My afternoon at the 2012 Los Angeles International Pen Show

Today was my second visit to the Los Angeles International Pen Show. (Second ever, first this year.) Last year, I didn't have any idea what I was looking for, I just wanted to get a feel for the show. This year, I has some specific goals in mind, most of which I met, so it was a pretty good visit.

Remember that 30-year-old Mont Blanc my wife's uncle surprised me with at Christmas? It is now in the hands of a pen restorer, who will be working on removing some stains, evening out a dent in the cap, and making sure the pen is in good working order. I'll still need to send to off to a nibmeister later, though. From the same vendor, I picked up a set of shims for spacing nib tines, which will come in handy, and I also bought a lighted loupe. Now I won't have to use my wife's and get in trouble when I leave the light on and use up the battery in hers.

Speaking of wives and trouble, I thought this was a cute sign:

I wonder if it helped her sales?

Main display area

The show did not seem as crowded this year. It seemed a little easier to move through the aisles. But maybe I just had a more defined mission and moved better through the crowds.

I was hoping TWSBI's Speedy would be there again, since I wanted to buy some of their ink bottles and a couple of stub nibs, but I didn't see him (or anyone else from TWSBI).

I still don't know my way around vintage pens at all. Some vintage hard rubber pens at The Fountain Pen Store's display caught my eye, but not enough for me to buy one.

Mostly, I was on the prowl for some pens I'd been admiring on websites but had yet to see up close.

One was the Pelikan M625, which I have been lusting after for most of a year. But when I saw them at the show, they weren't as beautiful as they look on the website. Nice looking pens, but not as beautiful as I was expecting. The translucent barrels are so dark, it is hard to see the difference among the red, blue, and aubergine models without their caps on. 

The others were the Aurora Europa and Aurora America, which are basically limited editions of the Aurora Optima. These two pens looked even better up close than they do online, especially the America. I like the idea of an Italian pen that honors America. Still, a little pricey. If I ever buy one, it will probably be off of eBay, or perhaps when someone is trying to unload theirs on the Fountain Pen Network classifieds.

Still, I did not walk away empty handed. I was also looking for a deal on a Visconti Rembrandt Eco-Roller rollerball pen (which takes fountain pen ink), since no one seems to discount them online. Bittner gave me a great deal on one, which I'll review after trying out for a couple of weeks:

I came every close to buying A Diplomat Excellence Rhombus fountain pen with 14kt nib. This is a pen I saw for the first time at last year's show. It's gorgeous, the fine nib wrote smooth as silk (though writing on an R by Rhodia pad will undoubtedly make most nibs feel smooth), and it felt remarkably light in the hand for a metal pen. I already regret turning down the discounted price I was offered.

An afternoon just isn't enough time to fully explore the show. I could have spent all afternoon going down just one aisle. But all, in all, it was a fun afternoon, I got a great deal on a pen I wanted, and I managed to learn a little more about vintage pens in the process.

If you are a pen nut and a show is held within a few hours' drive from you, I highly recommend you make the trip!

My afternoon at the 2012 Los Angeles International Pen Show

Review: Lamy Studio rollerball, stainless steel finish

As much as I love my fountain pens, sometimes they're not very convenient, so I recently decided to get a couple of rollerballs. One of them is the Lamy Studio in stainless steel finish. There are some cool things about the pen, but some things that I just haven't been able to get used to.

Let's start with the bad. The stainless steel wasn't my first choice. I walked out of the store with the black Studio. When I got it home, I pulled it out to take pictures for this review, and noticed that the black finish on the cap was noticeably different than the finish on the barrel. One was glossier than the other (can't remember which was which, though.) At first, I thought I might be seeing things. But looking at the pen under a light, you could see a big difference in the reflection off the barrel and the reflection off the cap. So, I took the pen back to the store the following weekend. I felt like I was being a real pain the butt, but even the salesperson agreed that the finish was inconsistent. She had two more black Studios in stock, so I was willing to trade straight up, but . . . both of those had the same problem as mine. I don't know of this is a widespread issue or just a bad production lot, but it's not what one usually sees in a German product. (I've been there, and you really can set your watch by the trains. It's amazing.)

So, I ended up trading it for the stainless finish, which I like quite a bit and has the advantage of a non-metal section. Which brings me to the second issue I have with the pen: the width of the section. It is noticeably wider than any of my other pens, and I've had a hard time getting used to it. It really throws me off, and my handwriting deteriorates when I write with it. I've tried to give it time, but I'm growing impatient. This, of course, is merely an issue of personal preference, not quality.

