Pens for the DC Pen Show, packed and sitting atop their case!

Sunday Reading for July 30, 2023

July 30, 2023

2023 Pacific Northwest Pen Show - Recap and Report Card (via Pen Addict - Kimberly). For the first year of a pen show, I can only say that this one appears to have been a rousing success!
Journaling Series: Journaling to Clear Your Mind (via Writing at Large). I’ve been following this regular series on journaling techniques. It’s excellent if you’re looking to start journaling and need prompts and/or exercises to help you get started, or if you’re an experienced journaler who feels like the practice has gotten stale and needs a refresh.
21+5 Pen Questions (via Weirdoforest Pens). Yay! My five extra pen questions have caught on!
21 Pen Questions (via Rachel’s Reflections). Rachel takes her turn with the 21 Pen Questions.
#12PencilQuestions (via Well-Appointed Desk). Now we’re moving into the pencil world!
UNICEF Blue (via Line Variation). By far one of the more underrated “semi-standard” Montblanc Inks, UNICEF Blue is a gorgeous turquoise!
Dingbats Wildlife: Notebook Review (via Stationery Pizza). Dingbats notebooks don’t get the attention they deserve. The company markets itself as vegan and eco-friendly, and the paper in the two notebooks I have tried is very good.
On How I Did Not Buy a Meisterstuck 149 (via Fountain Pen Blog). I love these “in the wild” stories about hunting pens.
What’s My Hobonichi Done for Me Lately? (via mnmlscholar). I’m intrigued by the Hobonichi Day Free, and how people are using it.
Hamelin’s Intentions Clarified (via Pelikan’s Perch). I’ve been fairly quiet on the acquisition of Pelikan’s stationery business by Hamelin, a French stationery company, mainly because I don’t really understand all the “alarm.” While there’s always some uncertainty around acquisitions like this one, Pelikan has been bought and sold a few times over the years, and the latest go-round seems to be an instance of one large conglomerate selling the brand (or a part of the brand) to another large company. Joshua has a follow-up article that nicely summarizes the current status of the transaction.

In Case You Missed It…

This week on the blog I wrote a post about one of my favorite “go-to” fountain pen friendly papers, French powerhouse Clairefontaine, and why it’s long been my default for everyday writing paper. It’s also time for Part II of my recent “Bag Dump” series, in advance of this week’s upcoming DC Pen Show.

This Week in the T.G.S. Curated Shop

It’s time for the mid-year stationery markets, both in-person and online, so you’ll be noticing several new arrivals hitting the store in addition to restocks on most of our existing lines. Big news from this week include the release of the TWSBI Sunset Yellow Diamond 580 AL fountain pen, which will ship Monday or Tuesday and is now available for purchase. We also received a huge shipment from Exaclair (distributor of Clairefontaine, Quo Vadis, Herbin, and Rhodia), as well as most Anderillium inks.

Hinze Pens

Clairefontaine

Midori

TWSBI

Pen Show Schedule for the Upcoming Month and Orders for Pen Show Delivery

This year in DC you can find me sharing table space with our friends at Vanness Pens. TGS won’t have a stand-alone table, but I’ll be bringing a handful of items with me, including Lochby cases and notebooks, washi tape, and whatever stock remains from the TGS-exclusive Penwells and Hinze Collaboration pens. While I plan to have a full table setup in San Francisco, I tend to use the D.C. Show to visit with people and scope out new releases. Note: If you have your eye on something from the shop and want me to bring it to the show for you to pick up, you can select “Local Pickup” at checkout to drop the shipping charge and send me a message to arrange for delivery. Just be mindful that I probably won’t be able to bring heavier orders (i.e. 5 or 6 notebooks) due to airline weight restrictions.

Rubber Stamps for your Notebook at the Table — I’ll plan to bring some stamps that you can use to decorate your notebooks at the table!

Other Ways to Support T.G.S. and Gently Used Update!

