The Well-Appointed Desk

Ink Review: Papier Plume Iron Lace (New Orleans Collection)

When Papier Plume sent me the newest edition to their New Orleans Collection of ink, Iron Lace ($10 for 30ml bottle), (“a not-so-basic black”, it says on the bottle), they included a note that it was a “subversive black alternative”. Yes, please.

Like all Papier Plume inks, the bottle is topped with the melted red wax and their fleur de lis stamp. The bottle is printed with graphics that represent the iron fences seen throughout New Orleans.

Papier Plume clearly decided that black was a little too humdrum so they decided to spice it up, like everything in New Orleans. They found their inspiration in their surroundings, the iron work fences that are so prevalent in New Orleans. Iron Lace lives up to its reputation as a black with a distinct green undertone like the black fences hint at the underlying metal or the moss and lichen that grow upon it.

Iron Lace is not so dark as to be a blackout black. It has some shading to it which gives it a lot of character. It’s not quite a grey ink but it’s not black-black. It’s a wonderful in-between.

I found some unusual inks to use for comparison with Iron Lace — some are grey but others are inks that fall into that “in-between” space. I would say that Robert Oster Graphite is probably the closest in color to Iron Lace though I don’t think it has quite as much shading. Penlux Charcoal is also similar but it is a little warmer in hue and doesn’t shade much either. Diamine Graphite is the same cool tone but is darker I think. Colorverse Vortex Motion is just an oddball being neither grey, nor blue, nor black, nor purple, nor green. Colorverse Anti-Matter is a purply grey-black and Kobe #46 is a bluish grey, almost black. These just show a range of not-so-black blacks.

(Shown above, top to bottom: Kobe #46, Colorverse Anti-Matter, Penlux Charcoal, Diamine Graphite, Colorverse Vortex Motion, Papier Plume Iron Lace and Robert Oster Graphite)

I had fun playing with the ink a little bit using a pipette. It feels appropriately fall-ish and ready for Halloween. In a wider nib pen, you are likely to some of the range of hues seen here. This makes Iron Lace entirely work appropriate while still being a little fun, a little… subversive.

Go ahead, break the rules… use a not-so-black black. I won’t tell.

Tools:

Paper: Rhodia Uni-Blank No. 16 with 6mm guide sheet
Pens: Tachikawa dip nib holder ($7.75) with Zebra G titanium nib ($33.50 per 10-pack), Acrylic dip nib pen (Approx. $15), Folded Nib ($44.85USD)
Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Book ($10) & Col-o-dex Rotary Cards ($15)
Ink: Papier Plume Iron Lace (New Orleans Collection) ($10 for 30ml bottle)

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

In Link Love

Link Love: Behind the Paper Curtain

AnaSeptember 30, 2020September 29, 20207 Comments

Behind the scenes here at Desk HQ, we cranked out about 700 Col-o-ring Ink Testing Books and are in production to make another 300+ Col-o-ring, 250 Col-o-dex and 250 Col-o-ring Oversize books. As a two-person production team, our focus has been filling back orders for our wholesale clients and getting them boxed and shipped out.

We’ve also been making (or in some cases, plotting) new products for the shop.

Some things we make are not cost effective to sell wholesale because they are too labor intensive. The Col-o-ring Dippers are a prime example. They require the same amount of labor as a full-sized Col-o-ring but we charge a fraction. So wholesaling them is just not feasible. As a result, we are trying to find ways to make the Dippers and some of our other products more easily available to non-US customers.

We think we may have found a way to do this. But it gets complicated. And requires maintaining two inventories. Let me explain…

Etsy is not my favorite venue for small makers. They charge a lot to list merchandise (0.20 per item plus transaction fees and an insistence on offering free US shipping and you don’t want to get me started about how SHIPPING IS NOT FREE!) and they have not been all that vigilant about keeping out a lot of larger manufacturers from flooding out the smaller makers. Anyway, the one upside to Etsy is that they do offer package forwarding for international (non-US) packages that greatly reduces shipping costs. This makes it worthwhile to list some of our US-only merch on Etsy for non-US customers.

So, how do you all feel about Etsy? Particularly folks who are not in the US? Would you make a purchase if The Desk had a shop on Etsy?

Are there any other small makers who maintain more than one online shop? How do you keep your inventory separated?

