The Well-Appointed Desk

Review by Tina Koyama

The latest entries in the pocket notebook field are from Notegeist Bindery. Notegeist itself has been around for a while as a purveyor of carefully curated notebooks, pencils and other stationery items. Most recently, owner Gary Varner has added his own line of handmade notebooks and memo pads, including Everydays, Jotters and specialty refills for Traveler’s covers (stayed tuned for a review of Jotters and Traveler’s). Very limited editions are occasionally offered, too, with unusual papers or unique cover designs.

Available in a variety of design themes, Everydays (3 for $12.95) come in the popular 3 ½-by-5 ½ -inch “Field Notes” size. Gary sent me Modern Believe and Vintage Lace, shown here. The Vintage notebooks have slightly heavier covers that are blank on the inside, while the Moderns are printed on both sides with coordinating patterns. All four corners are rounded, which is a nice touch (most pocket-sized notebooks are rounded only on two corners).

Distinctive to the Notegeist line is the paper: 48 pages of fountain-pen-friendly 70 gsm Maruman Basic, a Japanese paper. The Modern books are dot-grid ruled; the Vintage are graph ruled.

I tested the smooth Maruman paper with my usual range of pencils and pens, and I saw no bleeding or ghosting with even my juicy Pentel brush pen or Sailor Fude de Mannen fountain pen with Platinum Carbon Black ink. With graphite, I prefer a little more tooth, but the paper is pleasant enough with a super-soft 8B pencil.

Fountain pen users don’t have too many options in an everyday-carry notebook with dependable paper at a reasonable price, so it’s refreshing to see Notegeist Bindery’s offers. If you want a chance to get one of Gary’s very-limited-edition notebooks, better get on his mailing list – they sold out pronto last time. And if attending a pen show is in your future, you might meet Gary there with his wares.

Giveaway: Want to try a sample pack of Notegeist Everydays? We’re giving away one each of a Modern and a Vintage notebook to two Desk readers, and we’ll toss in some stickers and a cute pencil, too. (Miatagrrl might toss in some of her stickers, too. )

TO ENTER: Leave a comment below and tell us which products over at Notegeist.com are your favorite? Play along and type in something. It makes reading through entries more interesting for me, okay? One entry per person.

If you have never entered a giveaway or commented on the site before, your comment must be manually approved by our highly-trained staff of monkeys before it will appear on the site. Our monkeys are underpaid and under-caffeinated so don’t stress if your comment does not appear right away. Give the monkeys some time.

FINE PRINT: All entries must be submitted by 10pm CST on Tuesday, October 15, 2024. All entries must be submitted at wellappointeddesk.com, not Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook, okay? Winners will be announced on Wednesday. Winner will be selected by random number generator from entries that played by the rules (see above). Please include your actual email address in the comment form so that I can contact you if you win. I will not save email addresses or sell them to anyone — pinky swear. If winner does not respond within 5 days, I will draw a new giveaway winner. Shipping via USPS first class is covered. Additional shipping options or insurance will have to be paid by the winner. We are generous but we’re not made of money. US and APO/AFO only, sorry.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Notegeist for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.

In Link Love

Link Love: Jacques Cousteau — no! Herbin!

AnaOctober 9, 2024October 8, 2024Leave a comment

Jacques Herbin ink is making waves this week. Inky waves! (That’s supposed to be a Jacques Cousteau joke — just roll with it.) Check out the multiple reviews below.

Hope everyone is having a great week. Be safe, Florida. Hope the Carolinas get water and power soon. And I hope the rest of the US gets cooler temps and lots of PSLs. The rest of the world, be safe, happy and inky!

This is just my ongoing plea to consider joining our Patreon. I’m keeping it short this week. We do cool stuff, get good deals and bonus extras. If you are already a Patron, thank you!

In Planners & Organizers, video

More Plan With Me for October!

AnaOctober 8, 2024October 8, 20242 Comments

I recorded my planner set-up video for the remainder of October. Its a lengthy video so add it to your “watch later” list and get your snacks, tea and planner ready and join me for some spooky planner set-up.

If you want to keep up with our more regular video content, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so the content will appear in your feed!

A full pen review will be posted tomorrow, after I clean up the tragic ink accident:

In Pen Review

Pen Review: Sailor Hocoro Dip Pens

AnaOctober 7, 2024October 7, 20248 Comments

I love any new options for ink swatching and ink tasting so when I discovered the Sailor Compass Hocoro dip pens, I leaped at the chance to try them.

There are several versions available of the Hocoro dip pens. The pens can be purchased in a set with a bottle of the Sailor Dipton calligraphy ink (no safe for fountain pens, $29 per set) or just a pen-only package ($16 each).

The back of the packaging shows the fude nib writing angle.

The dip pens can be purchased in a white plastic or a dark grey plastic — or in the set in clear or purchase the individual pen barrel ($8) in clear. Then, each color is also available in fine, medium, 1.0mm, 2.0mm, and fude (bent tip, brush style). Then the last variable is that not all the nib styles come with a feed unit. The models with a feed unit are the 2.0mm and Fude. Feed unit reservoirs ($4 each) can be purchased separately and added to any nibs that don’t have them but it seems like a strange decision to include the feed with some and not others.

Nibs popped out and ready to click into place for use.

Nibs flipped and clicked into the barrels for travel and transport.

The coolest feature is that the nib unit pops out and can be stored back into the barrel by flipping it over and snapping it into the barrel for travel and to protect the nib unit.

