2023 Bag Dump, Part II: Travel Edition and Pen Show Packing

July 29, 2023

August is usually a big month on the road for me. In addition to two of the largest pen shows in the world (the D.C. Pen Show from August 3 - August 6, 2023, and the San Francisco Pen Show later that month from August 25-27, 2023), our family sometimes tries to take one last summer trip before school’s back in full swing, and I occasionally have a 1-2 night trade show with some day-job work travel mixed in. I actually do love being on the road and meeting new people, but this is a lot even for me.

As both a travel and stationery enthusiast, I spend a fair bit of time thinking through what I pack for trips (especially business trips and pen shows). It’s a delicate balance between packing far too much - encumbering yourself in ever-shrinking airports, planes, and hotel rooms - and leaving yourself without the tools you need to do your work, and a modicum of comfort on the road. Today I’ll walk through what I tend to pack, with a focus on pen show travel.

Rickshaw Banzai Bag compared to Macbook Air 13-inch — The Rickshaw Banzai Bag is slightly smaller than a 13-inch Macbook Air, making it conveniently small enough to carry over your shoulder in crowded event spaces.

I Bring Two Bags to Pen Shows

Let’s assume that all of my clothing and toiletries go into a carry-on roller bag, and that any shop merchandise I’m bringing to the show goes into checked luggage. There’s not much leeway there in terms of what I can and cannot take, so the focus will be on my “personal items” (to use airline terms). My current travel backpack is an older North Face Surge II (black with red trim), which I like not just because of my signature colors, but because it has a sturdy laptop compartment and more than a half-dozen different compartments for smaller items like headphones, chargers, notebooks, etc.

Rickshaw Banzai Packed for the DC Pen Show, open top

Inside my backpack (or possibly in my carry-on), I’ll pack my Rickshaw “Banzai” bag, which is a bag that Rickshaw specifically designed for pen and stationery carry, with shows in mind. I did a Banzai-specific post earlier this year, which showcases just how much you can fit inside this relatively small shoulder bag.

But why bring two bags to pen shows? DON’T BE THAT PERSON WHO WEARS A HUMUNGOUS BACKPACK IN A CROWDED BALLROOM. If you don’t want your bag to hit other attendees in the head and/or knock valuable merchandise off vendor tables when you inevitably get jostled, bring a smaller shoulder bag or tote to carry around during the day. The Rickshaw Banzai is perfect for this role.

Lochby Rickshaw Pen Cases showing pens coming to the DC Pen Show — Believe it or not, by comparison with many people who will be attending, this is a relatively small number of pens to bring to a pen show! All of this fits inside the Rickshaw Banzai with room to spare.

What Goes Into My Pen Show Bag?

This year, I plan on bringing the following stationery gear with me to the D.C. Pen Show, and my San Francisco Pen Show carry will likely look similar if not identical:

Lochby Field Journal to Carry Personal Notebooks. I always travel with my personal journal, a notebook for morning pages, and at least one blank “scratch paper” notebook.
Plotter A5 Binder. This is my “T.G.S. Notebook” for post ideas, pen and ink testing, notes from meetings with vendors and suppliers, and recent ink swatches for comparison purposes.
Plotter Mini 5. If I really want to lighten the load and walk a show with no bag at all, I’ll grab the pocketable Mini 5 with a pocket pen and go. The Plotter paper is exceptionally fountain pen friendly and great for testing any pens and inks, and the Mini 5 pulls double duty as a wallet.
Multiple Pen Cases with Pens to Share. I always bring a lot of inked pens to shows for after-hours show-and-tell, and this year will be no exception. I’m currently in the process of packing a Lochby Tool Roll and Quattro, a Rickshaw Sinclair Model R, and a Rickshaw 6-pen roll and three-pen sleeve. The shocking part is that all of these cases will fit inside the Banzai Bag at one time, allowing me to carry up to 30 pens to the after-hours meetups in the hotel bar (though I’ll likely leave at least a few slots open to carry new finds home).

TGS On-Site Display 2022 — Our table setup from last year.

2023 D.C. Pen Show Details

This year you can find me sharing table space with our friends at Vanness Pens. TGS won’t have a stand-alone table, but I’ll be bringing a handful of items with me, including Lochby cases and notebooks, washi tape, and whatever stock remains from the TGS-exclusive Penwells and Hinze Collaboration pens. While I plan to have a full table setup in San Francisco, I tend to use the D.C. Show to visit with people and scope out new releases. Note: If you have your eye on something from the shop and want me to bring it to the show for you to pick up, you can select “Local Pickup” at checkout to drop the shipping charge and send me a message to arrange for delivery. Just be mindful that I probably won’t be able to bring heavier orders (i.e. 5 or 6 notebooks) due to airline weight restrictions.

