Thursday Drops: 2026 Lamy AL-Stars in Pine and Flamingo, Tom's Studio Inks, and More!

February 12, 2026

It’s Lamy Day here in the T.G.S. Nashville Shop! We’ve received a shipment of the 2026 AL-Stars in Pine and Flamingo, as well as most colors of the Lamy Safari fountain pens. We also have a fresh shipment of the Lamy Studio LX All-Black in fountain pen, rollerball, and ballpoint, which has been popular and hard to keep in stock, as well as this year’s Pilot North American exclusive, the Custom 74 in Lavender Frost.

My shimmer ink setup with pens and a planner and swatches and bottles!

On the ink side, we’ve been listening to your requests and have started to bring in some shimmer inks and other inks with special properties like pigment, including selections from Colorverse, Tom’s Studio, and Kakimori. Be sure to check out this week’s YouTube video on tips and tricks for using shimmer inks successfully, if you’re curious about these inks.

Come see these and more in-person! We will be open this week from 1-6pm Thursday-Friday and 10am-6pm on Saturday, but be sure to check back for hours the week of February 16 because they will likely change due to travel.

2026 Lamy AL-Star Special Editions in Pine and Flamingo. The latest LAMY AL-Star fountain pens, rollerballs, and ballpoints have arrived, in a new monochromatic look with matching clips. This year’s releases feature two colors: “Pine” (a dark green) and “Flamingo” (a dusty pink).
Pilot Custom 74 Lavender Fog Pre-Order. Our second shipment of Pilot Custom 74 Lavender Fog fountain pens have arrived! These pens are this year’s North American exclusive and feature four Pilot specialty nibs: Soft fine, Soft Medium, Soft Fine-Medium and Double Broad.
TWSBI ECO Black Marble + Bronze Fountain Pen. The latest TWSBI ECO release is in stock and available to purchase! The bronze and onyx trims are really taking over the lineup of recent releases, and have been extremely popular.
TWSBI ECO Serpentine Fountain Pens. Serpentine is finally back in stock, with its lovely combination of green, gold, and white swirls. No two pens will look the same!
TWSBI Obsidian Fountain Pen. Every couple of years, TWSBI releases a marbled acrylic piston filler in their “Special Edition” body style. The “Obsidian” release pairs a black material with rose gold trim.
Colorverse “Joy in the Ordinary” Fountain Pen Inks. These muted inks from Colorverse are inspired by ordinary everyday activities like a coffee break or walking the dog. If you’re a fan of earth tones and muted pastels, don’t miss these.
Tom’s Studio Shimmer Inks. Ok, so one major goal of mine this year is to get outside my comfort zone in terms of the products I use, and that includes exploring some of the newer shimmer inks that flow much better than those on the market when I first started using fountain pens.
Rickshaw Bagworks “Clouds” Series - a T.G.S. Exclusive! Our latest T.G.S. collaboration is a project we worked on with artist Nick Dominguez, who hand-drew these cloud patterns with multishading fountain pen inks! We have Sinclair and Fillmore cases, as well as pen rolls. I will be bringing these with me to the California Pen Show next week.
Lochby Field Journal Mini. We have new colors of the Lochby Field Journal Mini, including Honey and Olive. These yellow/green colorways are an excellent complement to the classic brown/black/navy Lochby lineup.
Lochby Venture Pouch and Venture Pouch Mini. These new colors are also available in the reversible Lochby Venture Pouch, which is a pen case and edc/stationery pouch all in one. If you’d like to see these in action, I did a YouTube demonstration of how they work.

Pilot Explorer Fountain Pens in New Matte Colors

New Arrivals: TWSBI ECO Black Marble + Bronze Fountain Pens!

February 10, 2026

We just received our shipment of the new TWSBI ECO Black Marble & Bronze fountain pens, along with a restock of in-demand TWSBI pens including the ECO Serpentine Bronze and the new Obsidian special edition piston filler. These swirled acrylic TWSBI ECOs have been more popular than expected, with certain colors and patterns hard to keep in stock (especially Serpentine and the Cosmo + Onyx). We’ll continue to order more and restock as long as we can, though as you all know these are typically released for a while and then cycled out to make room for new colors!

Oh, and I Caved and Ordered Some Shimmer Ink

So many of you asked for these in the Nashville shop that I finally gave in and ordered some shimmer inks. And you know what, despite myself I’m really enjoying some of these colors! Fountain pen shimmer ink has come a long way in the years since I’ve been in the hobby, with manufacturers fine-tuning the inks with ever-finer particles and better overall formulations. I’ve been using inks from Tono & Lims (My Bank Account is Sick and Bechorium Chloride), Herbin (Opale Nocturne), Colorverse (Year of the Dragon), and Robert Oster (Bless Your Heart!), and have had no issues with any of these clogging pens or flowing regularly. We recently added several of the Tom’s Studio shimmer inks, which span a broad range of colors. I’m looking forward to getting a few of these latest arrivals into pens as well!

Pilot Explorer Fountain Pens Matte Colors

Weekly Drops: New Pilot Explorers, Life 6-Ring Paper, NOLTY, and More!

February 6, 2026

ALL the restocks seemed to arrive this week, from the new Pilot Explorer to NOLTY notebooks and Life 6-ring binder paper. In advance of three upcoming pen shows in which we’ll be participating, we’ve also restocked on our Rickshaw exclusive collaboration, adding six-pen Coozy Rolls in both the standard and deluxe formats. Finally, Lochby cases are back in stock, including multiple sizes of the zippered Field Folio and the Field Sling. We have boxes stacked up the wall right now, so if you’re in the neighborhood, be sure to stop by and shop with us in-person and see all of this up-close!

