Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway for the Caran D’Ache 849 Claim Your Style Ballpoint Pen. We loved hearing all about your favorite ballpoints – lots of new things to try!
The random generator has spoken and our winner is Jeremiah! Congratulations and we hope you enjoy your new pen!
Originally, my plan was too include THREE different Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks in one post but it was going to be way too much for one post. So, this will be part two of three. Part 1 & 2 are available here.
The last in our Leuchtturm 1917 “other notebooks” series is the new 120gsm version of the classic A5 notebook ($24.50USD). If you’ve been looking for notebooks or Bullet Journals on Amazon or other online shops in the past year or so, you may have noticed a lot of people making or promoting 100gsm or 120gsm paper notebooks. The appeal of this thicker, heavier paper is less showthrough when using markers and other decorative pen tools. the question, however, is how do these papers work with fountain pens?
I was wiling to try out the new Leuchtturm 1917 with 120gsm paper over a lesser known brand found on Amazon. For one, I suspect that the paper quality will remain more consistent over time over a lesser known product. Also, Leuchtturm 1917 is often easy to find in bookstores and larger brick-and-mortar stores.
Overall, the 120gsm Edition of the Leuchtturm1917 features everything we have come to love about their products: two ribbon bookmarks, elastic closure, gusseted back pocket, archiving stickers, and an array of promotional booklets about the history of the brand and its users. It lays flat easily and the overall cream color and pale grey dots are consistent with the standard Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks.
A couple notable differences, the 120gsm books are thicker but have fewer pages (203 pages compared to 251 in regular A5 Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks) and there are no perforated pages in the back of the book. In the photo at the top of the review, the 120gsm notebook is pictured in the middle of the stack to see the variation in thickness of the notebooks.
(Once again, the beautiful creamy ivory paper photographed terribly — please forgive me and my camera, we might be breaking up soon!)
But let’s talk about the most important aspect of the 120gsm Edition Notebooks: the paper performance.
Most notably, the paper is the smoothest of any of the Leuchtturm paper I’ve used thus far. I would say its almost comparable to Rhodia in terms of smoothness. That’s both a plus and a minus. I sometimes find Rhodia paper to be glass-like so consider yourself warned f you like toothier paper.
There was also no show through or bleed through of any of the pens I tested. I certainly could have pushed the boundaries with a Sharpie marker and gotten some bleed through potentially but in daily use, with an array of pens most people would use in a Bullet Journal or Commonplace book, I had no issues.
As you can see on the reverse, you could easily utilize both sides of the paper without the distraction of show through. Huge bonus, IMHO.
So, thus far, besides the tried-and-true Leuchtturm 1917 standard notebook, I recommend this new 120gsm version. Particularly to fountain pen users, I think the smoothness and thicker paper will be much appreciated. I didn’t fully test the paper for ink color fidelity — potential for sheen and the like, since the creamier color might affect ink color accuracy anyway.
Just having a reasonably priced, readily available notebook that can stand up against fountain pens, brush pens and other BuJo supplies and survive is enough for me. Add to that number pages, light-enough but visible-enough dot grid, index pages, elastic closure, two ribbon bookmarks and a gusset pock in the back and I’m hard pressed to have any complaints.
DISCLAIMER: Some items included in this review were purchased with funds from our amazing Patrons. You can help support this blog by joining our Patreon. Please see the About page for more details.
Originally, my plan was too include THREE different Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks in one post but it was going to be way too much for one post. So, this will be part two of three. Part 1 is available here.
The Leuchtturm 1917 100 Years Bauhaus Edition (A5-sized, $25.95) is available in the appropriately primary colors of Red, Yellow, and Blue as well as Black. Each edition features different colored edge painting and printed dots inside.
The cover features a quote from Vasily Kandinsky, former deputy director of the Bauhaus, “Everything begins with a dot” which I find inspiring.
I purchased the Black edition which featured blue edge painting and blue printed dots on the pages. It is a little unclear if the Yellow cover with black edge painting has yellow dots or black dots, either might be challenging to use. Leuchtturm 1917 had previously released a Red Dots Edition so the Blue cover with red dots is an option available elsewhere in their product line. If anyone has purchased the Yellow cover, let me know in the comments if the interior is black or yellow dots.
