Introducing Life Stationery Writing Pads

December 7, 2021

The T.G.S. Curated Shop has always featured a wide range of luxury writing pads, including those from brands such as Write Notepads, Rhodia, Clairefontaine, and now, Life Stationery. We just received a shipment of Life A4 Noble Note, Letter-sized Bank Paper, and A4 Typewriter pads, all of which are available for purchase as of this morning. If you haven’t tried Life paper, it’s some of the most versatile Japanese paper out there, whether you’re looking for smooth (Noble Note), textured (Bank Paper), or lightweight (Typewriting Paper). The Noble Note and Bank Paper pads contain a whopping 100 sheets! Check out these and other Life Stationery products here.

The T.G.S. Curated Shop is an authorized retailer of all brands sold. By shopping with us directly, you are supporting original content, pen reviews, pen show events, etc. from The Gentleman Stationer. If you would like to support us even further, please consider checking out the T.G.S. Patreon Program, which offers access to online meetups, exclusive discounts and pre-orders, and more!

A paper specifically made for typewriters? Count me in!

Private Reserve D.C. Supershow Blue: A Classic Returns

December 4, 2021

Private Reserve Ink has really been through the wringer over the years, passing through the hands of three separate owners and finally ending up in the hands of Yafa, the current owners/distributors of Monteverde and several other brands. One of the original boutique ink brands that existed alongside Noodler’s from the time I entered the hobby, I’ve had mixed success using Private Reserve throughout my “pen career.” When I first started out, these inks were the only option you had if you wanted highly saturated reds, greens, and blues, but those colors often came with a lot of baggage in the form of slow dry times/smearing, a tendency to stain, and at one point, a propensity to grow mold due to a formulation error. Fortunately, these issues were eventually sorted out, and the new inks exhibit none of these problems. In fact, they’re quite good.

Private Reserve DC Supershow Blue Writing Sample — Private Reserve DC Supershow Blue pops off the page, in the way that many inks haven’t done since Parker discontinued the Penman Sapphire.

To answer the question of “Just how good?”, during my recent visit to Anderson Pens I selected a bottle of what was once one of the highest-maintenance fountain pen inks out there: Private Reserve D.C. Supershow Blue. A saturated blue originally designed to mimic long-discontinued cult ink Parker Penman Sapphire, the old formulation of Supershow Blue was, for me, impossible to use. I found that it never dried, and would clog pens to the point that I would have to prime the feed by twisting the converter a bit any time I stopped writing for more than a day. That said, Supershow Blue is an absolutely gorgeous color, so if Yafa’s most recent take on Private Reserve rendered this color useable, it would be a huge win for everybody.

DC Supershow Blue and its characteristic red sheen - only this time no smearing!

TLDR version: The latest version of this ink is great. To test out dry time/smear resistance, I layered it onto Write Notepads dot grid paper with a folded nib dip pen, and experienced absolutely no bleedthrough or feathering. Importantly, the ink dried relatively quickly, and after a few minutes you could run a finger across the page without any smearing or stickiness whatsoever - impressive since the ink is fairly wet. The color isn’t quite a match for Parker Penman Sapphire (see the comparison in the photo below), but it stands on its own as a great “bright blue” option.

Private Reserve DC Supershow Blue Penman Sapphire Comparison — So at this year’s Chicago Pen Show, the ink testing table contained a sample of Penman Sapphire, which I compared against the new formulation of Supershow Blue. The old Penman Ink has more of a violet hue, with additional red sheen. It does, however, smear much more than the Private Reserve, even two months later.

Takeaways and Where to Buy

Given how nice my experience with this ink has been, I’m definitely looking at picking up some additional colors. Private Reserve is widely available from most pen retailers, and generally inexpensive. As I mentioned, I purchased the bottle featured in this review at Anderson Pens Chicago. Most of the standard colors are priced at $15 for 60ml, quite a good deal, with specialty inks such as the “Infinity” series and the “Pearlescent” shimmer inks commanding a slight premium. Another longtime Private Reserve favorite is “Burgundy Mist,” which I reviewed relatively recently, and I look forward to revisiting both Sherwood Green and Tanzanite, inks that were once staples of my collection.

Private Reserve Ink Bottle — People either love or hate the Private Reserve Ink bottles. They feature a large volume (60ml) and a wide opening for easy filling with larger pens, but these bottles do tend to spatter/spill a bit since they always ship ***very*** full. Exercise care when opening!

