I know you’ve all been patiently waiting for the winners of the Lamy Safari Strawberry and Cream pens, generously donated to us by Pen Boutique for giveaway. Wait no longer!
Our winners are Chad and Dave:
As always, I wish I had enough pens to give one away to everyone who entered! But thank you to everyone who entered for reading along and we’ll have more giveaways soon.
When you are blessed with a truly unique pen, it only seems fitting to pair it with a truly unique nib. I have had my Lamy custom Urushi pen for a couple years now. If you are not familiar with this pen, several years ago, Brad, Myke and I ** challenged Jonathan Brooks of the Carolina Pen Company to make the most ridiculous pens imaginable. We posed the question, could he Urushi a Lamy Safari or AL-Star? And even, should he? Jonathan is always up for a challenge and at the Atlanta Pen Show some years ago, we handed him two Safaris and one AL-Star to test his skills.
The final results* were nothing short of stunning. This video from Jonathan shows my Urushi-Star in all its glory.
So, between the pandemic and my sheer awe at how awesome my Urushi-Star was, I hadn’t really considered how to best take it to the next level. Until a couple of weeks ago at the Atlanta Pen Show.
I met Matthew Chen who is a relatively new nibmeister and we got to talking about his work and training. He has been honing his craft with Mr. Nagahara of Sailor Pens fame and has been working closely over the last few months with Mike Masayama. Matthew’s dedication and the seal of approval from these two nib grinding legends made me quite comfortable that Matthew was up to the task of making my Urushi-Star even better.
I gave him a Lamy B nib to work with and though it does not have quite as much tipping material as he would have liked, he was able to craft what I think is a delightfully unique writing experience.
I asked him to put a Naganati Togi grind ($50) on the nib. This is an unusual grind that features some of the characteristics of an architect nib coupled with some of the characteristics of a zoom nib. The Naganati Togi has the reverse volume of tipping material like an architect nib so that it will write thicker on cross strokes and thinner on vertical, up-and-down strokes. That is, unless you are a lefty. For me, the architect grind often provides me with a perfect simulation of an italic or stub nib so my down strokes become thicker than my cross strokes which is more consistent with an italic, cursive italic or stub nib.
The zoom nib aspect is what allows the nib to write a finer line when held at a 90º angle on the paper versus a more standard 45-75º angle that most people usually write at. The Naganati Togi does a good just of writing a very fine line when held at a 90º angle which allows me to write in small spaces, add details to drawings or purposely vary the size of my writing as needed.
The overall final line width for my standard writing is similar to a medium cursive italic — it provides a range of line width variation that brings out the colors in my ink and in my handwriting that I really like.
I tested the grind writing with a lefty overhand grip, underhand grip and a side writer with slight variations in the overall line quality but not significant. The nib also wrote smoothly at all the angles I used which is not always the case for me with italics or cursive italics without some adjustment either in the grind or my hand position.
I love the Naganati Togi nib and it is the perfect accompaniment to this extraordinary pen. I will definitely have Matthew grind some other nib for me soon. I think there will be a Concord nib in my future for sure!
*NOTE: Do not ask Jonathan Brooks to make you an Urushi Lamy. He made four and he said he would not consider ever making another so don’t ask. That doesn’t mean that there are not other special, rare or unique pens out there for you to have a custom nib grind added. Just not this one.
** To hear me gush about the beauty of my Urushi-Star, listen to Episode 413 of the Pen Addict Podcast. Maybe I’ll be asked onto the show again to gush about the Naganati Togi nib?
One of the best things about working a pen show is getting to see, handle and try new pens. I get to see firsthand, over the course of a weekend, many pens I have not seen in person before. Sometimes they are pens I have wondered “How big is that pen?” or “Is the new finish really pretty?” In the case of the new Kaweco Collector’s Edition Iridescent Fountain Pen ($27) , yes. It really is THAT pretty.
The plastic is translucent with very fine iridescent shimmer particles embedded in the material. Depending on how you hold it to the light, it will look pink, purple, yellow, green or turquoise blue. Because of the faceted cap it often looks like all those colors at once.
I applaud Kaweco for continuing to play with the materials they use on these intro level pens. It really is a delight to look at and knowing its such a reasonable price doesn’t make it overly precious. It’s a little magical unicorn party for your pocket.
But the other rad thing about a pen show is looking up from the table where I’m working and see a nib grinder, THE Nib Grinder, sitting just across the room from me. Because what does a magical unicorn pen need most? A magical nib. So I swapped out the standard F nib on the pen for a BB nib and trotted over to Mark Bacas to have him grind the nib to a cursive italic. He rounded out the corners just a bit for my sometimes awkward left handed grip and behold!
Look at that delicious flat writing surface.
I realize it seems a bit absurd to spend $40 on a nib grind for a $27 pen but look at this writing sample and try to convince me it was not 100% worth it.
Probably the most challenging decision was what ink would look best with the shimmery exterior of the Kaweco Iridescent. I decided to go with a color-shifting greyish ink: Vinta Aegean Armada. I suspect this pen will consistently be filled with one of the magical color-shifting inks. Which one should I try next? Maybe one of the new Sailor inks?
