday tasks, the multi pen or a pocket ballpoint has become the everyday carry pen of choice, and for situations where I really need to focus on a conversation or a meeting, they’re the most reliable and least distracting option.

Trends in Stationery from 2017

Here's a few general thoughts on trends I noticed this year, both positive and negative. It will be interesting to see whether these change or continue as-is in 2018. 

1. Stationery Subscription Services. I really hope these peaked in 2017. A few companies continue to do these really well (i.e. Write Notepads), but overall they seem a bit tired and the concepts and ideas not as fresh as in the past. I’ve allowed all my subscriptions to lapse, and limited edition purchases have been few and far between.

2. The Insane Proliferation of Limited Editions. Between Pelikan, Aurora, Lamy, Field Notes, Baron Fig, Blackwing, Montblanc, and more releasing a new limited edition pen or ink seemingly every quarter, I can’t keep track, and I can’t imagine it’s sustainable since many of these pens are priced at $500+, and hang around for months (and in many cases, years) after production is discontinued. While a constant stream of new and sexy stuff is great for generating attention on social media and in the blogosphere, I’d much rather see companies researching and launching innovative new models into their standard lineup.

3. Shimmer/Glitter Inks. Robert Oster, Diamine, and Herbin keep pushing out the shimmer inks. While I’m all for expanding the range of ink colors available, the market for glitter ink strikes me as oversaturated. (See what I did there?)

4. Tomoe River Paper Goes Mainstream. You can now seemingly find Tomoe River Paper everywhere, and you no longer have to order it directly from Japan as U.S. retailers are starting to stock it regularly. It’s available in loose sheets, pocket notebooks, A5 notebooks, bound journals, and more! At some point it may replace Clairefontaine/Rhodia as the “default” fountain-pen friendly paper, especially given its light weight and the fact that a normal sized notebook can hold hundreds of pages!

5. The Typewriter. Is the internet’s current obsession with typewriters, driven by the book Typewriter Revolution and the new documentary California Typewriter, sustainable, or is it just a passing fad? I have a couple typewriters that I use occasionally, and do enjoy, but I still struggle to fit them into my regular workflow. Something I’ll be thinking about/working on in the coming year.  

A Look Forward to 2018

And speaking of the coming year, I wanted to close with a few remarks on some products that I suspect I'll find myself using quite often in 2018. Who knows whether they will ultimately stick, but you can look forward to detailed and in-depth reviews of the following: 

1. Opus 88 Koloro Demonstrator Fountain Pens. I can see these fountain pens fighting their way into my “Top 5 Overall Products” for 2015. These reasonably priced Japanese-style eyedroppers, which are currently sold only by Pen Chalet, hold a ton of ink, sport reliable, well-tuned JoWo nibs, and are comfortable and unobtrusive enough to “disappear” into your workflow. Just be sure to choose an ink you like, because you’re in it for the long haul.

2. New Conway Stewart. I had a chance to handle several pens from the recently reintroduced Conway Stewart line during my visit to Vanness Pens this past weekend. While Conway Stewart has existed in various forms since the early 1900s, it was recently relaunched by Bespoke British Pens, the same folks who produce Jack Row, Henry Simpole, and Onoto.

3. Nanami Paper Cafe Note. I didn’t purchase a Hobonichi this year, in favor of Nanami’s new B6 notebook. This book is a great portable size, and I love the Crossfield-style layout. There’s also much less pressure in dealing with a journal that isn’t dated and doesn't limit you to a page-per-day. Some days I want to write more, some days much less, and some days you just don’t have anything at all.

4. Apple iPad Pro 10.5. I was an early iPad Pro adopter, and while I loved what the larger screen and the Pencil enabled me to do in terms of reducing the amount of “junk paper” that I had to carry with me on a regular basis, the 12-inch screen was a bit too heavy and unwieldy for me to use regularly, and I sold it off after it fell out of use. I experimented with the Microsoft Surface for six months or so, but the handwriting recognition and latency with the Surface Pen simply isn’t as good as with the Apple pencil, particularly if you write small.     

5. Ink Brands with HUGE Ranges of Colors. While too many competing ink brands selling similar colors risk oversaturating the market, they also, IMHO, performed a valuable service: ensuring that pretty much any shade of any color of quality ink is available at any price point. Say you love the Bung Box or Sailor Kobe colors, but don’t want to spend $40+ on a single bottle of ink? Brands like Monteverde, Robert Oster, Diamine, and de Atramentis, to name a few, can probably get you pretty close to whatever color it is that you’re looking for. This trend shows no sign of slowing down, and retailers such as Vanness continue to introduce new lines of ink from around the world. 