This distorts the size of the section, but it FEELS this big to me.

The third issue: the feel of the rollerball. There's something vaguely waxy about it. It's not just that it's different than a fountain pen, because there are other rollerballs I use quite comfortably. It just doesn't have a good feel to me. Again, a personal preference. One that I should have discovered when I was trying it out in the store, I guess.

Everything else about the pen is pretty cool. I like the finish a lot, and it seems like it will stand up over time. I won't have to worry about the finish scratching off, as would have been likely with the black finish. One odd thing about the finish is that it creates an optical illusion at the intersection of the cap and barrel that makes it look like each side dips down toward their junction. At least, I think it's an optical illusion. Maybe that's really the way the pieces are machined. I couldn't get that effect to show up in a photo, though.

I find the finish very aesthetically pleasing, and especially like how it is complimented by the shiny chrome clip. The clip on the Studio seems to have gotten all the attention from pen aficionados. It's essentially a 90 degree twist of the clip as you go from top to bottom:

A few views of the infamous Studio clip

Lamy's website describes the clip as "reminiscent of modern sculpture,"while others have refereed to it as propeller-shaped. (I can see the reason for the latter description, but it's not technically accurate; I don't think you could generate any lift with a propeller designed along the lines of the Studio clip.) For a long time, I thought people made too much fuss over the shape of the clip, but when I saw the pen up close, it really did look pretty cool.

But it has its downsides. First, it does not appear to be spring loaded, so you might have to worry about it giving and bending away from the cap over time, leaving a gap between the clip and the cap. Second, the orientation of the clip makes for a very small surface area coming in contact with your pocket, so there's less friction to prevent slipping. Combined with the lack of spring tension, this makes the pen feel less than secure when it's in your breast pocket. (Not too much of an issue for me, as I usually carry my pens in a case.)

Posted cap leaves room
between barrel and cap

The ink refill performs well enough. It doesn't skip. It doesn't bleed like the ink in my Tombow rollerball does. The ink is not the blackest of blacks, but it's hardly alone among black inks in this regard.

The cap posts differently from almost any other pen I own. It is not a friction fit with the barrel. Instead, there is some form in the inside of the cap that clicks onto the very end of the barrel. There is actually a little space between the barrel and the edge of the cap when it is posted. If you write very fast or move your hand a lot, the cap will actually wiggle while posted. It wasn't noticeable enough to throw me off, though.

Bottom line: this rollerball is going on eBay, because I don't like the feel of writing with it. There are enough other cool things about the pen, though, that if it weren't for my inability to get used to the wide section, I'd probably like to own a Studio fountain pen.

As usual, more photos in the Flickr photo set for this review.

Review: Lamy Studio rollerball, stainless steel finish

Review: Levenger Bomber Jacket Unifier

I mildly (I think) bashed Levenger the other week for the inconsistency of its paper quality across various of its products, but I mentioned at the time that I am a happy owner of other Levenger products. This is one of them, and my most recently acquired: the Levenger Bomber Jacket Unifier:

My stocked unifier, with my rocker blotter in its assigned spot just in front

I've had my eye on one of these for quite some time, but they're a little pricey: $155. So, I kept my eyes peeled at the Levenger outlet on eBay and picked this one up for about half retail, and I'm quite pleased with the purchase.

It really lives up to its name (unless you're expecting a product that unifies your bomber jackets): almost everything I use in the way of stationery each day is now "unified" in one spot. I love having a selection of papers to choose from every time I have to jot something down and knowing exactly where to find it.

And, it's managed to do something for me that most people who know me might have thought impossible. It actually makes me look organized, at least in one little corner of my desk. (I moved it to the conference room to take these pictures; my desk is NOT this clean.) I'm hoping that its organizational aura will radiate out from it and get the rest of my desk squared away. So far (about two weeks in), though, that hasn't happened.

Even without that effect, though, it helps. I no longer have to look through drawers or under stacks of paper on my desk to find my pens, notebooks or pads. Not only are they all in one spot, but they stay that way because I like the product so much that I always put the pens and pads back! I've written before about how nicer products have this effect on me, so maybe I should consider an entire desk made of bomber jacket leather  . . . maybe bomber jacket wallpaper, flooring, and upholstery for complete office organization. (Geez, what would that cost?)