Everything that didn’t sell to Patreon members, including some older limited edition Baron Fig items and notebooks, is now available for general purchase on the “Gently Used” page! If you’re interested in early access and a right of first refusal for the periodic sales, consider T.G.S. Patreon, which features not only access to meetups and the early gently used sales, but more exclusive content. Patreon support starts as low as $3 per month, and if you pay annually there is a further discount. In addition to purchases from The Curated Shop, Patreon allows us to continue to grow the site without relying on advertisements and affiliate marketing. If you’re interested in meetups and exclusive content, or simply supporting the site, we greatly appreciate your support!

2023 Bag Dump, Part II: Travel Edition and Pen Show Packing

July 29, 2023

August is usually a big month on the road for me. In addition to two of the largest pen shows in the world (the D.C. Pen Show from August 3 - August 6, 2023, and the San Francisco Pen Show later that month from August 25-27, 2023), our family sometimes tries to take one last summer trip before school’s back in full swing, and I occasionally have a 1-2 night trade show with some day-job work travel mixed in. I actually do love being on the road and meeting new people, but this is a lot even for me.

As both a travel and stationery enthusiast, I spend a fair bit of time thinking through what I pack for trips (especially business trips and pen shows). It’s a delicate balance between packing far too much - encumbering yourself in ever-shrinking airports, planes, and hotel rooms - and leaving yourself without the tools you need to do your work, and a modicum of comfort on the road. Today I’ll walk through what I tend to pack, with a focus on pen show travel.

Rickshaw Banzai Bag compared to Macbook Air 13-inch — The Rickshaw Banzai Bag is slightly smaller than a 13-inch Macbook Air, making it conveniently small enough to carry over your shoulder in crowded event spaces.

I Bring Two Bags to Pen Shows

Let’s assume that all of my clothing and toiletries go into a carry-on roller bag, and that any shop merchandise I’m bringing to the show goes into checked luggage. There’s not much leeway there in terms of what I can and cannot take, so the focus will be on my “personal items” (to use airline terms). My current travel backpack is an older North Face Surge II (black with red trim), which I like not just because of my signature colors, but because it has a sturdy laptop compartment and more than a half-dozen different compartments for smaller items like headphones, chargers, notebooks, etc.

Rickshaw Banzai Packed for the DC Pen Show, open top

Inside my backpack (or possibly in my carry-on), I’ll pack my Rickshaw “Banzai” bag, which is a bag that Rickshaw specifically designed for pen and stationery carry, with shows in mind. I did a Banzai-specific post earlier this year, which showcases just how much you can fit inside this relatively small shoulder bag.

But why bring two bags to pen shows? DON’T BE THAT PERSON WHO WEARS A HUMUNGOUS BACKPACK IN A CROWDED BALLROOM. If you don’t want your bag to hit other attendees in the head and/or knock valuable merchandise off vendor tables when you inevitably get jostled, bring a smaller shoulder bag or tote to carry around during the day. The Rickshaw Banzai is perfect for this role.

Lochby Rickshaw Pen Cases showing pens coming to the DC Pen Show — Believe it or not, by comparison with many people who will be attending, this is a relatively small number of pens to bring to a pen show! All of this fits inside the Rickshaw Banzai with room to spare.

What Goes Into My Pen Show Bag?

This year, I plan on bringing the following stationery gear with me to the D.C. Pen Show, and my San Francisco Pen Show carry will likely look similar if not identical:

Lochby Field Journal to Carry Personal Notebooks. I always travel with my personal journal, a notebook for morning pages, and at least one blank “scratch paper” notebook.
Plotter A5 Binder. This is my “T.G.S. Notebook” for post ideas, pen and ink testing, notes from meetings with vendors and suppliers, and recent ink swatches for comparison purposes.
Plotter Mini 5. If I really want to lighten the load and walk a show with no bag at all, I’ll grab the pocketable Mini 5 with a pocket pen and go. The Plotter paper is exceptionally fountain pen friendly and great for testing any pens and inks, and the Mini 5 pulls double duty as a wallet.
Multiple Pen Cases with Pens to Share. I always bring a lot of inked pens to shows for after-hours show-and-tell, and this year will be no exception. I’m currently in the process of packing a Lochby Tool Roll and Quattro, a Rickshaw Sinclair Model R, and a Rickshaw 6-pen roll and three-pen sleeve. The shocking part is that all of these cases will fit inside the Banzai Bag at one time, allowing me to carry up to 30 pens to the after-hours meetups in the hotel bar (though I’ll likely leave at least a few slots open to carry new finds home).