Again, thanks for everything, and see you all in 2018! 

Year-End Round Up, Part I: Top 5 New Pens from 2017

I'm officially on "break" until sometime after Christmas. That doesn't mean that I won't post, but I definitely won't be sticking to a regular schedule, and there will not be any fresh review content until after the first of the year. In the meantime, enjoy a series of recap posts, discussing some curated content from 2017, and catch up on some things you might have missed. 

Every year around this time, I look back through posts I've written to try to pick out a few things that really grabbed hold and kept my attention past the initial "new shiny" phase. With pens, that's hard. So much stuff comes across my desk for review purposes that in order for something to stay in my rotation, it has to be either really unique or just that good.  Here are five things that stuck with me in 2017, in no particular order. 

1. Multifunction ("Multi") Pens. I've carried a multi pen on a daily basis throughout 2017. Being able to color-code notes in a meeting without switching pens is, for me, invaluable, and I also like having the option to include a mechanical pencil or highlighter in one of the refill slots. For the record, my two favorite multi pens are the Lamy 2000 4-Color Ballpoint and the Sailor Imperial Black Multi Pen. 
2. Montblanc 146 and 144. While my updated review of the 146 is still in progress, I had the opportunity to review (and then purchase) the UNICEF Classique Doue 144, the smaller, cartridge-converter Montblanc fountain pen, courtesy of site-sponsor Appelboom. (Many thanks to Appelboom for sponsoring me this year, and giving me the opportunity to borrow and review many pens that I otherwise could not afford to purchase solely for review purposes.) I also picked up two more versions of the 146 throughout the year, and at least one of these pens has a slot in my daily carry at all times. 
3. Visconti Van Gogh "Vincent's Chair" Fountain Pen. This somewhat understated little Visconti really surprised me. Though it's no longer in my possession since it was a loaner from Goldspot, I'm going to pick up a Van Gogh fairly soon. I much prefer Visconti's stainless steel nibs over the Palladium "Dreamtouch" used in the Homo Sapiens, which I find a touch too wet and "mushy" for my taste.
4. Inventery Mechanical Pen. I'm generally not a liquid ink rollerball aficionado, but the matte black version of Inventery's single-facet mechanical pen has been sitting next to my keyboard ever since it arrived. A touch heavy for longer-form writing, I find it perfect for short notes while I'm on the computer. It uses the standard Schmidt P8126 refill found in most machined rollerball pens, providing a reliably smooth writing experience. 
5. Morning Glory Mach 3 Liquid Ink Rollerball. Another "rollerball" makes the list (surprising, right?) but this one features an ultra-fine .38mm tip and comes in a wide array of colors. It's sort of the Pilot V5 meets the Hi-Tec-C, and is also a fairly economical choice for a standard office writer. 

That's all for now! Happy holidays, and as always, thanks for reading! 

Dark Green Ink Shootout: What's the Winner?

I entered the fountain pen hobby shortly after Montblanc announced that it was discontinuing its now legendary "British Racing Green” ink. Though I never had the opportunity to try a sample of this stuff, I love Montblanc ink and pictures I’ve seen of the British Racing Green leave me fairly certain that it’s an ink that I would have been a staple in my rotation. Long story short, I’ve spent a lot of time over the past several years chasing the “perfect” dark green / racing green ink for my collection that approximates the look of the old Montblanc. 

I never really fell down the rabbit hole of chasing actual bottles of discontinued or limited edition inks. If I came across one at a pen show or in a store at a reasonable price, I’d pick it up for sure, but I’ve never felt comfortable spending the $100-plus price that these old inks can command. Plus, given the rapid expansion of the market for fountain pen ink over the past several years, chasing discontinued colors has become completely unnecessary, since it’s highly unlikely there won’t be at a close match to your “grail ink” out there on the market.

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I'll go ahead and throw the spoiler out there: My favorite of all these inks is Sailor Jentle Epinard, and I also LOVE Robert Oster Signature Melon Tea, even though it's more of an olive/khaki brown. The sample doesn't really show it, but Epinard has some nice reddish sheen in a wet nib. 