We all need each other. Please support our sponsors and affiliates. They help keep this blog going. Without them, we would not have products to review or a server to house our content. Your patronage of their shops, services and products will let them know you appreciate their support of the pen community. Without them, and without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!

In Planners & Organizers

Planner Review: Pebble Stationery Co Traveler’s Regular Sized Undated Planner

Laura CameronSeptember 29, 2020September 29, 20202 Comments

Review by Laura Cameron

2020 has been a strange year, and despite the fact that the Desk LOVES planners, clearly we haven’t needed them in months. A few weeks ago, Pebble Stationery Co. asked if we would be interested in reviewing their new Traveler’s Regular Sized Undated Planner ($17.99) and planner love won out and I eagerly accepted.

One of the best parts about this planner is that it’s UNDATED, meaning I can start using it whenever I wish! Given the uncertainly in our world these days, that flexibility is fabulous.

So let’s start outside and work in!

The new planner is Traveler’s sized (4 3/8″ x 8 1/4″ or 110mm x 210mm) and approximately 1/4″ or 6mm thick. It comes with a gorgeous vegan leatherette cover in either Navy or Red.

The inside front page is cardstock and includes a place for name and contact information if your notebook should ever get lost!

The paper inside this planner is a treat! It is white 52gsm Tomoe River meaning it’s perfect for all those fun sheening inks we love so much. The paper is 3.6mm dot grid, in light grey ink. The planner is organized into three main sections.

At the front is the year at a glance section with two six month 2-page spreads (say that 10 times fast!)

Then comes the month at a glance section, with each month as a 2-page spread. There are 12 monthly spreads.

The third section is the week at a glance section. On the left side you have the days of the week and the right side is unformatted dot grid. There are 52 weekly spreads.

Finally, at the end of the book are several extra pages of dot grid, available for notes, ideas, and jotting down anything important.

And, to keep your place, there are two ribbons (red and navy).

I did a quick paper and fountain pen ink test and it performed as expected. It’s lovely to write on and drying times were fairly quick. However, as with most 52gsm Tomoe River paper there is quite a bit of ghosting on the opposite side, so you’ll have to be comfortable with that.

Overall, if you’re looking for a slim, elegant and flexible planner for the coming year, I think Pebble Stationery Co. has provided a great option!

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

In Ink Review

Ink Review: Robert Oster Frankly Fifth (Federalist Pens 5th Anniversary Ed)

AnaSeptember 28, 2020September 28, 2020Leave a comment

I’ve gone around over the years about my feelings regarding the size and shape of the Robert Oster 50ml ink bottles and, while they are not the most romantic, elegant bottles, they really are pretty easy to use once you get the hang of them. The plastic is a standard #2 plastic making them recyclable in most major cities and towns worldwide. It also means they are pretty nonbreakable if your bottle gets dropped or tipped over. This also means that there is considerably less merchandise loss for vendors who often get this Australian ink shipped to the other side of the world and then repackage it to ship to you. The plastic is lighter than glass reducing the overall costs to ship as well. Once in our individual ink collections, the bottles take up considerably less space and are easy to store multiple bottles.

Now, that I’ve waxed poetic about the bottles, let’s get to the actual review.

I was so flattered that the brothers at Federalist Pens asked me to review their new custom ink color, Robert Oster Frankly Fifth which was created to celebrate their fifth anniversary. The brothers said it was a way of bringing everything full circle since it was way back in 2017 that I first reviewed their first ink collaboration with Robert Oster, Frankly Blue, to celebrate their first anniversary.

A lot has changed for everyone this year. I’m sure the intention was to release the new ink in time for the DC Supershow but well, we all know how that turned out this year. I say that because the new Frankly Fifth is definitely a brighter, more indigo blue that makes me think All-American, true blue, denim and red, white and blue. In writing though, the color has a more violet cast than I expected. In my medium nib, it reminds me a little of some of the washable blues from the vintage pen eras. Or maybe the color of the ink from school mimeograph machines.

When I was writing the heading, my nib still had a little water in it and the writing had that light, almost periwinkle color of the Sailor Studio/Manyo inks. Curious. There’s some lovely shading with this ink but no sheening. It dries pretty quickly on the Rhodia paper I was testing it on. It’s funny, the more inks I use, the more inks I love and not the other way around.

