Ink Review: De Atramentis Pigeon Blue

March 27, 2015 by Lori Beck in Ink Review

De Atramentis Pigeon Blue Goulet Ink Drop - March 2015
Pen: Lamy Safari EF
Paper: Rhodia Dotpad 80gsm

I received my first batch of Goulet Pens' Ink Drop samples about a week ago. The theme is Birds of a Feather, and the first ink in the list was De Atramentis Pigeon Blue.

De Atramentis is handmade in Germany by Dr. Franz Josef Jansen. They carry quite an array of colors and ink properties - one of their most well-known lines is their Document Inks. They also carry some really cool scented inks which is something you don't see often amongst ink retailers.

This is my first experience with De Atramentis ink, and I have to say that I am really liking it so far. I'm not typically a blue ink person - especially royal blues - but Pigeon Blue is more of a dark turquoise with a tiny hint of some grey overtones here and there. Shading is moderate, though not crazy. Feathering is non-existent and there is no ghosting or bleedthrough on the Rhodia pad. I could definitely see myself using this on occasion.

Keep an eye out for the other 4 ink reviews this week from the March 2015 Ink Drop!

De Atramentis Pigeon Blue is $12.50 for 35ml from Goulet Pens

Review: Nock Co. Dot Dash Notebook & Lookout Case

March 25, 2015 by Lori Beck in Paper Review

Thanks to a friend and fellow pen lover, I recently discovered the Pen Addict Podcast, and it has become my favorite thing EVER. In less than a month, I have trucked through 109 episodes and counting, and am going to be really sad when I catch up because I'll have to wait a week between episodes. If you're familiar with The Pen Addict and the podcast, you'll know that Brad Dowdy is THE Pen Addict himself, and he recently started his own business with friend Jeffrey Bruckwicki selling awesome pen cases and accessories.

When I discovered Nock Co. I was immediately impressed with what Brad and Jeff had accomplished. Their kickstarter campaign was funded for over $70,000 more than their goal, and they have since launched a successful online storefront. Each of their pen cases are made in Atlanta, GA and are named for the various mountains throughout Georgia.

I knew I wanted to get a 3-pen Lookout case in the Steel/Mango colorway. Unfortunately when I went to place my order they were out of stock. I headed over to Twitter and asked when they were expecting them, and Nock immediately responded that they were loading up the machines with grey material and to check back at the end of the week. A few days later I placed my order, and went ahead and added a 3 pack of their dot-dash pocket notebooks to try out.

When I received my case, I was impressed by the craftsmanship - the sewing was precise and the stitching between each pen sleeve is VERY stout. You'll never have to worry about this thing falling apart. The material is thick, durable, keeps your pens separated and protects them from damage - I'm certain that if i threw this case on the ground my $350 worth of pens would be completely protected.

In addition to my Lookout case, I received my 3 pack of the Nock Co. Dot Dash pocket notebooks. The super-bright yellow cover was pretty cool, though admittedly is not my favorite color in the world. I was intrigued by the dot dash pattern that Nock has created, and I'm actually really digging it. It pretty much combines my two favorite paper patterns, dot and grid. The pattern is subtle enough to not be obtrusive to your writing, but dark enough to give you a guide to keep your lines straight.

Much like Field Notes, I expected the Dot Dash notebook to not be super fountain pen friendly. It is a 50lb paper, so you do get some feathering, though I was actually surprised that not all my inks feathered on this paper - so not all is lost; it is definitely still usable. In all honesty, I wouldn't even call this feathering, it's more just a matter of the ink seeping into the paper due to it's thinness. You don't get the huge offshoots from your letters that you see with something like a Mead notebook, though your lines just don't look as crisp. I tested the 4 inks that I had loaded up at the time, Noodler's Dark Matter, R&K Alt-Goldgrun, Diamine Grey and Diamine Oxblood. Most of them did surprisingly well; Alt-Goldgrun soaked in the worst, but that Lamy 2000 is a VERY wet writing pen (I've actually sent it off to Pendelton Brown to address some scratchiness and the fact that it's overly wet - more on that to come!).

There was quite a bit of bleedthrough unfortunately, however for my own use case I won't be using the back side of the sheet, so it's not a huge a deal for me personally. Not everyone skips the back side of the page, so this may be a dealbreaker for some of you.

All in all, I love both products, especially the Lookout. I plan on using my Dot Dash books to jot down blog ideas on the go, make grocery lists, etc. It's a perfect size to just throw into your bag or purse. On their own these products are enough to make me love Nock Co., however I do have another story that I'd like to share.