Pen Show Primer Series

Every year when I start getting ready to attend the “big” pen shows in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, I link back to a series of articles I’ve written including Volume 1: Why Visit a Pen Show; Volume 2: Getting Ready for a Pen Show; and Volume 3: Tips for Surviving the Pen Show. While these particular articles have some age on them, I stand by pretty much all of the advice! (You’ll also note that “get a good pen show bag” has remained consistently high on the list of tips for a positive pen show experience.)

This post does not contain paid advertising or third-party affiliate links. The Gentleman Stationer is supported entirely by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program.

2023 Travelogue: What I Consider When Visiting Pen Stores and Shopping at Smaller Retailers in General

July 22, 2023

As you may have seen from my Instagram feed, I took a short trip to New York City to visit family for the long weekend, and as usual ended up with a bit of free time. I have a solid list of 3-5 stationery stores in NYC that I regularly try to visit when I’m in town, including Yoseka Stationery, Kinokuniya, Goods for the Study, and sometimes Fountain Pen Hospital. As someone with fairly easy access to pretty much any stationery products I want to see, I often get asked what I look for when shopping in person.

Exclusive Items. These days, so many things are easy to find online that when I’m traveling, I spend most of my time on the lookout for store-exclusive items, including product collaborations. As I’m well-aware, lots of work goes into developing these products - they can require large minimum quantity orders and a huge leap of faith - and I often go out of my way to pick one up if it’s something that even remotely interests me. Consider it my way to do what I can to support other retailers in the community. For example, when I visited Yoseka Stationery back in January, I made sure to pick up one of their exclusive Yoseka Green Stalogy 365 Days notebooks.
Products I Want to Learn More About. Sometimes I need to see a product in person to understand it better before I decide to purchase. Case in point: this trip I picked up one of the Uniball Kuru Toga Dive mechanical pencils at Kinokuniya. I’ve been following the hype/controversy surrounding this fairly pricey capped mechanical pencil - which not only includes the Kuru Toga rotating lead mechanism but also an auto-feed that advances the lead automatically - and was hesitant to purchase one “for science” with the online prices ticking up past $100 on the secondary market. (For those who have not been following this “drama”, the pencils first launched in the U.S. at around $60, and apparently were promptly snapped up by scalpers, which then prompted a general price hike by Uniball.) The design of the pencil intrigued me enough in person to pick one up at a price point in between the launch price and secondary, and I’ll be posting a review at some point in the future.
Stuff That May Not Be Exclusive, But Not Typically Sold Online. While you can find almost anything online these days, many store exclusives and brand collaborations are more difficult to locate at reasonable prices, and some stores simply don’t list all of their less common stock online. Kinokuniya in NYC often has interesting multi pens (including variations of the Uniball Jetstream) and other versions/colors of the Kuru-Toga mechanical pencils. I’m sure some of the items pictured here have been around for a while, but they’re new to me, and I don’t spend a ton of time in online forums or on Reddit so if I hadn’t visited Kinokuniya in person I might not have discovered them.

I have another day of exploration ahead of me! If you have a favorite NYC-area stationery store that’s not mentioned here, leave a comment and let me know!

This post does not contain paid third party affiliate links. The Gentleman Stationer is supported entirely by purchases through the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program.

Kinokuniya Uniball Jetstream Edge Display

2023 Bag Dump: What Do I Carry to Work?

July 19, 2023

Bag dump posts are insanely popular, whether on the internet or social media. I think mainly it’s because people (1) are generally nosy, and love to glean insights into other people’s lives via the things they carry with them; and (2) at least in the stationery community, would like some reassurance that they are not the only insane person who carries 12 fountain pens, three pads of A4 paper, a traveling inkwell, and 300 Post-it notes everywhere they go.

The main reason I’ve not done many true “bag dumps” in the past is because they can be difficult to photograph, and also because I have to be careful to protect the confidentiality of a lot of the papers, etc. that I carry with me for work. This is less of an issue recently since I’ve successfully taken a more paperless approach to certain work materials and try not to retain nearly as much in hard copy. More on that later! Meanwhile, here’s today’s bag dump:

Bag: Filson Original Twill Briefcase.