Disclaimer: This post has been revised to reflect/disclose that as of June 2025, T.G.S. is now a retailer of Private Reserve Ink! You can purchase a selection of the Private Reserve Colors directly from our shop.

Deals & Drops: New Arrivals and Holiday Restock Reminders

December 3, 2021

Just a reminder to please consider the T.G.S. Curated Shop and other smaller retailers for your holiday shopping needs! We are currently fully stocked on pens, notebooks, and desk and reading accessories from a wide range of makers, including special products you won’t find anywhere else! In addition to the items featured below, please check out the 2021 T.G.S. Holiday Gift Guide!

All links to the T.G.S. Curated Shop, unless otherwise noted. By shopping with us directly, you are supporting original content, pen reviews, pen show events, etc. from The Gentleman Stationer. If you would like to support us even further, please consider checking out the T.G.S. Patreon Program, which offers access to online meetups, exclusive discounts and pre-orders, and more!

T.G.S. x. Sunderland Machine Works mk1 Rollerball. Our exclusive matte black and burgundy rollerball is down to the last few pens from this initial run. If you’re looking for a unique gift, or just something nice for yourself that you’d like before the holidays, it’s an excellent option.
CW+T Pen-Type C. Though known for their popular Pen Type-A and Pen Type-B models, both of which house the full-size Pilot Hi-Tec-C refill, the Pen Type-C is a bookmark/pocket pen that features the Hi-Tec-C Coleto, a needle-tip multipen refill that comes in a wide array of colors. Titanium construction at an accessible price.
Penco “Perfection” Bullet Pen. Love the bullet pen format but wish your Space Pen had a bit more heft to it? This brass version by Penco comes in three different finishes, and accepts the universal D1 refill.
Caran d’Ache 849 Rollerball Pen. This one will likely make two of my 2021 year-end favorites lists: Favorite products stocked in the shop and favorite new releases in general. The larger barrel is extremely comfortable for longer writing sessions, and the fact that it accepts standard Parker-style refills makes it an extremely versatile choice on par with the Retro 51 Tornado.
Caran d’Ache Ecridor Racing .7mm Mechanical Pencil. Combining black chrome with a sharp red racing stripe, the Ecridor Racing series is the best-looking version of Caran d’Ache’s higher-end Ecridor pen/pencil that I’ve seen.
Caran d’Ache Claim Your Style Ballpoint, Edition No. 3. The monochrome color scheme from this year’s Claim Your Style pens is likely my favorite of the three releases, especially the dark blue, green, and orange versions.
Midori MD Fountain Pen. Midori’s fountain pen features the same off-white color scheme as the rest of their stationery products (like their “B” grade pencils), but that’s not what makes this one so much fun. They’ve tweaked the stainless steel nib from the Traveler’s Company brass fountain pen and angled it slightly downward to compensate for those who write with heavy pressure.
WMS & Co. Bronze Octagonal Custom Rubber Stamp. Of all the desk accessories made by WMS & Co., this customizable brass stamp is my favorite. I personally use it as an “ex libris” library stamp, but the purchase includes a voucher good for creating a custom stamp of your choice, whether that be a professional seal, return address, monogram, etc.
WMS & Co. Sterling Modern Page Markers and Page Points. These handcrafted sterling silver bookmarks are perennial sellers, and absolutely perfect gifts for any occasion if you have someone on your list who is a serious reader.
Traveler’s Company Brass Pen Case. I don’t know which of the Traveler’s Company brass accessories is my favorite, between this and the Brass Ruler. Don’t forget to check out other options like the Template Bookmark and Number Clips that you can use to organize your notebooks.

My Yellow/Yellow-Green Pen Collections — Clockwise from top: Leonardo Momento Zero in Burkina Celluloid, Decimo in Harvest Gold, Camel 2B Woodcase Pencil; Lamy Studio in Olive Green, Visconti Van Gogh “Vincent’s Chair”, Nakaya Long Piccolo, Platinum Plaisir in Bali Citrus.

More Mini-Collections: The Most Underappreciated Color in Stationery?

December 1, 2021

It’s funny - over the years I’ve managed to pick up many pens, notebooks, and pencils on clearance, only to have these surplus (and often heavily discounted) items turn into coveted “grails” years later. Over the past couple of weeks, as I’ve been pruning back my collection, I realized two things: (1) I have a ton of pens in an “anise green” shade that people always comment on (if not try to purchase off me), especially when they see them in person; and (2) this same shade of yellow-green tends to sell very slowly at retail, and often makes up the last of a lot whenever I stock it, even though it’s arguably the best-looking color in products like the Quo Vadis Habana Notebook or the Clairefontaine 1951 Classic Series. On the pen side, Nakaya discontinued their “Nanohana-Iro” urushi finish, and Pilot stopped selling the “Harvest Yellow” Decimo that I’ve been clinging to for dear life over the past few years, as people have tried to pry it from my hands. It’s even become difficult to find pens in a solid shade of yellow-green ebonite, unless you order the rods yourself and have a custom pen made.