When I received my Dot Dash books, they were in a shrink-wrapped pack of 3. When I opened it up, I noticed that the 2nd and 3rd books had some brown ink smeared on the cover just above the Nock "N." It really didn't bother me as I will definitely do more damage to these things over time than that. However, I wanted to email Brad and Jeff and let them know, just in case they needed to look into an issue with these being packaged before the ink dried. So I went over to their website and shot them a message letting them know it wasn't a big deal to me at all, and that I just wanted to make them aware. Within an hour, I had a response that just said "Fixed." I figured that meant they were aware of the issue and had corrected it on their end. Fast forward a couple of days later; I found a package in my mailbox from Nock Co. I was kind of puzzled because I had already received my stuff, so my first thought was they accidentally sent my order twice. I opened up the package and found 2 new Dot Dash notebooks and a handwritten note that read, "Lori, I hope these two are better. -Nock Co." This absolutely blew me away. The issue I had was so minor, but these guys took the time to drop a couple books in the mail to me along with a handwritten note - to me there is no better customer service than that. If their products didn't secure my future business (they did), then their customer service certainly did.

If that hasn't sold you on Nock Co., then I'll point out that these guys support world domination ;)

Seriously though, check out Nock Co., The Pen Addict and the Pen Addict Podcast. If you're a pen fan, you'll love all three!

Lookout 3 pen holster: $20, 6 colorways
DotDash pocket notebooks 3-pack: $9, 3.5" x 5.5"
Customer Service: Priceless

Review: Tomoe River Paper

March 24, 2015 by Lori Beck in Paper Review

Tomoe River paper has an awesome reputation in the fountain pen community. I'd been hearing about it for quite a while, but never really knew where to find it. When I saw that JetPens had a 3-page sample for $1, I couldn't pass up a chance to give it a try. Boy was I shocked when I opened it up and felt this paper...it is about as close to tracing paper as you could imagine. It's a bit "fragile" in that you could very easily crinkle or crease it if you're not careful.

The best thing about his stuff is that it handles fountain pens like a dream. You may as well be writing on Clairefontaine or Rhodia. With that of course comes the extra drying time...but who cares? This stuff is too cool. It's not super practical for daily driver use, but for correspondence you'll definitely impress. There is a Japanese daily planner that uses this paper (Hobonichi Techno) - I may just have to pick one of those up one day if I can commit myself to actually using a daily planner.

JetPens sells the 3-page sample for $1, or a 100-sheet packs for $14.75. They come in both A4 and A5 sizes.

Review: Maruman Mnemosyne Word Cards for Ink Swabs

March 21, 2015 by Lori Beck in Ink Review

As I got back into fountain pens, my ink obsession got quickly out of control. I plan on sharing inks with friends and family, and wanted to be able to show them the color without having to ink up the pen. I'd seen a couple other pen bloggers out there who use the Maruman Word Cards, so I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon since I've yet to find anything else that didn't require me to hand cut larger sheet to keep them portable.

Funny enough, these cards are not meant for ink swabs despite how well they work for that purpose. They're actually designed for memorization. "Mnemosyne" is the personification of memory in Greek mythology. When you open up the Word Cards, the first card is a bright yellow stock that reads "Mnemosyne; The ancient Greek goddess of memory," along with some Japanese writing that I wish I were able to translate. From what I understand, kids in Asia have to memorize a lot of different language characters, so these are used extensively over there.

As far as the cards themselves, there are 100 cards on a ring which opens allowing you to move them around and organize as you wish. The paper is a watercolor stock that is toothy and not smooth, and is fairly thick. Surprisingly, despite the thickness, the whole ring of cards weighs next to nothing. I was actually surprised to see how big they were when I received them. The pictures online would have you thinking they are a lot smaller -- in my head I thought they would be about 50% larger than the keychain reward cards that you keep on your keys; but they are in fact about 4"x2". They really are the perfect size for ink swabs.

The ink on these is pretty close to its color on regular paper. It tends to be a tiny bit duller than ink would appear on a Rhodia or Clairefontaine page as they're a bit more absorbent. Though, for my purposes - and likely most ink catalogers - they are just fine.

Pretty accurate representation of the ink color

Maruman makes a lot of other paper products that play well with fountain pens. I'm liking these so far for a quick glance to show someone an ink color, or to look back for my own reference, so I definitely recommend them. I picked mine up for $4.45 on JetPens.