Based on my years of "research", here are a few current favorites, grouped by similarities in color:

• Darkest Greens / Green Black: Sailor Bung Box Dandyism and Robert Oster Grun Schwartz. Both of these inks are pretty close, with Dandyism being ever-so-slightly darker and the Grun Schwartz having a touch more grey in the mix. Another somewhat similar color is Sailor Jentle Miruai, though this ink definitely has hints of blue and ends up being more of a dark seaweed green.

• Green-Brown: Sailor Epinard and Robert Oster Melon Tea. While still a very dark green ink, Epinard has a touch of yellow/brown and even shows some red sheen. Melon Tea can dry very dark in a wet nib, and certainly has some green to it, but it definitely leans towards the brown end of the spectrum. (Note that my bottle of Epinard is the old formulation, from before Sailor temporarily discontinued the ink. I’ve heard the new formulation is slightly different, but have not tried it out myself.)

• Brighter Greens: Private Reserve Avacado and Sailor Jentle Waka-Uguisu. I expected the Avacado (yes, that’s how Private Reserve spells it) to be a bit darker. It's brighter and has more yellow to it than I expected. Waka-Uguisu is a nice tea green, and included here mainly for comparison purposes.   

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These are all more or less a tie for second place. Of these three, I prefer the Dandyism when I'm considering the ink alone, but once you take price into account it's hard to justify given how close the Robert Oster Grun Schwartz is. 

I’m not in a position to say which of these is the closest to the old Montblanc ink. I’ve never had the opportunity to try the Montblanc British Racing Green and photograph it in person. Also, online ink swatch photos can be inaccurate (mine included, depending on the calibration of your monitor, lighting, the camera taking the photos, etc.), and people's perception of color is highly subjective. Pictures I’ve seen range from so-dark-it’s-almost-black to a lighter greenish brown. If I had to guess, however, I would say that Sailor Dandyism or Epinard would be the two closest matches.  

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I was surprised at the brightness/yellow hue to the Avacado. Granted, when you write with it, it lays down a darker line, but in the swab it really is more of a saturated dark green than a true green-black. 

Takeaways and Where to Buy

All of the inks on this list are generally well-behaved without any bleedthrough, feathering, or excessive dry times. This includes the Private Reserve Avacado, which was a pleasant surprise, though it is the slowest to dry of all the inks featured here. Sailor and Robert Oster inks do dry extremely fast, in my experience, so that’s not to say there’s any major issue with the Private Reserve.

Pricing on these inks is a bit all over the place. Private Reserve ink costs $11 for 66ml, making it a bargain.  Standard Sailor Jentle Inks (here, Miruai and Waka-Uguisu) cost $18, with the Epinard priced at $25, both for 50ml of ink.  Robert Oster costs $17, for a 50ml bottle, and Bung Box is the most expensive, coming in at a whopping $43 for 50ml. 

I purchased or received all of these inks from Pen Chalet, Anderson Pens, or Vanness Pens. Since my policy is to link to the retailer who provided me with the product, the links correspond accordingly.

Disclaimer: This post contains links to paid sponsors and affiliates. To the best of my recollection, I paid for all of these inks with my own funds (receiving a slight discount), with the exception of the sample of Avacado, which I received free of charge from Anderson Pens for review purposes.

Stationery From Duncan Shotton Design Studios

After a week that was, well, a touch frustrating and stressful, and now that we're heading into the final stretch before the holidays, I thought it might be fun to take a look at some recently arrived stationery products that are just that - fun! You may recall Tokyo-based, British Duncan Shotton from the "Rainbow Pencils" Kickstarter that launched and successfully funded several years back. Not only are the Rainbow Pencils still going strong five years later, but they're now joined by some other great travel/ufo/paranormal-themed stationery, which of course I ordered immediately. 

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These sticky page markers are an excellent alternative to boring 3M plastic flags. (Fellow office drones, you know what I'm talking about here.) 

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The Rainbow Pencils are made from layers of colored recycled paper, so as you sharpen them you get the "Rainbow effect." (See below). 

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A pretty poor showing of what the Rainbow Pencil can do, but the only sharpener I had within reach was cheap (and, apparently, very dull). These rainbow pencils have dark, soft graphite that's a pleasure to write with. 

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Planet Push Pins (and the Moon Push Pin - not to scale) in action, with the stamps that carried my order from Tokyo! 

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Godzilla Stickers anyone? I received these as freebies with my order! 