DISCLAIMER: Some items included in this review were provided free of charge by Vanness Pen Shop for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
While April weather is a crap shoot — one day warm and sunny, the next day is frost warnings and grey, spitting rain, it seems like plants and gardening have been on my mind. Lots of the flowering shrubs are blooming bring vibrant pinks and yellows to our neighborhood after months of grey and it makes my heart sing. Coincidentally, Austin Kleon posted about “proplifting” this week. While I’ve never stolen a cutting from a garden center, I have received cuttings from friends and, for the first time in my life, I’ve actually been able to propagate new plants from the cuttings. I trimmed back my basil plant and its sprouting in new places just like I hoped so I’m getting more confident about my gardening skills. While I am not super outdoorsy I do love plants and have always been able to keep them alive but now I’m feeling more confident about my skills and looking forward to extending my gardening skills. Do you garden? Do you document your plantings in a journal? Have you ever “proplifted”?
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If you’re on Team Safari, then today’s giveaway will be right up your alley. Leena from Pen Boutique (another woman-owned pen shop!) generously sent us two gift sets for giveaway: one in Strawberry and one in Cream. That means TWO lucky winners will get a new pen. The sets include the Lamy Safaris pictured, a converter, a package of cartridges and a bottle of ink.
Sadly, Lamy didn’t design an ink of the year (how great would a mouth-watering strawberry ink have been???) so the cartridges and ink are both black. But play along and tell me what ink you’d want to put in your new pen if you won!
TO ENTER: Leave a comment below telling about us which color Safari you prefer (Strawberry or Cream) and what color ink you would put in your new pen! (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 Sunday, April 24, 2022. All entries must be submitted at wellappointeddesk.com, not Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook, okay? Winner will be announced on Monday. TWO winners will be selected by random number generator from entries that played by the rules, one for each color (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 pens included in this post were generously provided by Pen Boutique for the purposes of this giveaway.
Since listening to a certain monumental 500th episode back in February and watching many friends return to in-person pen shows I’ve been reflecting on the state of my stationery collection. I’ve shared a lot online about my favorite and most-used items over the years, but less about my most meaningful items.
So today I’m sharing some photos of one of my most meaningful stationery items. It’s an item that lives in a very prominent place in my home and breaks the mold of most of my stationery collection because it’s not an item I use very often. It is however, and item I see every day, think about very often, and would be one of the first items I would grab out the the door in case of disaster.
When I first fell down the stationery rabbit hole I was working as a pharmacist at a cancer center and became dear friends with a nurse that also worked there. It’s a toss up whether she found my stationery habit more endearing or ridiculous on any given day, but when she got the chance to visit Milan, Italy she completely surprised me when she brought this pencil all the way back to me and into my pharmacy after her trip. I’ve barely let it out of my sight ever since.
The Perpetua pencils are made up of of over 80% graphite and a good article with a little more info can be found here. More info on the beautiful Starbucks Roastery that collaborated on this pencil here. It’s an item that always brightens my day and reminds me of a good friend. What are some meaningful items that you own or items that break the mold in your collection?
I love pencils but I love books even more. This will become clear when I tell you I had every intention of posting this review this morning but I was so wrapped up in the book that I’ve been reading that I completely lost track of time this morning and had to toss my book down and race to work without ever finishing this post.
At this point, you may be asking yourself, what book were you reading that was so engrossing that you forgot to write a blog post? It was The Cartographers by Peng Shepard. It’s a lovely story about maps and the people who archive, research and collect them. I won’t give away any of the details but if you like libraries, maps and a little bit of magic, you’ll like this book.
That said, let’s talk about some delicious pencils while you wait for your copy of The Cartographers to arrive.
I’m hard pressed to think of a single Midori MD product that I haven’t liked and this set of Midori MD Color Pencils ($12) is no exception. The set includes two each of an orange, cyan blue and medium grey colored pencil. When I initially acquired these, I thought the grey pencils were graphite pencils but they are not. I am happy about this because, as a lefty, graphite often smudges but most colored pencils do not.
The exterior paint, rounded hex shape and slightly rounded ends make these looks and feel like premium Japanese pencils. They sharpened easily to fairly long points with my Dahle 133 Hand Crank Pencil Sharpener (approx. $19).
First, I tested these on the Leuchtturm1917 120gsm paper notebook. The blue and orange colors showed well and felt creamy and smooth on this lightly textured paper. The grey felt a little light on the ivory paper but not much so as to be unusable. I am just unlikely to reach for the grey on ivory paper for anything other than sketching and adding shadow to other elements. The orange and blue hold their own and felt surprisingly lovely on this relatively smooth paper.
The color erased mostly for a pencil that does not appear to be listed as erasable but not completely. The color did not smudge at all. My efforts to do too much blending of the colors was not particularly successful.
I decided to see how the pencils worked on toothier Col-o-ring OVERSIZE paper. The pencils are a bit harder than other art pencils (Prismacolor Premiers, etc) so there was more white from the paper showing through since the pencils were not soft enough to sort of melt into the paper texture.
Alternately, this means the pencils are a bit firmer, maintain their point longer and can be sharpened to a longer, finer point for detail work.
Overall, if you are looking for some pencils to annotate notes, I really like these. Do I wish they offered more colors? Emphatically, YES. Am I happy with this teeny mini set? Yes.
DISCLAIMER: Some items 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.