TGS On-Site Display 2022 — Our table setup from last year.

2023 D.C. Pen Show Details

This year you can find me sharing table space with our friends at Vanness Pens. TGS won’t have a stand-alone table, but I’ll be bringing a handful of items with me, including Lochby cases and notebooks, washi tape, and whatever stock remains from the TGS-exclusive Penwells and Hinze Collaboration pens. While I plan to have a full table setup in San Francisco, I tend to use the D.C. Show to visit with people and scope out new releases. Note: If you have your eye on something from the shop and want me to bring it to the show for you to pick up, you can select “Local Pickup” at checkout to drop the shipping charge and send me a message to arrange for delivery. Just be mindful that I probably won’t be able to bring heavier orders (i.e. 5 or 6 notebooks) due to airline weight restrictions.

Pen Show Primer Series

Every year when I start getting ready to attend the “big” pen shows in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, I link back to a series of articles I’ve written including Volume 1: Why Visit a Pen Show; Volume 2: Getting Ready for a Pen Show; and Volume 3: Tips for Surviving the Pen Show. While these particular articles have some age on them, I stand by pretty much all of the advice! (You’ll also note that “get a good pen show bag” has remained consistently high on the list of tips for a positive pen show experience.)

This post does not contain paid advertising or third-party affiliate links. The Gentleman Stationer is supported entirely by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program.

TWSBI 580 ALR Sunset Yellow on White Background

Thursday Drops: TWSBI Sunset Yellow, Anderillium Inks, Perforated Paper, Washi Tape, and More

July 27, 2023

Happy TWSBI Pre-Order Day! The TWSBI Diamond ALR “Sunset Yellow” is now available for pre-order! Hopefully they will be in stock and ready to ship early next week. We’ve also restocked on much of our paper over the past few weeks, in anticipation of summer ending and everyone heading back to school and back to work! Brands that are fully stocked include Clairefontaine, Stalogy, Midori, Lochby, and other favorites. Finally, I figured I would go ahead and post a group shot of remaining Hinze Pens to give you all a sense of what materials are still available for purchase. If you see a specific pen you are interested in, or a predominant color, send me a message to let me know after you place your order. All pens ship with a bottle of the limited edition “Summer Sangria” ink and a red or black nib.

TGS x Hinze Pens remaining stock in a tray — Some stock I have remaining: check out the variation in the material. The pens on the left have tighter swirls of color, the ones in the middle and to the right progressively have larger amounts of single colors (typically either the burgundy/maroon or grey).

DC Pen Show Pickup Options for Next Week - What’s Available to Travel

Next week we will be at the D.C. Pen Show and sharing some limited table space with our friends at Vanness Pens. While I will have a few items available for sale on site, including what if anything is left of the Hinze Pen Collaboration, I am happy to bring any items to the show for delivery. Please be aware that extremely heavy orders (i.e., multiple thick notebooks) may not be possible, but most pens and inks, as well as reasonable paper orders, will be fine. If you’d like to place an order for DC delivery, simply select “local pickup” at checkout and message me to let me know which day you plan to pick up at the show (Friday, Saturday, or Sunday). I hope to see as many of you as possible there!

The Gentleman Stationer is an authorized retailer of all brands sold.