In comparisons, Frankly Fifth is pretty close in color and shade to Sailor Ultramarine and Nioi-Sumire as well as Diamine Bilberry. I included the Monteverde DC Supershow Blue from 2018 since I made reference to “show inks” but it’s a bit more ultramarine with no hint of violet.

I pushed the swatches closer for a better look and you may notice that Bilberry is slightly more purple and probably has less shading. If price/value is an issue, the Frankly Fifth compared to the Sailor colors is a much better deal $/ml.

I’ll go back to my previous statement that I’m often hard pressed to find an ink I don’t like. I may find an ink that’s a better value or better suited to a certain pen or certain mood but if what you want is to maybe think your paper might smell like cornflowers or a mimeograph, this might be the ink for you.

Tools:

Paper: Rhodia Uni-Blank No. 16 with 6mm guide sheet
Pens: Tachikawa dip nib holder ($7.75) with Zebra G titanium nib ($33.50 per 10-pack), Acrylic dip nib pen (Approx. $15), Folded Nib ($44.85USD)
Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Book ($10) & Col-o-dex Rotary Cards ($15)
Brush: Blick Synthetic Round #0
Ink: Robert Oster Frankly Fifth (Federalist Pens Fifth Anniversary Edition) ($18 for 50ml bottle)

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

In Tools

Tool Review: Kutsuwa Round and Triangular Pencil Caps

AnaSeptember 25, 2020September 25, 2020Leave a comment

Review by Tina Koyama

My daily-carry bag contains many pencils, both colored and graphite. To prevent broken points and inadvertent stabs, I keep them and myself protected with pencil caps. Although I’ve tried some fancy ones made of leather or metal, my favorites are inexpensive, lightweight, colorful plastic ones. Kutsuwa makes several, including round ones with roll-prevention nobbies (12/$2.25) and triangular ones with bonus sparkles (12/$2.50).

The round set includes four transparent pastel colors. Tiny nobs near the base keep the caps from rolling off your desk (or down the sidewalk).

The triangular set is a candy palette of six glittery colors.

Both sets come with name labels so that you can identify your caps.

Although the triangular caps are designed for triangular pencils, they also fit onto standard-barrel pencils. All caps fit securely on the standard barrels I tried. The triangular ones feel a bit more snug than the round. Unfortunately, neither style fits on slightly larger barrels such as many Caran d’Ache pencils.

Interestingly, I learned about minute barrel-size differences among some pencils I thought were the same size by capping them. In the photos below, I pushed each cap down as far as it would go. While the triangular caps fit about the same on all the pencils shown, the round caps indicated that the two Staedtler pencils (blue Mars Lumograph and striped black/red Tradition) are a hair narrower than the Mitsubishi Hi-Uni and Blackwing, as I was able to push the caps down further.

I like having both styles on hand so I can use the one that fits a particular pencil best.

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 feature, Paper Review

A Tale of Two Notebooks

Jessica ColesSeptember 24, 2020September 24, 20204 Comments

By Jessica Coles

You may or may not have heard about the changes coming to Tomoe River Paper (I won’t go into depth on it here). The change is, in my world, like saying goodbye to an era where good fountain pen paper was easy(ish) to find and the choice of paper was clear.

Now that the era is closing, it is time to go back to earlier days in fountain pens when the hunt for great paper is on again. Back to debates about what “Good for Fountain Pens” means when shopping for that next notebook and the excitement of finding a new type that makes your fountain pen feel great on the page and your ink look amazing.

I’ve started on such a hunt and today have two notebooks to present. The smaller of the two is the Tsubame Note University Notebook H60S – A5 7mm Lined ($4.50 for 60 sheets) and the larger is the MDS University Notebook, B5 ($7.50 for 40 sheets). Both notebooks were sent to me by Alex of ShigureInks.com. Alex carries several amazing varieties of paper in his store (not to mention a plethora of ink) and at amazing prices. Thank you, Alex, for sending these for review.

Both the Tsubame and the MDS notebooks use Fools Paper, each at 80 – 85 gsm for the paper weight. The Tsubame paper feels slightly thicker than the MDS and is a bit brighter white as well. Both have the same binding type – a thick card stock cover, stitched signatures, and black binding tape stamped with a gold identifier.

First, the MDS University Notebook, B5. The cover has very little printed on it with plenty of room for labeling or ornamentation. Personally, I recommend stickers from Well-Appointed Desk, but I may be biased there.