The unifier holds quite a bit. In the picture above, it's holding:

• front left compartment:six  fountain pens, a rollerball pen, and a Sharpie marker;
• front middle compartment: six large highlighters and five slim highlighters;
• front right compartment: two Rhodia no. 12 pads, a Staples mini legal pad, and a pocket Rhodia Unlimited notebook (with a Zebra Mini T3 ball point pen stuck in it);
• in the center compartment: a hundred or so 4 x 6 cards, a Levenger junior notepad, and a Rhodia no. 16 pad;
• in the back compartment: an extra large Moleskine Cahier notebook, a Levenger letter-sized pad, and a Rhodia no. 18 pad. 

And it really isn't even a tight fit:

Heavily stocked, with room to spare

I know the front right compartment might look a little stuffed, even in this closeup:

But it's not. Every one of those items slides out quite easily.

In case you really need to plan what you can put in this, here are the inside dimensions of the compartments. The two large back compartments are each about 11-7/8 inches end to end, and 1-1/2 inches front-to-back. The front compartments are likewise about 1-1/2 inches front-to-back, but vary in their other dimension. The two outside compartments are 3-34 inches wide, but the center compartment is only 3-1/2 inches wide.

The unifier arrives with two removable foam inserts -- one in each outside front compartment -- each with 8 pre-cut holes for keeping your pens upright. I really like the way the foam insert keeps my pens apart and safe from banging into each other and getting scratched:




As you can see from some of the above photos, I opted to remove one of the inserts and use the right front compartment for small pads instead.

Some of my fatter pens tend to bring the insert along a little way when I try to remove them because they are a snug fit, but I suspect that will decrease and eventually end as the insert gets broken in. If it really bothers you, you can stick to thinner pens or glue the insert in, I suppose. You could also move the insert to the slightly smaller front middle compartment. I tried it, and the tighter fit kept the insert firmly in place even when removing my fattest pen, despite the fact that the fit of the pen is necessarily tighter, too.

I have just one beef with the product, and that is the color. I still like it, it just doesn't match my expectations. The bomber jacket leather is a darker brown than it appears from the catalog or online photos. (On my monitor, the leather looks truer to its actual color in my photos than in the catalog or online photos.) When I first opened the box, the leather looked almost black but I'm sure that was my mind overreacting to the difference between the actual color and my expectations. After a few weeks, it now looks brown to me, just a much darker brown than the catalog would suggest. That might vary from lot to lot, but keep it in mind if you're trying to coordinate with other desk accessories (or trying to match some pens in your collection . . . but no one would do something that ridiculous . . . then again . . . hmmmm . . . note to self . . .).

So, am I happy with it? You bet! I'd probably be happy with it at full price, too, but it probably would have taken a few years for me to talk myself into spending the money.

Which brings to mind a side comment on Levenger's prices. I used to think they were ridiculously expensive. Then I started looking at Filofax and Franklin Covey leather goods, as well as products form other leather products vendors, and realized that a lot of Levenger's prices are not out of whack after all. I would include this product as one that strikes me as reasonably priced.

More photos in the Flickr Photo Set.

Review: Levenger Bomber Jacket Unifier

An unexpected Christmas pen!

In the spring of 2010, just as my pen addiction was kicking in, I was showing my wife's Uncle Bryan (whom I see only once every year or two) the extent of my collection. If I recall correctly, at the time I owned only two fountain pens: a charcoal gray Lamy Safari and a Pelikan P55 Future. Might have been a Lamy AL-Star in there, but I can't remember.

He was interested because he is an artist (pretty darn good, too), and he tried sketching with one or two of my pens.

Anyway, this year we got a Christmas package from Uncle Bryan, which included a cigar-shaped object wrapped in brown paper with a note to me that read, "I bought this pen about 30 years ago. Enjoy." Perhaps, I thought, it's a pen he experimented with in his art way back when he bought it.

So, I opened it, and . . . it's a Mont Blanc Meisterstuck 149. Whoa.

It's a little worse for wear -- there are stains on the star at the end of the cap, and there is a dimple in the resin of the cap. There's some brown residue at the base of the nib. But it otherwise looks like it just needs a little cleaning and buffing.

There is an "M" engraved in the star in the nib, which I presume means it's a medium. To my untrained eye and hand, the nib seems to be either a stub or cursive italic, with a slight right-foot oblique (or merely mis-aligned tines):

I'll be shipping this pen off to a restorer pronto, but I couldn't resist taking the nib for a spin first, so I dipped it in Noodler's Red-Black, and later filled it with Noodler's Purple Martin, and here's what I got on some Clairefontaine Triomphe:

Whatever it is, it's very broad and gushes like a fire hose. I did get some line variation, but maybe that's just misalignment of the tines. I took it to work today, and the first time I unscrewed the cap and gripped the pen to write with it, my fingers were covered, but the ink did not resemble Purple Martin. Instead, it was the color of the brown residue at the base of the nib.