My go-to work carry remains my standard Filson briefcase in Otter Green. I love this bag not just because of its durability - it’s going on at least six years old - I find the interior well-organized and just big enough to fit all of my “daily needs” gear without becoming unwieldy. If I’m traveling for work or there’s a day when I need to carry larger physical files or other larger, heavier items like a bigger computer, I also have a Filson Zippered Tote.

Rickshaw Three-Pen EDC — My fountain pen carry from yesterday, from left: Pilot Custom 74 in Blue Stone, Sailor 1911 Large Black Luster, and my personal T.G.S. x Hinze Elementar.

Pens and Pencils: Versatility Is Key

For my workday, it won’t surprise you that I use many different pens, pencils, and highlighters. Currently, I’m carrying either a Rickshaw Bagworks three-pen sleeve or six-pen roll (both my own customized designs), or one of my Nock Co. Sinclair pen cases. As I’ve mentioned, I keep a lot of different fountain pens inked up, so if I want to switch out what I’m using on a daily basis I’ll typically just grab a different pen case that has new pens in it and rotate between them throughout the day. This week I’ve been carrying my Rickshaw Bagworks 3-pen sleeve with a Pilot Custom 74 in Blue Stone, a Sailor 1911 Large in Black Luster, and my personal T.G.S. x Hinze Pen Elementar (complete with the now-available Crimson nib).

Hinze Pen Crimson Nib Rickshaw Match — Subtle matching.

Permanent residents in my work bag include a fistful of Pilot gel pens (currently Frixions, which I’ve enjoyed using, especially in the .4mm tip size), a Penco “Prime Timber” leadholder in Navy Blue, two Anterique click ballpoints, a Caran d’Ache “Black Code” ballpoint, a Caran d’Ache striped Paul Smith collaboration (no longer available, sorry!), and a pack of Kokuyo “Beetle-tip” Highlighters, which are a specialized Japanese highlighter that allows you to highlight in different line widths.

Notebooks and Paper: Paring it Back

One major difference you’ll notice is that I’ve pared back the number of notebooks I carry with me to work. Not only did I find that I wasn’t using them during the workday, but I felt less enjoyment mixing work and play by bringing my personal journals, etc. to the office, which isn’t really a “happy place” for me. I have a dedicated “work planner,” which is my William Hannah A5 in Agave/Mustard. While I plan to do a fuller write-up of this particular notebook system in the future, I generally love ring and disc-based planners/notebooks, and this one is mostly compatible with the Levenger Circa and Filofax refillable systems I use to archive work papers.

My Cortex Brand “Sidekick” covered notepad has been traveling to and from home with me, and it typically sits under my keyboard and serves as a repository for fleeting ideas and action items that I need to archive elsewhere. Once the page fills up, I’ll transfer these notes to another notebook/planner or digital app. I also carry one A4 pad (currently a Midori MD Grid) and one A5 pad (currently one of the Color Pads in blue), and I tend to burn through these pretty quickly so there is a lot of turnover.

Blue Stationery Matching — I’ve really been leaning hard into the blue stationery lately, especially blue paper. From left, two Patreon thank-you notes on the way courtesy of G. Lalo Vergé de France, and the recently arrived Midori Soft Color Pad.

What I won’t get into here in any detail is tech/electronic products that I carry. It’s beyond the focus of the blog, though I may talk about it over on the Patreon in the future. That said, the computer sleeve (for my 2020 MacBook Air) is a Rickshaw Bagworks Horizontal Sleeve. My tablet of choice these days is a Remarkable 2 with the Typefolio (which I’m enjoying so far).

It looks like my last detailed bag dump post was from 2021, and while certain pieces of stationery I carry have been rotated out (probably not permanently), it’s comforting to see general overall consistency, which I take as an indication that I’m sticking to stuff that I use and not chasing trends. I’m on the road for a long weekend starting tomorrow, so Saturday’s post may look at my travel carry!

The Gentleman Stationer is supported entirely by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program. This post does not contain paid third-party affiliate links.

Pen Problems: Do You Feel Compelled to Match Pens and Inks?

July 15, 2023

So despite my best efforts to limit the number of pens that I keep inked at any given time, this (see above) happened. Again. Honestly, it’s kind of unavoidable given the nature of what I do. I’ve come to accept that things will get out of hand, and that periodic “resets” are required. The good news is that many of these pens are almost written dry, and I’ve already rinsed and cycled out three or so this morning.

My Mid-Year “Currently Inked” list. This needs to get cut in half quickly.