The binding is stitched and allows the notebook to lay nearly flat (with a bit of pressure required when first used). This notebook is blank and has no markings at all.

I started out with Sailor Manyo Yamabuki in a Pilot VP with a medium nib. The paper feels luxurious, not super smooth but not much feedback either.

The MDS notebook has 40 sheets which translates into 80 pages (when numbered front and back).

I tried to show inks with various properties – Sailor Ha Ha and 143 for shading and mulit-color, Montblanc Psychedelic Purple, Pent Ebizome, and Sailor Irori for sheen, Taccia Sabimidori for color, and three different non-fountain pens to see if they bled.

Sailor Ha Ha had a slight bit of feathering which can be expected with so much ink coming from the Fude nib. Sailor Irori had quite a bit of feathering at first (I had also just filled the pen) which calmed down by the end of the line. Ebizome and Irori each showed sheen on the edges of the letters and Psychedelic Purple showed no sheen. The metallic gel pen looks amazing!

Below is the back side of the same page – no ink bled to the following page. I realized after I uploaded these photos that the watermark is very visible here.

Each ink spotted on the back side of the page except for fine and extra fine nibs. I was pleasantly shocked that the gel pen and the brush pen didn’t go through at all.

The second notebook up today is the Tsubame Note University Notebook H60S – A5 7mm Lined. The cover has more ornamentation than the MDS.

An index page is included in the front of the notebook for quick reference.

Below I used Tono & Lims “A Smile is a Sword” ink with a medium Franklin-Christoph SIG nib. Writing on the paper felt like writing on Rhodia. A very pleasant experience.

Folding the unused pages back was a bit tougher with the Tsubame than with the MDS, most likely due to the increase in pages.

I tried MANY inks.

MANY.

I did see some feathering occasionally, especially with wetter inks and most inks ghosted through the page. However, I did not see any spotting or bleed through on the opposite side.

I enjoyed this foray into paper hunting once again. If I had to choose one of the above notebooks, I would pick the Tsubame notebook – I like the A5 size better, the paper seems to take a wide variety of inks without a problem and the paper feels slightly nicer. It pains me to say that I even enjoyed the ruled lines. But blank is still best. Always. Except this once.

Notebooks: MDS University Notebook, B5 (Shigure Inks, $7.50), Tsubame Note University Notebook H60S – A5 (Shigure Inks, $4.50)

DISCLAIMER: The items in this review were provided free for the purpose of reviewing. Otherwise I am one of the unpaid monkeys that Ana talks about occasionally except for Col-o-rings which she provides to me because she knows that I can’t resist. Please see the About page for more details.

In Link Love

Link Love: United States of Letterpress

AnaSeptember 23, 2020September 23, 20204 Comments

We have really, really good news and really sad news this week.

So we will start with the good news. This week, the new edition of the Field Notes Colors Edition was released and we (I mean my husband, Skylab Letterpress and myself) were actively involved in creating. And we had to keep quiet about it for months. Skylab was asked to be involved in the United States of Letterpress just as the COVID-19 pandemic was shutting down the country. It presented some challenges in the production processes. Normally, a large print project would be a “all hands on deck” event with every pressman and -woman in the shop, along with interns and friends pitching in to help. But social distancing made this very difficult. So Bob spent everyday in the month of July in the shop with me, and a couple friends taking turns helping in the shop in shifts.

There are nine amazing covers created by letterpress printers across the country. Each cover is printed on a different colored paper stock with the Field Notes logo litho printed in grey then letterpress printed in process blue and rubine red by each letterpress shop. Skylab printed every slipsheet in every edition of the United States of Letterpress edition in black and light brown.

For full details about the project, watch the Field Notes 12-minute video. I even got a shout-out in the credits for filming the Skylab footage! (Look at what a goof ball my husband is up there in that photo!)

I Dissent Book — from Elizabeth Baddeley

In the sad news, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away last week. Not only was she an inspiration to women everywhere, she was a lefty and was spotted using a Blackwing. My friend Elizabeth Baddeley illustrated the book I Dissent and even got to meet RBG. Though I never got to meet RBG, she still left an idelible mark on me and on so many others. The hope now is that there is not a rush to try to replace her in the Court but I’m sure every effort will be made to further political agendas. It just saddens me that the urgency to fill the vacancy will overshadow the loss of her legacy.