The photo above, showing the blue edge painting on the pages and the two ribbon bookmarks also most accurately show the color of the standard Leuchtturm 1917 paper. I don’t understand how or why, even in my studio, the subtly of color of the Leuchtturm 1917 ivory paper is so hard to capture accurately. The photos that follow are considerably too yellow to be considered color accurate but the photos do show the behavior of the inks on the paper which I deemed as important as capturing the paper color.
The Bauhaus Edition notebooks have all the same features as the traditional Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks: two ribbon bookmarks, gusseted pocket and perforated pages in the back, elastic closure, archiving stickers and promotional pamphlets inside. The sewn binding can easily be opened to lay flat and the numbered pages and index in the front of the notebook make it easy to use for bullet journaling or just general organization.
The paper quality is good. It’s a bit toothy and a warm ivory color. Unlike the Whitelines Link notebook, I had minimal issues with showthrough or bleedthrough with average use. The color fidelity is more consistent with the results I’ve had on other non-Tomoe paper. Shading in the fountain pen inks is visible.
There was no real issue with other water-based pens or pencils on the standard Leuchtturm 1917 paper. My only issue was with the blue dots. They are a bit darker than I would have expected them to be especially when compared with the light grey dots on regular Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks. If you regularly use Rhodia dot paper or ruled, it might not be bothersome to you as they seem to be similar in brightness but if you prefer your dot grid to be light and nearly un-noticable, then the blue dots might be as distracting to you as they were to me.
Overall, I still feel that the Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks (be they standard or special editions like the Bauhaus edition) are good products. They are a step up from Moleskine in terms of ink handling and they are well constructed. They feel durable and provide a good middle ground between the wafer-thin Tomoe notebooks (often with astronomical numbers of pages) and thick, chunky 120gsm or thicker notebooks — both of which can feel like a considerable commitment to your notebook life. If you are looking for a “gateway drug” notebook for a new pen fan or you want a quality notebook for everyday notes, Leuchtturm 1917 really is the best standard to choose. Now, if they would just offer more B6-sized notebooks, I would be a very happy pen nerd.
DISCLAIMER: Some items included in this review were purchased with funds from our amazing Patrons. You can help support this blog by joining our Patreon. Please see the About page for more details.
Two weeks ago I started a multi-part review of Monarca inks – you can read part one here. Today’s review was delayed a week by the newest Sailor inks – they are quite distracting. But now I will continue on with part 2 of the Monarca inks and show Arena Blanca, Nopal, and Manglar.
These inks are still a bit hard to find although I have been assured that more retailers will be carrying Monarca but the ink has not yet arrived. In the meantime, you can find this ink at Dromgoole’s.
The first ink today is Arena Blanca. This is a strange color, somewhere between brown, orange, and gold. Arena Blanca shades beautifully and in large swatches, it shows a peach halo. I didn’t have a great match for it. Krishna Oak is close in color but can’t compare in the shading category.
Nopal is a pleasant yellowish-green – a medium avocado green that shades from light green to very dark, almost black, at its darkest. This darkest green shows up as a halo when writing as well.
The third ink today is Manglar. This one is a bit wetter in writing, as seen with a few blobbish letters from my dip pen. The closest color I had was Robert Oster Graphite – Manglar isn’t quite green and isn’t quite gray. The shading is beautiful, however. It reminds me of storm clouds in Kansas – the kind that could turn into a tornado at any minute! This is a perfect office ink that is still interesting enough to be fun.
And here we have all three inks together! They are strange colors to be in the first round from a new brand, but I do find them a refreshing change from the normal first colors. The three I’ve shown here today are wonderfully earthy and all amazing shaders.
These are the same photos from Part 1 on Tomoe River (top) and Cosmo Air Light (bottom) papers. I love how Arena Blanca changes between the two paper types. I love finding inks that surprise me every time I write.
Don’t forget that each bottle of Monarca is accompanied by a holder for the ink complete with a cutout for a pen rest!
The cost of Monarca inks varies from $20 to $29 for 30mL (and a pen rest), bringing the ink to $0.67 to $1 per mL. While still not as expensive as some specialty inks, the price is on the higher end. However, the color and quality of the ink will not disappoint!
DISCLAIMER: The ink included in this review was provided free of charge for the purpose of review. Some items were purchased with funds from our amazing Patrons. You can help support this blog by joining our Patreon. Please see the About page for more details.
