The Well-Appointed Desk

July 20th is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Here at the house of NASA love we’ve been celebrating for the last 50 years, so I decided it was high time to celebrate the occassion as an official Fashionable Friday. Thankfully, the fountain pen community has also embraced this momentous occasion with some amazing special editions. It’s easy to be inspired by the visions of a future greater than ourselves… when we believed that we could go beyond the stars. And then we did.

Colorverse Moon Landing Ink Set $100 (via Pen Chalet)
Lamy Safari USA Independence Fountain Pen $36 (via Vanness Pen Shop)
Leuchtturm ~~1917~~ 1969 (I took creative liberties with the cover wrap) A5 Dot Grid Notebook in Metallic Silver $25.50 (via Anderson Pens)
Diamine 150th Anniversary in Silver Fox Ink $15.50 for 40 ml Bottle (via JetPens)
Retro 51 Tornado Fountain Pen – Apollo Limited Edition, pre-order $120 (via Vanness Pen Shop)
Montegrappa Moon Landing Fountain pen €326.45 or $395USD (via Appelboom or Goldspot Pens)
One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon $19.25 (via Amazon)
Apollo 11 from The Giant Leaps in Space Print Series $55 (via Chop Shop)
Moon Globe $85.25 (via Amazon)
The Coop NASA Apollo Moon Landing Film Canister Lunch Tins $20.97 (via Amazon)
Field Notes Three Missions Notebook $12.95 (via Pen Chalet)
Leather tote bag in silver $150.00+ (via LaraKlass on Etsy)
Caran d’Ache 849 fountain pen white €55 (via Fontoplumo)
Diamine Shimmering Moon Dust Fountain Pen Ink $20 for 50ml bottle (via Goldspot Pens)
MT Thick Thin Black Stripe Washi Tape $3.50 per roll (via CuteTape)

For more information about exhibitions and festivities planned for the anniversary, check out these links:

Duran Duran to Perform at Moon Landing 50th Anniversary Celebration (via Rolling Stone)
NASA Celebrated Apollo 11’s 50th Anniversary with a Total Restoration of Mission Control (via Esquire)
Apollo 50 (via Smithsonian Air & Space Museum)

DISCLAIMER: The item in this review include affiliate links. The Well-Appointed Desk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. Please see the About page for more details.

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In news

Giveaway Winner: MiGoals Focus Pad

AnaJuly 4, 2019July 4, 2019Leave a comment

Thanks to everyone who read, commented and entered to win the MiGoals Focus Pad. And now for the winner of our giveaway…

Congrats, Bart! You’ve been contacted for delivery information. And another shout-out to MiGoals for sending the pads for review and giveaway.

In Link Love

Link Love: Crazy Days of Summer

AnaJuly 3, 2019July 3, 2019Leave a comment

This week, there are ballpoint pen reviews and witty crosstitch designs. Is this the end-of-times edition? No, it’s just the wild-and-crazy days of summer. Nick Stewart shows off a giant calligraphy brush and Mono paints a city bus to loon like their iconic eraser and packaging.

In more normal posts, there are also reviews of Kyo-no-oto ink reviews and Azizah reviews an Aurora 88 Urano fountain pen.

Enjoy the lazy, crazy days of summer!

Ink Review: Waterman Harmonious Green

Laura CameronJuly 2, 2019July 1, 20192 Comments

Review by Laura Cameron

Every so often I pick up a bottle of a classic ink and decide to review it here. I have a few vintage pens, so I’m always looking for good colors of tried and true inks. This time it’s Waterman Harmonious Green and, as always, I’m impressed with it!

Waterman Harmonious Green is a beautiful blue green. In many lights it appears very green, but then I compare it to truer greens and it appears more like a blue fir color.

When I flip through my Col-o-dex, the closest color I find is my Robert Oster Spearmint. Monteverde California Teal is close, but just a shade too blue. And Rohrer & Klingner Smaragdgrun is too light, though similarly toned.

Harmonius Green shades beautifully and do you see what I see? Down there on the ink splotches? That’s red-purple sheen!

Yes that’s right. These tried and true inks do sheen! I’m excited to spend some time writing with this beautiful ink!

Tools:

Papers: Crossfield Journal ($24.00)
Pen: Delike Glass Signature Pen ($37.80)
Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Book ($10) and Col-o-Dex Rotary Cards ($15)
Inks: Waternman Harmonious Green (50ml for $11.30)

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

In Paper Review

Notebook Review: Lett’s Travel Journal

AnaJuly 1, 2019July 1, 20191 Comment

The Lett’s Travel Journal (£20, soon to be released in US) is a petite, pocketable notebook that feels both elegant and personal. The paper is just 147x69mm (approx. 5.78″x2.7″). The whole book is closer to 3.5″ across, when measured from the spine. The cover is a textured leather with embossed logo, centered on the cover. It’s very understated.

The Lett’s Travel notebook has a lovely satin ribbon bookmark and gold metallic edge painted pages. This book feels very posh.