TWSBI Diamond 580 ALR “Sunset Yellow” (Pre-Order). If TWSBI were looking to solidify their status as one of my favorite all-around brands, they certainly did themselves a big favor with this last release. Whoa. I’ve found the recent string of yellow and orange pens stunning. We’ve placed our shop order and the pens should arrive early next week.
Clairefontaine Triomphe Notebooks. Triomphe writing pads and writing paper is one of the best-selling products that we stock, and now Clairefontaine has made the paper available in notebook form! Triomphe A5 softcover notebooks are available in lined or blank formats, with white or ivory paper - both equally fountain pen friendly.
Perforated Paper from Clairefontaine! I may need to revisit at least one of my #21penquestions responses: If there’s a product I wish existed, it would be more notebooks with perforated pages. This week we added to the shop “Pupitre” bound tablets, “Forever” recycled notebooks (which are still fountain pen friendly), and My.Essentials A5 Journals (which have a small number of perforated pages at the back.
Maruman Mnemosyne Notebooks and Notepads. Speaking of perforations, the Maruman Mnemosyne pads and notebooks also feature perforated paper.
Lochby Covers and Cases. One brand that I will be bringing with me to the D.C. Pen Show is Lochby, and we recently restocked on all colors of the Field Journal, Quattro four-pen cases, and Venture Pouch!
Midori Kurashiki Canvas Pen and Pencil Pouches. Going through my stock as I prepare for D.C., it turns out that I have a few more of these in-stock that I had forgotten to re-enter following the Arkansas Show in the Spring. Both flat and gusseted cases are still available!
Anderillium Ink Restock! All of the Cephalopod and Avian series inks are back in stock, including favorites American Goldfinch Yellow, Green Kingfisher Green, and more.
New iLootPaperie Washi Tape! In addition to restocking favorites, we have some new washi tapes that arrived this week, including some new wide-format Snail-mail washi and “dark” envelopes!
Stalogy Notebooks/Planners. We have the full selection of A5 Stalogy Planners/notebooks in both dot grid and graph rulings, including limited edition covers from the past two years! Stalogy notebooks come in 1/2 year or 365-day sizes, and are designed to serve as a day-to-a-page notebook but are undated so the layout is quite flexible.
Stalogy Removable Calendar Stickers. These stickers allow you to add a calendar to any page of any notebook, and are removable so you can move them around. Midori makes a similar product.

Clairefontaine Triomphe A5 Notebooks — Triomphe Paper, in notebook form!

Clairefontaine Pupitre Spiral Bound Tablets Sitting on Desk

Paper Review: Clairefontaine Is My Personal Benchmark for Fountain Pen Friendly Paper

July 26, 2023

Everyone has a personal benchmark, or reference point by which they measure most things, whether it’s pens, inks, paper, or something else entirely. For me, whenever I’m evaluating any sort of paper, my comparison starts with Clairefontaine.

Clairefontaine Pocket Duo Notebooks Stacked on Table

In an era where new specialty paper brands hit the market on a seemingly weekly basis - each touted as having “special properties” or “even more ink friendliness than ___” - it’s easy to overlook the basics. Brands such as Clairefontaine and Rhodia (which come from the same family of companies but have slightly different paper formulations) have been churning out excellent all-around paper for a very long time, and if what you’re looking for is quality, relatively cost-effective paper that’s easy to find and capable of handling most pens and inks, I often suggest that new users start here. Specifically, the reasons I love/recommend this paper include:

Versatility. Clairefontaine Paper comes in a wide range of formats and rulings. Honestly, the idea for this post struck me yesterday morning as I was unpacking a recent shop order and found myself floored by the variety of products that kept emerging from the box. Clairefontaine makes pocket notebooks, reporter-style notebooks, A5 notebooks, A4 notebooks, legal pads, top-spiral legal pads, looseleaf paper - you get the picture. While I count myself a paper aficionado, and consider experimenting across product lines part of the fun, if you prefer to focus on the pens and/or inks you can stick to Clairefontaine and find pretty much any paper format you might need within that line.
Consistent Quality. What I love about Clairefontaine is that you don’t need to think about whether it’s going to offer you a baseline-level of fountain pen friendliness. Although most people lump them together as “Clairefontaine/Rhodia”, I’ve generally found Clairefontaine to be more consistent across batches and the product line as a whole.
Cost Effectiveness. Whether it’s those of us who use fountain pens on a daily basis at work, or prolific journalers who can fill a 100+ page notebook in a matter of weeks, most people have to pay attention to the cost of this hobby on some level. While they’ve had to raise prices over the past couple of years, Clairefontaine paper is still some of the more reasonably priced fountain pen friendly stationery on the market. As I write this, notebooks containing Clairefontaine paper range from $5.50 to $23, depending on size and page volume.