Yesterday, the US Senate passed (by unanimous vote) The Sunshine Protection Act which would mean the US would stay on Daylight Saving Time FOREVER. While there are debates on whether Standard Time or DST is preferable, we all seem to agree that changing times twice a year is exhausting. As to whether you would have preferred Standard Time over DST at least now, as our good friend Julia said, “We don’t have to suffer jetlag twice a year without ever leaving our homes”.
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This week I tried a new to me craft: embroidery. While I stitched on the Positive Plants kit from MCreativeJ ($31) my eye was one again drawn to my Col-o-Dex and all the ink colors it contains.
This was was downright easy:
C’mon spring!
Originally, my plan was too include THREE different Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks in one post but it was going to be way too much for one post. So, this will be part one of three.
Most pen enthusiasts are familiar with Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks. Leuchtturm 1917 is often considered the step-up from a Moleskine and a favorite with Bullet Journalers since the light dot grid lends itself to building page spreads. What might be surprising is that there are other options available from Leuchtturm other than the standard (AKA classic) paper/dot design. Of course, Leuchtturm offers lined and blank papers as well as their beloved dot grid and they even have a sketchbook option now. But I’m not covering those in this series. No, I am going to be talking about the Whitelines notebooks, the Bauhaus Edition and the new 120gsm editions.
To start, I am going to review the Leuchtturm 1917 Whitelines Link edition (A6 Pocket, $13.46USD). Whitelines Link was originally created to be Leuchtturm’s answer to an analog-digital solution, the paper is pale grey with white dots. While the notebook came with instructions for using the digital syncing options, I was more interested in the potential of the subtle grey paper with white dots.
The Whitelines Link notebook comes with all the same features that other Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks feature: back gusseted pocket, ribbon bookmark with finished ends, stickers to use for archiving your notebook, elastic band, perforated pages in the back and assorted promotional sheets. The A6-sized notebook only had one bookmark compared with the two ribbon bookmarks included in the A5-sized notebooks.
In the corners of the pages are QR-style icons which help to align and square pages when scanning or photographing them to use with a digital app like Dropbox or Evernote.
The notebook came with a booklet explaining the process and development of the analog-to-digital system.
But like I said earlier, I was more interested in the paper and the grey with white dots design and how it might perform in a strictly analog method.
The short answer to this question is: not well. What I didn’t realize was that the process for making the paper grey was to print the entire sheet and leave the white of the paper exposed. As a result, there is an inky coating over the whole page. Most printing inks are oil- or plastic-based making water-based inks like fountain pen and rollerball inks resist the surface.
(Think or those drawings you might have done as a kid where you drew with crayon and then went over the page with a watercolor paint. Same theory applies here except the whole page is covered with a waxy film.)
The paper seems to also be a slightly different texture to the standard Leuchtturm paper or the process of printing on the entirety of each sheet altered the paper. Fountain pen inks bled and showed through in ways I haven’t experienced before with Leuchtturm.
In testing other non-fountain pens, some of that some resist behavior I experienced with the fountain pens was apparent with felt tip and brush pens. I also had a run of dead or dried up pens. Honestly, I started to wonder if this post was cursed!
There was less showthrough and bleedthrough with the non-fountain pens which was somewhat heartening. Because of the toothier quality of the paper, pencils performed particularly well and, of course, if you prefer a ballpoint pen, this paper would be just fine.
I extended my fountain pen tests to verify that the results were not specific to one particular ink. There is clearly evidence of the ink resisting the paper and makes the ink look lighter, and kind of blotted. I can;t think of any other way to describe the subtle voids in the strokes.
Further non-fountain pen tests revealed that most water-based inks like rollerball pens could bleedthrough.
All-in-all, I would not recommend the Whitelines Link to fountain pen enthusiasts. Even if you are looking for a method to digitize your notebooks, I believe there is probably other methods that can be used that would allow use of good paper and pens and STILL be able to digitize your notebooks. This initial foray into the Leuchtturm 1917 “other notebooks” was a huge disappointment. I’m glad I didn’t invest in the larger, more expensive A5 version of the Whitelines Link. Let’s hope Part 2 & 3 of this review series will be a little brighter.
DISCLAIMER: Some items featured in this review were purchased with funds from our amazing Patrons. You can help support this blog by joining our Patreon. Please see the About page for more details.