I suppose I should get it restored to ship-shape condition and try it again before I decide whether I want a nibmeister to put a new grind on it it. Might make a good signature pen once the nib is adjusted. (I know, using it for signatures seems like a waste, but medium is about as wide as I go with everyday writers, and this writes much larger than a medium.)

While I'm eager to get it in shape, I hate parting with it so soon after receiving it. Perhaps there are a few more dips in store before I ship it off.

Thanks, Uncle Bryan!

An unexpected Christmas pen!

From GTD to ZTD

When I started this blog, I wanted to include posts about implementing David Allen's "Getting Things Done" system for managing tasks. I have tried that several times over the years, always running into obstacles but I thought, this time, for sure.

Something just wasn't gelling. So, I downloaded Leo Babauta's "Zen to Done" eBook. Best $10 I have spent in a long time.

In ZTD, Babauta goes through some of the reasons that GTD doesn't work for some people, and I found myself saying "Yes!" over and over again as I read through those issues. ZTD doesn't trash GTD. In fact, Babauta admires it and incorporates a lot of it, but at the same time offers suggested modifications — simplifications, really — that make GTD more user-friendly for people who have run into trouble implementing it.

At least, in theory. It remains to be seen whether I find it any more user-friendly in practice.

You can read Babauta's synopsis of ZTD at his blog.

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• Review: Leo Babauta's Ebook "Zen to Done" - Stepcase Lifehack (lifehack.org)

From GTD to ZTD

A Levenger Paper Summary and Semi-Rant

I have a beef with Levenger. I don't write this post out of frustration, though. Not entirely, anyway. It's just that I've tried out quite a few Levenger papers, intending to review them all — and I will, eventually — but I thought it would be helpful for folks to see a summary of my experiences in one post. Think of it as a bunch of mini-reviews rolled up into a single post.

Levenger does a wonderful job of describing their paper products (all of their products, actually). A photograph of a paper tablet won't inspire desire in a lot of people, but the description of the paper's luxurious feel, fountain pen friendliness, and sturdy weight . . . well, that will get the hearts of me and a lot of my readers racing.

Levenger generally describes their various papers quite similarly in these regards, and while they all feel great and are indeed sturdy — I love how thick their papers are — they have proven to be incredibly inconsistent in performance and even appearance.

Generally, here's what I've found (with fountain pens only — I haven't tried other pens):

White Pads. Most nibs wrote smoothly, but the paper tend to absorb ink, resulting in severe bleedthrough and nibs tending to write broader lines than on other papers, but without the ink actually feathering much. As I wrote in my review (which, technically was of some discontinued pads that may differ from the current Freeleaf variety), for the limited uses I had for the pads, I could live with the bleedthrough, so that performance deficit was outweighed by the smooth writing experience.

Multicolored Freeleaf Pads and Multicolor Notebooks. Great, heavy paper. But I don't like writing on these at all. The paper is smooth, but performance otherwise varies a lot by the color of the paper. Sometimes, the paper repels the ink so much it looks like I've tried writing on wax paper; the ink doesn't so much skip as bead up and bubble.

Circa Paper. Horrible bleedthrough with a variety of inks when using fountain pens. (Not the Rhodia refills, of course).

Wired Notebook Full Page Ruled. This one is a standout. The white paper has great weight, smooth feel, great performance. No bleedthrough even with heavily saturated inks delivered through juicy nibs. This is awesome paper.

Desk Journal Refills. This is what I use for my journal (if you can call six entries in as many months a "journal"). I love it. Very heavy paper, no bleeding, no problem at all writing on both sides no matter what ink I use.

Notabilia Notebook. This probably has the most luxuriously smooth feel of the products I've mentioned in this post. It is a pleasure to write on, with great resistance to bleeding. So soft to the touch, but not up there with the R by Rhodia line.

In short: when its good, it's great; when its not great, it's pretty bad. There is very little in between. I am a very happy owner of some Levenger leather products and some pens, and I know Levenger is generally a stickler for quality control. So I just can't figure out why their paper is all over the place.

A Levenger Paper Summary and Semi-Rant

The Rhodia premium notepad winner is . . .

. . . IvanR, who happens to have a cool Flickr photostream if you're a pen-and-paper enthusiast. Congrats, Ivan.

The Rhodia premium notepad winner is . . .