Which brings me to an interesting question (to me, at least), that I considered as I wrote out this mid-year “Currently Inked” list: Do most people try to match their pens with specific ink colors, or even specific inks? I’ve definitely noticed certain patterns to how I tend to ink pens:

Black pens or clear demonstrators (but not color demonstrators) are typically “inkable” with any color.
Any delicate vintage pen or pen with stainable material such as celluloid tends to get inked with a blue, black, or blue-black ink.
Brightly colored pens are almost always matched with the same color ink. For example, in the picture above, my Sailor Pro Gear Kure Azure is inked with Caran d’Ache Hypnotic Turquoise - an almost perfect dead-on pairing. Similarly, purple pens are almost always matched with purple inks. (The TWSBI Diamond Mini in Grape gets Waterman Tender Purple. I say “almost” because my Jason Neil Penworks Tucker, which has purple accents, is currently inked with Laban Hera Green, and for some reason this pairing really seems to work.)
The closest I have to a “dedicated ink” for a specific pen is Pilot Blue-Black for all of my Pilot Vanishing Points and Decimos, and either Iroshizuku Shin-Kai or Tsuki-Yo for my Lamy 2000 100th Anniversary Bauhaus Blue. For whatever reason, these specific inks fit the “workhorse” nature of the pens, and I rarely deviate.

Do you have “rules” for inking pens? Feel free to share them in the comments! And for those curious, here is the full typed list of the pen and ink combinations in my “Currently Inked” list pictured above, if you can’t read my handwriting. :) Where I’ve reviewed the pens or otherwise have a listing/content on the site, I’ve linked to it here. Otherwise you may be able to guess what I’m working on and what might be coming soon!

Montblanc 146 UNICEF Edition, Medium “Perspective” Nib with Laban Hera Green Ink
Lamy 2000 Bauhaus 100th Anniversary fountain pen, EF nib, with Iroshizuku Shin-Kai
TGS x Hinze Pens Elementar Special Edition, EF nib, with “Sangria Red” Ink
TGS x Hinze Pens Prototype, medium nib, with “Sangria Red”
Opus 88 Jazz with medium Platinum 3776 Nib, with Herbin Poussière de Lune
Conid Bulkfiller Kingsize, medium titanium nib, with Nahvalur Dark Forest
TWSBI Diamond Mini in Grape, fine nib, with Waterman Tender Purple
Desiderata Pens Soubriquet in Briar Ebonite, Zebra G dip nib, with Vinta Armada
Vanness Pens x The Good Blue “Titanium Blue” Special Edition, fine titanium flex, with Papier Plume “Iron Lace”
Nakaya Decapod in Kuro Tamenuri, soft medium nib, with Platinum Blue-Black
Pilot Custom Heritage 912 with PO Nib, with Iroshizuku Shin Kai
Platinum Matte Curidas in Matte Blue, medium nib, with a Platinum Mix-Free red mix
Franklin-Christoph Model 66 Stabilis, medium SIG stub, with Iroshizuku Asa-Gao
Sailor 1911 Black Luster, fine nib, with Sailor Souboku Pigmented Blue-Black
Sailor Pro Gear Imperial Black, fine nib, with Sailor Souboku Pigmented Blue-Black
Sailor Pro Gear Kure Azure, medium fine nib, with Caran d’Ache Hypnotic Turquoise
Red Dragon Pen Company Custom in Parker Blue Velvet Cellulose Acetate, Franklin-Christoph medium SIG, with Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo
Pilot Custom 823 in Amber, Bacas medium blade grind, with Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo
Pilot Mustard Vanishing Point (Import), fine special alloy nib, with Pilot Blue-Black
Pilot Custom 74 in Blue Stone, medium nib, with Pilot Blue-Black
Newton Pens Orville in Conway Stewart Turquoise Fleck, medium nib, with Laban Demeter Brown
Jason Neil Penworks Tucker, medium nib, with Laban Hera Green

The Gentleman Stationer is supported entirely by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program.

#5MorePenQuestions: What I Really WANTED to Answer

July 8, 2023

As I was drafting out my answers to the #21penquestions challenge from earlier this week, I found myself really enjoying the exercise but also wanting to take it a step further. The original questions, while thought-provoking, focus a lot on stuff and the tools we use. After reading everyone else’s answers, I'm especially interested in hearing more "behind the scenes" backstories! I'll start.