The first one I got was the 1.0mm model which does not include the additional feed unit. Then at the Dallas Pen Show, I picked up the Fude dip pen which did include a feed.

I was able to draw the arrow, write “one dip” and 3-ish lines before the nib needed to be re-dipped.

I experimented with the 1.0mm model a bit prior to getting the Fude model and was super disappointed because the 1.0mm without the feed did not hold ink well. If would either bloop out or run out of ink within a few letters. I even tried annealing (heating the nib with fire to remove excess oils) the nib to get the ink to “stick” better to the nib. It didn’t help.

I decided to go ahead and get the Fude with the feed unit to see if I liked it better. Oh, hell yes! The feed holds a massive amount of ink and did not have the same blooping issues I had with the 1.0mm.

Side view of both Fude and 1.0mm to show how the feed reservoir looks attached.

The back view of Fude and 1.0mm nibs from the underside.

I was able to write “one dip” and all the lines, squiggles and such and STILL didn’t need to redip. The feed is excellent!

The Fude, which is a bent tip-style nib, mimics the properties of a brush by creating varying line widths depending on the angle you hold the nib. If held at a lower angle (60º to 45º to the writing surface), the line widths are much wider and held at a higher angle (more at a 90º angle to the paper) the nib will write with a finer line.

Honestly, the feed on the Hocoro was a game changer. I had been quite disappointed in the 1.0mm model but I have now purchased a few additional feeds in order to plus-up my 1.0mm version and see if that improves that dip pen. In the meantime, I highly recommend picking up one of the Fude dip pens. The feed is great and the line variation is super handy for ink testing.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Dromgoole’s for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In feature

Using a Traveler’s Notebook as a Wallet

AnaOctober 4, 2024October 4, 20245 Comments

At the Dallas Pen Show, I spoke with a lot of people about my Traveler’s Notebook Passport size ($45) as a wallet. I was so sure I’d posted about this use/hack in the past but after some fruitless searching, it appears I’ve been keeping this little hack to myself.

I have had the Passport size Traveler’s for years and wasn’t really using it so when I came across the Traveler’s Company canvas wallet insert (not currently available but I have some other options listed below), I decided to give it a shot.

Along with the canvas insert (comparable stye for $31.90 on Etsy), I added a kraft envelope ($5.50), plastic sleeve ($7.50 on Etsy) for additional cards and a lightweight paper insert ($5.50) to finalize the items I needed for a do-it-all wallet. If the canvas insert is unavailable there are other options available if you search Etsy for Traveler’s Wallet Insert.

I use the canvas insert to hold my driver’s license and my bank card and the zipper pouch to hold any cash or quarters for my Aldi shopping. The kraft envelope is where I slip receipts and my health insurance cards.

The notebook is for lists, phone numbers, and “oooh, I can’t forget that”.

I slide a mini pen along the spine and Voila! — a super nice wallet made from an unused Traveler’s notebook cover. Hope this little hack might be useful. I find this to be the perfect wallet set-up for me and I think its a bnus that, to most people, it looks like a notebook and not a wallet.

In feature, Fountain Pen Review, Ink Review

Retro 51 Blue Black Fountain Pen & Ink

Jessica ColesOctober 3, 2024January 8, 20254 Comments

I just returned from the Dallas pen show – a marathon show if there ever was one! This show was open on Friday from 10am to 8pm! It was a blast, though, seeing so many people passionate about the hobby.

At the show, I worked for the Dromgooles. They stake out a large corner of the Dallas show (since the store is only 3.5 hours away) and that includes tables for many other vendors, one of which is Retro 51. They has some amazing new pens (like Fraggle Rock and a new Dromgooles exclusive – Wrangler) but I was more interested in their new project – ink!

Retro 51 is planning a few exclusive inks to match their Midnight pen series. At the moment they have released a single ink in the line- Blue Black – to match their Midnight Blue fountain pen and roller ball.

So the Retro 51 table was one of the first places I visited to see about this new ink. I was told that any ink review with their new ink wouldn’t be complete without showing it off alongside the new Midnight Blue fountain pen, however.

The Midnight Blue fountain pen has the same dimensions as other Retro 51 fountain pens – 5.4 inches long when capped and 5 inches long when uncapped, 1/2 inch in diameter, weighs in at 34g when capped and 20g uncapped.

The big difference isn’t the standard dimensions – it’s the trim. This series – the Stealth Lacquer series – all have a dark lacquer finish and black trim including a black nib. The engraved “51” stands out even better against the dark finish.

So blue black ink is a great match to this blue black stealth pen!

The blue black is a dark ink, especially in writing. I have seen some shading in writing and there is a red sheen – one that isn’t overpowering and doesn’t smear like super sheening inks. The sheen is more subtle but still shows up in writing on fountain pen friendly paper.

Retro 51’s Blue Black ink holds up well in a strong line up of well-known blue and blue-black inks on the market including Bungubox First Love Sapphire (an ink that was created to replicate Parker Penman Sapphire) and Diamine Majestic Blue.

While we don’t yet have a price on Retro 51’s Blue Black ink and do not yet have a way for you to purchase the ink, keep an eye out with any retailer who carries Retro 51 pens at this time. I will update the blog when this does happen along with a longer review on the usability of Blue Black – I was excited to get the information out to everyone about it as soon as I could!

The Midnight Blue fountain pen is priced at $100 with your choice of nib size.

Which Stealth Lacquer pen are you most excited to see in person?

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.