Down the spine is a thin, gold fluted pen, hidden in the seam of the spine. It’s a slender ballpoint pen which is not always my tool of choice but the fact that it fits perfectly, and invisibly down the spine means that you always have a pen with the book, even if it’s not your favorite. It comes with a medium point refill which seems a bit chunky for the delicacy of the notebook and the pen itself. I really want to replace it with a fine refill. I think it would better suit the whole set-up.

Inside the book are lightweight 45gsm, soft ivory pages that have been printed with all sorts of sections related to travel. The book starts with a set of contents pages and then moves to several pages for specifc locales.

The pages are numbered and feature a spot at the top for date and location. These pages make up the majority of the book.

Towards the back of the book is a section for planning out your year and listing favorite restaurants.

There is also some top level city information for major cities across the world that includes time zones, airports and a few hotels. I have no idea how the hotels were selected. The one city included that I am most familiar with is Chicago and even if the criteria was poshest hotels, I’m not sure the hotel they chose were the ones I would have picked. But I am not old world money, so what do I know?

As I mentioned earlier, the paper in the notebook is quite thin, in order to make this notebook small and pocketable. As a result, ballpoint pens, gel pens and pencils are really the best option with this book. Wet liquid-y inks are going to show and bleed through.

The more I tested this little notebook, the more I started to appreciate it. When I first got it, it seemed like something for someone much fancier than myself. But the more I played with it, the more I realized, I’m someone who travels a lot. Having a small notebook to keep track of what hotels I stay in, which restaurants I like and don’t like, what various adventures (both good and bad) occur on a given trip might be nice to document. This book is no more of a luxury than all my fancy pens, right?

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

In news

News: (and Shameless Plug) Col-o-ring Oversize

AnaJune 29, 20191 Comment

We have finally released a new Col-o-ring product: the Col-o-ring Oversize ($15). This is our first fully bound notebook/sketchbook product. As always, this book came from the combined genius (and combined drunken logic) of Skylab Letterpress and The Well-Appointed Desk. We thought, “How could we make the best ink testing book even better?”

“OVERSIZE it!” And, of course, endless thanks to Stephen (our favorite Montblanc collector and auction caller) for the name.

We made the notebook 4”x 5.5” (A6-ish) with die cut rounded corners. It’s filled with 40 pages of the same great paper that you love from the Col-o-ring and Col-o-dex products (100lb/160gsm European paper from a 400-year-old mill), spiral bound with a durable, plastic spiral. The covers are made with the same thick chipboard and letterpress printed with our logo in black on the over and printing details on the back.

We have been testing the books with watercolor, brush pens, all sorts of inks (not just fountain pens!), pencils (colored and graphite) and so much more. The paper is thick enough to handle light washes of watercolor and show great color definition. Inks and brush pens look fantastic and, of course, no feathering or bleeding.

The two photos above are the front and back of the paper using a brush pen for lettering. The ink is Robert Oster Deep Purple and the pen is a Platinum Maki-E brush pen.

Colored pencils show lots of texture as a result of the tooth in the paper which I really like.

For the moment, the Oversize will be a limited edition. These books were especially made to test the waters with a new format. We hope folks like them and we are curious to get feedback about them.

DISCLAIMER: Some items included in this post were provided free of charge for the purpose of review (except for the ones we made). Please see the About page for more details.

In feature, Ink Review

Ink Review: Franklin-Christoph Graphite 4B

Jessica ColesJune 28, 2019June 28, 20191 Comment

By Jessica Coles

Franklin-Christoph. New Ink. How on Earth did I miss two of my favorite things intersecting?

I was only able to attend the first few hours of the Raleigh Pen Show this year, although it was long enough to see the prototype tray set out and find an amazing 45L pen in a Sky Blue Loi material from Jonathan Brooks. Amazing. But I was in such a hurry afterward that I failed to notice a new option when choosing the color of ink for my new pen.

Graphite 4B was offered for the first time at the Raleigh Pen Show, but with very little fanfare. True to the Franklin-Christoph way, Graphite 4B was set before the public to earn its own name in the world.

Although it is not a current offering on their website, Graphite 4B will soon be available to order in either a 1-ounce bottle ($8.25) or a 2-ounce eyedropper bottle ($12.50). The photo above shows the 1-ounce bottle.

My first impression of the ink was the name. Why 4B? It brings to mind the Bungubox color 4B (which stands for Bungu Box Blue-Black). However, after speaking with Scott Franklin, the owner of Franklin-Christoph, I found that the color of the ink was modeled after the color of the lead in a 4B pencil.

Knowing that story, I naturally had to add 4B pencil to my Col-O-Ring swatch card. You can see the pencil in the lower left and lower right of the written portion of the swatch card above.

I used a Tombow Mono 4B pencil for comparison and found the color of the ink to be warmer and slightly darker than the pencil, although it absolutely brought pencil lead to mind. Kobe #59 might be a closer match to the color of 4B lead, however, Graphite 4B has a more even coverage with less shading, overall closer to what I would expect of a pencil.