A few years back, I did a stationery crawl in New York City with a starting list of 26 places to visit. Lots of exhausting fun and a bit of sadness that many of the great stationary and art supply stores of yesteryear were gone. Click on the image to jump to Google Photos for a browse through three days of intense stationeryness (including a celebrity sighting!). Enjoy!
At last fall’s Columbus Pen Show I visited the Franklin-Cristoph booth, my first time handling and playing with their fountain pens. I lusted after the emerald-green P66 and thought “someday.” Although the temptation was strong that day, especially after spending some time with their test pens, most notably the Masuyama fine cursive italic nib, I resisted committing.
Someday, as we all know, eventually shows up. Last week I ordered and received my long-anticipated emerald-green P66 with, you guessed it, the Masuyama fine cursive italic nib (despite the photos, I opted for the steel, not the gold, nib; the reputation of these steel nibs is pretty strong). The pen came with a small, leather zip case which I really like using. I’m not usually one for a case, preferring to drop the pen in a shirt or pants pocket and go about things. But this time the case is really speaking to me. For starters, it’s fairly small, so not a burden to carry. For another, and by purpose, the P66 has no clip, so the case is a useful protector.
This pen is a writer for me, as in, long sessions of journaling or free writing. To that end, I wanted a lighter, smaller than usual pen and the P66 is both of those. Additionally, I’ve always dislike feeling cap threads where my fingers rest above the nib, and the Franklin-Cristoph’s have an ingenious wide-thread capping system that puts these threads out of fingertips. The P66 is a very good feel and heft, posted or not posted.
I did pause in ordering the emerald green over the ice models, whose rough inside clear barrels make for dazzling effects interacting with the wondrous ink colors. I read one review where the author admitted he’s spent about as much time the first two weeks with his F-C ice just staring at and rolling the ink around to see the effect! I have enough distractions when I write, thank you, so decided that was not (yet) a good idea for me. Not saying whether my next F-C won’t be an ice model, but for this primary writer my love for the emerald-green color won over.
I stumbled on to this line at pocketnotebooks.co.uk during the owner change and at the time, they were the only notebooks they had! Now he’s restocked from the U.S. sources, but more interesting to me is he’s starting to carry some very cool European notebooks. At the time I was intrigued with the Papios and ordered three packs to check out!
These A6 notebooks are designed and printed in the UK, and spec out at two per pack, 300gsm covers, 48 80gsm recycled paper insides (in each pack one is blank, one is lined). I did a quick writing test and was pleasantly surprised considering the recycle paper spec which usual means meh on writing response. Fountain pen ink did pretty well with very minimal feathering, although my 1.1 Lamy nib was a bit messy, but it’s a pretty wet writer and few papers contain it! Graphite was great with no smearing though. The inks did show through some, but again, recycled paper that isn’t heavy so expected (and not that bad). I’ll be quiet now and you can enjoy the pictures. You can check out Papio Press’ site, or order through pocketnotebooks.co.uk.
It’s unusual for me to stumble upon a new notebook line that is intriguing and compels me to buy it. Despite having so many notebooks that I’ll likely never get around to using, I stumbled upon a line that touched my 1/8th Scottish heart in a big way: the Waverly Tartan Cloth Commonplace Notebook.
My recent foray back into Moleskines Blends with the fabric covers paved the way for my new Waverly. I’ve never been a fan of vinyl or plastic covered notebooks, preferring the feel of something more…real. Even though my sub-clan (Guthrie) is not represented in the wide range of tartans Waverly covers these pocket notebooks with (and larger sizes), it’s still a high ooh-factor to feel and use this notebook covered in “genuine tartan cloth” as the extensive info sheet included with these states.
Here is the exhaustive list of features and extras with these little Moleskine Kilters* (Killers!):
On graphite and fountain pen test the paper did well. It’s not heavy, so there is some show through, but the ink laid down crisply with no feathering. There isn’t a lot of finish to the paper, so the FP nibs have a lot of feedback, but not unpleasant. I’d call both FP and graphite use quite suitable for use.
I will definitely pick up some more of these after I use up my small supply of Moleskine Blends and this Waverly. These are available direct from Waverly Books, their store on eBay, or on Amazon in quiet the variety of tartans. (No Guthrie, alas! Bummer.)
*Props to John Campion in the Erasables Facebook group who countered my “Moleskine killer” comment with a more apt “Moleskine kilter” retort. Well played!