Clairefontaine Writing Sample with two different fountain pen inks — Clairefontaine paper is famous for how well it handles ink. The bright white version showcases color and shading fairly well. It also holds up to extremely wet pens and inks, though as discussed further below, that may affect dry time.

Clairefontaine Ink Bleed-Through Test Showcasing the Back of the Page — As you can see, there is zero bleed-through from handwriting. It took me FOUR passes with a q-tip - basically until the paper soaked through and began disintegrating, before I saw any bleeding whatsoever from the ink swab. Even then, it only bled along the “weak spots” in the paper (i.e., where the ruling was printed).

That’s not to say that Clairefontaine doesn’t have it’s drawbacks, and any well-rounded review should point them out. First of all, dry time can be an issue, especially with wet and/or super-saturated inks. What makes Clairefontaine paper so ink-friendly is the fact that the paper is coated to minimize feathering and bleed-through, so it takes longer to dry because the paper doesn’t absorb as much ink as other brands. As a result, many left handers find that that ink frequently smears, and certain Noodler’s and Organics Studio formulations will literally never dry on this paper. On a similar note, because this paper tends to feel very smooth, I find it less satisfying to use with pencil. While to me this is more of a tactile issue, some people claim that graphite smears more easily on Clairefontaine and other coated papers. YMMV.

Clairefontaine 1951 Color fan on table — Clairefontaine’s 1951 Collection, with it’s school-days-retro vibe, has been incredibly popular.

Takeaways and Where to Buy

I always keep Clairefontaine paper close at hand. I opened my “notebook stash drawer” in my office desk yesterday and three Clairefontaine products jumped out at me: (1) a packet of French-ruled looseleaf sheets, which will be returning to the shop soon; (2) a “Pupitre” legal-style A4 pad; and (3) a spiral-bound A4 French-ruled notebook. I started with Clairefontaine paper way back in college, when I first got into fountain pens, and at this point I consider myself a lifer with this brand.

In the interest of full disclosure (though most readers probably already know this) we do sell Clairefontaine directly via our own shop, though my love of this paper predates my status as a retailer by decades. You can generally find this paper at most pen retailers worldwide.

Clairefontaine French-ruled pape writing sample

New Arrivals: New Styles from Clairefontaine, Plus Restocks on Old Favorites!

July 25, 2023

I arrived home to a huge shipment (8 boxes) from Exaclair this weekend, including restocks on most Clairefontaine favorites, including the larger Triomphe writing pads, French-ruled notebooks, and the incredibly popular clothbound “1951 Series”. We are also restocked on the Quo Vadis Habana, my favorite of the bound journal/notebooks, which features Clairefontaine dot grid paper. But that’s not all!

Clairefontaine My Essentials Softcover Notebooks

Enough of the Restocks: What’s New? Triomphe Notebooks, Dot Grid Journals, Reporter-Style Pads and More!

We’ve been wanting to expand our selection of Clairefontaine for some time - I generally find the entire line to be excellent, especially given the often-rare combination of fountain pen friendly paper and an accessible price point. There’s a lot to be excited about, as new arrivals include:

Triomphe Notebooks, in both white and ivory paper, lined or blank! These were recently released - the Triomphe paper is incredibly fountain pen friendly and popular for personal correspondence, and to have it available in notebook form is an exciting development.
Clairefontaine Classic “Pupitre” Reporter-style Writing Tablets, which feature perforated pages of Clairefontaine’s classic 90g white paper, ruled or grid. We have these top-bound spiral pads in four different sizes including pocket, classic reporter, A5, and A4.
Clairefontaine “Forever” A5 Spiral Notebook. Featuring 100% recycled paper, these spiral notebooks are lined and entirely micro-perforated, so that you can remove pages for ease of filing/discarding/scanning, whatever you may like. More notebooks need to be perforated for easy page removal!
My Essentials A5 Bound Journals, which are threadbound notebooks featuring a slightly more absorbent (and quicker drying) dot grid ivory paper. These are a perfect solution for bullet journaling, with a table of contents and numbered pages.
Life.unplugged Pocket Duo Notebooks, which are slightly smaller than a Field Notes and feature lined 90g fountain-pen friendly paper. Sold in packs of two: one colored and one black notebook.

Happy Shopping!