I'm a big fan of TWSBI's inexpensive range of fountain and ballpoint pens. In my opinion, they beat the competition from brands like Lamy (who seem to be unable to get even their flagship pen to write reliably) hands down. So when I heard about the new TWSBI Swipe on episode #471 of the Pen …
A great little product from the Wonder People over at Wonder Pens... If you're anything like me, I like to carry a sheet of blotting paper with me whenever and wherever I'm using one of my fountain pens. Which, in practice, means it's a constant carry. And a few months ago, Jon and Liz at …
Back in early January and February of this year, I found myself looking for a Traveler's Notebook (TN) as a gift for one of my daughters. She had always envied my Traveler's Company regular-sized version, but she didn't think she would get on with the elongated, rectangular size. We had looked at the passport sized …
Continue reading A Great A6 Traveler’s Notebook, but Definitely No Traveling
On the whole, my handwriting (such as it is), is not flattered by a fine nib. I mean, it's pretty poor with almost any nib, but better with some than others, and fine, needle-like nibs, which can catch on paper fibers, make my handwriting look, to be blunt, bloody awful. Which can be a bit …
I have made no secret of my traditionalist taste in fountain pens. I may go off the rails occasionally and ogle something earthy with a bit of gold marbling, or even go completely crazy and pick something up in burgundy and gold with a touch of translucence about the barrel. But if you were to …
At around about the same time this year, three new products and one that was older than me, caught my eye. The first was a bursting orange from The Pen Addict's Brad Dowdy and the Australian manufacturer Robert Oster, with the nicely tongue-in-cheek name of Fire on Fire. This coincided with the delivery of a …
Continue reading The Pen Addict vs. Lamy Shootout—Brad’s on Fire!
Not that long ago, I reviewed the little cousin of the Pro Gear Special Edition (SE) Earth, the Sailor Pro Gear Sapporo (the Slim version; 2018-03-05), and in the few short weeks since then, it's become one of my firm favorites, despite a couple of criticisms. The first caveat, was that I wasn't keen on …
Continue reading Sailor 1911 Pro Gear Special Edition Earth… Simply Stunning
When I write personal correspondence, I tend to write with either brown or blue ink on ivory or cream paper. Like I have said before, I like to color-match pens to inks, not least because it helps me pick the right color pen and ink on sight. I have blue pens with nibs I love, …
Continue reading Sailor Pro Gear Slim (Sapporo) Special Edition Earth
My thirteen-year-old daughter will be the first to tell you that she is not the world's hardest working student; but about a year ago, she decided that she would put some extra effort in to improve her grades before entering high school. She came home the other night with a school report that had excellent written, …
Continue reading The Pilot Prera and Diamine Lilac Satin—A Guest Post
So, let's pretend that I'm in the market for a nice, new fountain pen. It's a stretch of the imagination I know, but stay with me. I am going to imagine that I have done a little homework, read a few reviews, and fixed a budget of somewhere around the $220–$240 CAD price-point. So it's not …
Continue reading Buying a New Pen: Some Decision-Making Tools
Writing 