Takeaways and Where to Buy

I'm 100% on board with what Duncan Shotton is doing here, and I'll be looking to pick up some more of his stationery (and perhaps some other products) after I replenish the budget for 2018. If any of this interests you, you can order in one of two places. I purchased via the Duncan Shotton Etsy store, which has all of the products featured in this post. There's a somewhat larger web store on his main site, with additional items that don't appear on Etsy (like these Nessie-themed push pins).   

Disclaimer: Though I purchased all of the products featured in this post with my own funds, for my own use, I am an Etsy affiliate. All of the links in this post are affiliate links, and I am compensated a small amount for any sales made through these links. 

The Bic Cristal Is (Arguably) The Greatest Pen Ever Made.

Clickbait headline? Especially coming from a dedicated fountain pen user, who at one point would regularly lament how the ballpoint and the gel pen contributed to the downfall of polite civilization by driving the fountain pen to the brink of extinction? But from a sheer numbers and longevity perspective, you can easily make the case. Bic has sold over 100 billion of these pens since they were first launched in 1950. The pen sits in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. And it’s become the gold standard for how a basic ballpoint pen should look and write.

Though Europe gets the awesome orange barrels, in the States we’re “stuck” with what to me is the "classic" Bic Cristal, featuring a clear plastic hexagonal barrel and a plastic cap that matches the ink color. The design hasn’t changed much in the nearly 70 years this pen has been in existence, and the history of the Bic Cristal makes for fascinating reading.

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For awesome write-anywhere portability (like in the car), I don't think you can beat the Cristal, especially if you tend to lose a lot of pens outside the house. 

People tend to hate cheap ballpoint pens for one of two reasons: they require too much pressure to write, and/or the ink won’t leave a solid line. The oil-based ink in really cheap ballpoints can also blob and smear all over the page (or in your pocket), making a serious mess. Of all the pure ballpoints out there on the market, however, I consider Bic Cristal and the Schmidt Easyflow 9000 to be the best options, because you don’t usually see any of these issues. (As with any mass-produced product at a lower price point, there are exceptions.)

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Two current Bic Cristal models: on the left the .8mm Xtra Precision, which sports a needle tip, and on the right, the most common Bic Cristal available, the 1.0mm "medium". 

Though it certainly doesn’t write the same dark line as a gel or hybrid-gel pen, the Bic Cristal performs pretty well for a ballpoint. Bic’s shade of blue ink is much more vibrant than what you’ll find in a Papermate Write Bros., or the various store-brand generics. The 1.0mm “medium” tip can even show some line variation, depending on the pressure you use. For this reason, many artists use Bic pens to draw insanely detailed portraits. While I find gel pens pretty much unusable in tip sizes above .7mm, I have no trouble writing relatively small with the 1.0mm Bic Cristal, since oil-based ink doesn't feather and bleed.

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Though ballpoint ink is never going to be as dark as gel, liquid rollerball, or most other types of ink, Bic's formulation is among the best. It also dries near-instantaneously on non-coated paper, including cheap office-supply stock. 

Takeaways and Where to Buy

In a world where pen companies and big box stores are starting to charge $15 for a dozen mediocre gel pens, there’s something to be said for taking the opposite approach by picking up a pack of Bic Cristals. Sure, you'll probably lose the pen, give it away, or the plastic barrel may crack long before you use up the ink, but like the most basic woodcase pencils, sometimes you just want to get some work done with a reliable tool that presents the least amount of distraction. Moreover, with the concept of handwriting generally under attack, we should be doing all we can to preserve it by promoting the entire range of writing tools available. The Bic Cristal offers a low-cost, zero-barrier-to-entry option. Anyone can jump online or run down to the corner store, and get started handwriting.  

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As I mentioned, the 1.0mm medium point will probably give you the smoothest writing experience, and is generally my recommended starting point. For editing and annotation (or if you just write really small), the “Xtra Precision” needle-tip pens are fantastic. If you write large, there's even an "Xtra Bold" 1.6mm version, though I've not tried them. 

Finally, if the Bic Cristal interests you from a design or historical perspective, both Philip Hensher's The Missing Ink and James Ward's The Perfection of the Paper Clip discuss the history and development of the Bic ballpoint pen in some detail (as well as diving deep into other aspects of stationery minutiae). I highly recommend both books. 

Disclaimer: I purchased the pens featured in this review with my own funds, for my own use.