From left, my Wakakusa-Iro Nakaya Long Piccolo, Pilot Decimo in Harvest Gold, and the Platinum Plaisir in Bali Citrus.

So I’ll pose kind of a silly question: Is yellow-green/anise green/pea green the most underappreciated color in stationery? Or to frame it for broader discussion: Why do people only seem to appreciate some things after they start to disappear from the market? I suspect that part of the issue with this particular color is that it’s very difficult to accurately photograph, and even if you get a good picture, vast discrepancies in calibration across computer monitors can make it look much too pale, robbing it of its depth, or on the flip side, too dark, making it look flat and boring. I’ve also heard it’s a hard color for manufacturers to consistently reproduce, so you will get a lot of batch variations across a single product line. That said, this isn’t the only “cult color” that disappears only to become insanely popular on the secondary market.

I guess this is yet one more example of me subconsciously building a “mini-collection” that in this case extends across different product categories. In addition to my Nakaya Long Piccolo in “Wakakusa-Iro” (which was a store exclusive from Aesthetic Bay in Singapore), the Harvest Gold Decimo, and other pens such as my Visconti Van Gogh “Vincent’s Chair” and a green-gold Platinum Plaisir in “Bali Citrus”, I ended up purchasing a gross of the Camel 2B pencils from the CW Pencil Enterprise closeout sale because I couldn’t bear to be without a stash of the green ones.

What colors do you think remain underappreciated in the stationery industry? For a while, it seems as though everyone was moving towards matte-black everything, then the clear demonstrators became popular, and now the trend is towards sparkling acrylic/DiamondCast. When manufacturers focus on outdoing one another on the latest trend, we seem to miss out on these more offbeat colors that don’t get a lot of attention, and might attract more fans if companies were willing to take a bit more risk and give these products a chance to distinguish themselves. That said, as participants in this community we also have a responsibility: If you like a particular product, and find yourself wishing that “more companies made something like that,” then buy it if you can. Manufacturers and retailers can’t pay their bills on admiration alone, and we shouldn’t wait for these “cult hits” to go out of stock before everyone starts scrambling to find them.

If you’d like to read more on the subject of “Mini-Collections,” and how I’ve focused my own pen and ink collecting, check out these posts on the Parker Sonnet (one of my favorite under-appreciated pens), and my obsession with red inks, among other things.

This post does not contain paid third-party affiliate links, and all likes are to the T.G.S. Curated Shop or other third-parties who have not compensated T.G.S. for links. Shopping with T.G.S. directly supports original content, pen reviews, pen show events, etc. from The Gentleman Stationer. If you would like to support us even further, please consider checking out the T.G.S. Patreon Program, which offers access to online meetups, exclusive discounts and pre-orders, and more!

Introducing CW&T Pen Type-C

November 30, 2021

If you’ve been following my adventures in building out the T.G.S. Curated Shop over the past two years, you’ll know that in addition to stationery, I have a serious interest in reading accessories. While I’ve previously discussed how the Traveler’s Company Brass Ballpoint pen is an excellent choice for annotation and marginalia, I’ve long kept my eye on CW&T’s Pen Type-C, a flat “bookmark-style” pen that’s machined from titanium and features Pilot’s Hi-Tec-C Coleto multipen refill. While you won’t want to write a novel with a flat pen like Pen Type-C, that’s not it’s intended purpose. I’ve used this pen as both a bookmark (shown below), and it also slips easily into both the zippered Traveler’s Notebook pen case and the inside cover of my Roterfaden for maximum portability.

As of this morning, Pen Type-C is available in the Curated Shop, priced at $50. I also have a handful of Hi-Tec-C Coleto refills in an assortment of colors. To refill the pen, you remove the plastic “cap” at the end of the refill (designed for compatibility with the multipen, so it’s not needed here), and insert the refill into the notch in the center of Pen Type-C. For those interested in the full-size Pen Type-B and Pen Type-A, both of which feature CW&T’s signature pneumatic sleeves, we recently restocked and have most finishes available for purchase. You can also read my write-up of Pen Type-B here!