1. Why do pens and stationery continue to play such an important role in your life, especially in an age when everything is supposed to be going paperless and digital? The "why" of things might not be as important to some people as it is to me, but because I've devoted a now-significant portion of my life to running this site and have since decided to go even bigger, it's worth my time to think hard on this. For me, it's always gone beyond the things themselves. Sure, it's fun to shop and track limited editions and even design my own stuff, but the act of writing things down - regardless of what I'm using - has far more significance to me than any specific pen or piece of stationery. Stretching back as far as I can remember, writing has been what centers me when I need to focus (or refocus), such as trying to understand difficult, increasingly complex concepts as I made my way through school or worked through thorny personal and professional relationships. I think I value it even more today because thoughtfulness and introspection weren't just disregarded in my home growing up - I would say they were actively devalued, even denigrated, in 1980s and 1990s go-getter America, and my family was no exception. Being labeled an "introvert" was quite possibly the worst “insult” you could hurl at someone. From talking to many of you, this experience isn't at all unique even today: despite countless studies and books about the immense value of quiet reflection, mindfulness, and, yes, introverts in the world, our culture - especially here in the states - seemingly stops at nothing to destroy any attempt to build a peaceful inner life, either through intrusive technology or office workspaces designed to destroy any opportunity for independent thinking. As I’ll discuss a bit more below, this is more than a bit ironic given the benefits. Moreover, writing things down, in a medium I alone control, is to me the purest form of independence and freedom. You own your own thoughts, if nothing else.

2. What do you view as the key benefit of writing by hand? Writing by hand forces you to focus your thoughts and attention, and enables you to distill your ideas into more usable form. Another personal anecdote: I attended an all-boys middle and high school that taught according to an educational model (since updated) that hadn't changed much since the 1920s. We didn't have regular computer access until the mid-to-late 1990s, so all of our writing was done by hand in a strict five-section format: Introduction, Three-Part Analysis, and Conclusion. While I hated this forced methodology at the time, it’s an invaluable part of my life today. As a practicing litigator (trial/arbitration/appellate attorney), I always outline (and usually draft) every single written or oral legal argument by hand. If I had to name my single core strength and professional advantage, it would be my ability to quickly identify key issues and develop targeted responses. You can't do this without an ability to focus on what’s important, and I track this skill - which I find in short supply in a world of constant distraction information overwhelm - directly to my handwriting practice. There may be other solutions for other people, but writing by hand serves as my failsafe and my brain doesn't really work any other way.

3. What is your favorite thing about the pen/stationery hobby? The realization that there is a LARGE community of people who care about this stuff as much as I do. It's been fulfilling to watch not just my own readership grow, but pens and stationery as a whole become far more mainstream as people look to escape from their digital devices and carve out reflective time for themselves. I also love the extent to which this hobby builds connections and friendships between people who otherwise never would have met, simply because their paths wouldn’t have crossed or, if they did, they would have have assumed nothing in common. It's a common complaint that your circle of friends shrinks as you get older, and I've been blessed to have experienced the opposite. Even where acquaintances begin online, traveling to shows and other events to meet people in person confirmed for me that these are genuine friendships that have endured over the years, and that even much-maligned social media apps can be a force for good if they're used in the right way.

4. What is your least favorite thing about the pen/stationery hobby? Easily the FOMO and hype-driven marketing that occasionally rears its head on stationery social media, typically driven by those manufacturers and retailers who don't really engage in the community and value it in the same way that many of us do, seeing it only as an opportunity to profit. In the same vein, like many hobbies, there exists a level of toxic fanboyism that can devolve into trolling and pointless sh*t-stirring, such as, for example, attempting to get people worked up by pressuring them to "choose sides" over largely meaningless controversies and business conflicts involving corporate brands. I have no interest in this and generally choose to ignore it.

5. If you could choose one combination of stationery items to use for the rest of your life, exclusively, what would those be and why? A Lamy 2000 fountain pen with either an extra-fine or fine nib; Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo ink, and Midori MD Cotton Paper in either pad or notebook form. No surprises here. The Lamy 2000 has long been my favorite fountain pen, and the EF and F nibs usually feature a subtle architect-like grind. Tsuki-Yo is a reliably good blue-black ink with a touch of reddish undertones/sheen to keep it interesting; and Midori MD Cotton paper is all-around excellent.

Will this catch on? Who knows, but I always enjoy sharing my personal backstory from time to time, especially as it adds context to why I do what I do here at T.G.S. Feel free to "steal" these questions for your own blog, social media, or even to answer here in the comments!

The Gentleman Stationer is supported entirely by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program.