Rickshaw Bagworks Coozy Rolls — Nick Dominguez’s “Clouds” patterns were hand-drawn with multi-shading fountain pen inks,

We are open this week normal hours this week! Please note that the week of February 16 we will have modified hours. Because we will be traveling to the California Pen Show, we may open Monday-Tuesday with reduced Saturday hours, so stay tuned if you are looking to visit us in Nashville.

New Matte Pilot Explorer Fountain Pens and Rollerballs. Pilot has revamped the Explorer lineup, swapping out some of its glossy colors for these new matte ivory, turquoise, navy, and coral. And, yes, these new colors feature a new logo, foregoing the larger Pilot imprint for more subtle branding on the cap.
NOLTY PAGEM Freelog Notebooks. NOLTY is a popular line of Japanese notebooks and planners that feature both dated and undated layouts. The PAGEM “Freelog” has minimal structure and can be used as a planner or a standard notebook.
Life Noble Note 6-Ring Binder Refills. We’ve been working to fill out our selection of 6-ring binder paper that is compatible with binders from Plotter, Brelio, MeePlus, and any other brand that uses standard 6-ring spacing. Life offers A5, Bible, and Mini (6 hole) refills in their standard Noble Note paper, which is quite Fountain Pen Friendly.
Rickshaw Bagworks “Cloud Series” Pen Cases and Pen Rolls. Our collaboration with local-to-us artist Nick Dominguez has been restocked, with Fillmore, Sinclaire, and Coozy Rolls available for order in three different colorways.
TRAVELER’S Notebook Starter Kits. These have sold briskly in the shop, but we still have a handful of Standards and several Passports in stock. The shortage from late last year appears to be easing somewhat.
Lochby Field Sling. Lochby’s popular A5 Field Bag is back in stock in all colors. These sling bags combine the size of the Field Journal and Field Folio with a shoulder strap, allowing you to carry one or two notebooks with a phone, pen, and other small items.
Mnemosyne Hardcover A5 Journals. My personal journal from this year is the dot-grid version in Mint. I walked through how I plan to use this and my other notebooks for 2026 in this recent YouTube video.
Stálogy Planners/Notebooks. The Stálogy 365 and 1/2-year notebooks are designed to be used as day-to-a-page notebooks, journals, or even an undated planner. It’s a flexible system that fits most standard-sized covers (A5, A6, B6, etc.).
Lamy Swift Retractable Rollerballs. We’ve had increasing demand for rollerball pens lately both in-store and online, and one of my favorites is the Lamy Swift retractable rollerball. These have a nice matte texture with a retractable clip. See our full writeup here.
Ohto CR01 and CR02 Rollerball Pens. These capped rollers from Japanese brand Ohto feature a .5mm tip (something of a rarity in the rollerball world) and come in both a thicker and thinner format.

The NOLTY Freelog, in two different pastel colors and featuring a .3mm dot grid ruling.

New Arrivals: Introducing the Benu Haute Collection

February 3, 2026

Benu fountain pens have traditionally been a little too, well, nontraditional for me. While I’ve long admired the artistry, I’ve never found a specific shape that matches my aesthetic. The recently released “Haute” collection might change that, since it pairs Benu’s unique materials with a more traditional, yet still unique, squared barrel design. Each pen features a No. 6 Schmidt nib and uses a standard international cartridge/converter filling system.

We currently have a handful of the Benu Haute fountain pens in stock and available for purchase both in-store and online. Look for additional colors and nib sizes in the future, with possible new additions from Benu in the future!

Please note that while orders are shipping within our normal 2-3 business day time frame, UPS and USPS may still have a bit of a backlog due to the severity of the winter storm in our area and resulting damage. We appreciate your patience as the Nashville area continues to recover this week. We currently plan to be open normal hours this week, Thursday and Friday from 1pm-6pm, and Saturday from 10am-6pm. Since we are trying to get caught up after having to close for much of last week, no appointments are possible outside public hours.

We're Officially Open! Plus New Rickshaw Cases Have Arrived!

January 31, 2026

For those of you following along (or living through this weather yourself), the snow and ice are finally starting to melt in Nashville and we were able to reopen today. While we avoided significant damage, others in our building weren’t so lucky, as a water main froze and burst, flooding two suites and a downstairs storage area. Because management had to cut water to the building (power was out anyway until Wednesday evening), we were unable to open until this morning. Many thanks to all of you who continued to support us online and today in-store, as we very much appreciate your business. It’s not easy for any small business to lose effectively two weekends of revenue but hopefully we are through the worst of this now!

Deluxe and Standard Rickshaw Bagworks Rolls

Things should get back to “normal” this week - we had sporadic power and internet access at home, and at one point even our cell service cut out, so there’s not been much new on the content front. In the meantime, we managed to publish Episode 2 of On the Paper Trail, visit Pilot Pens in Jacksonville on a quick 24-hour turnaround, and as of today, launch the second round of T.G.S. x Rickshaw Bags cases, featuring Nick Dominguez’s unique “cloud” patterns that were hand-drawn using multi-shading fountain pen inks. We’ve added both standard and deluxe 6-pen Coozy Rolls, and also have more Fillmore pen cases which open flat and hold six pens (three on either side) plus a notebook. There has been a lot of interest in these cases so we will likely continue to carry them for the foreseeable future and hopefully I will have them at the California Pen Show at the end of February.

January was a blur! Stay tuned for more announcements on pen shows and more. In-store hours should return next weekend to our normal 1pm-6pm Thursdays and Fridays, and 10am-6pm Saturdays.