For Winter, Let's Have Cold Horizon

(Courtesy of Bryan Bedell / fieldnotesbrand.com)

And Field Notes has done it again. Wow me with their notebooks, that is. 2013's Winter FIELD NOTES COLORS limited edition release has been revealed! Cold Horizon, the sibling to my 2011 Winter FIELD NOTES COLORS pack, Northerly is here! 

Field Notes' 21st COLORS edition features three seasonally-inspired colors, a blend of three blues across all three notebooks, invoking the deeply saturated winter twilight sky, fluorescent glacial water, and the shiny metallic glimmer of the Aurora Borealis. These notebooks are BLUE!!! Did they make these for me?

The notebook covers are printed on glossy UV-coated 120lb (178gsm) Appleton Utopia One stock. Arranged side by side, or back to back, the blues fade evenly from notebook to notebook, evoking a single, wintery gradient.

(Courtesy of Bryan Bedell / fieldnotesbrand.com)

Each of the three notebooks from the Cold Horizon limited edition pack uses Finch Opaque 50lb (74gsm) paper with a 3/16" gray graph grid. The grid pages of the three notebooks correspond to the colors of their covers: light green, light blue, and cool gray. How cool is that? It's like getting three different notebooks when you buy a pack of Cold Horizon.

(Courtesy of Bryan Bedell / fieldnotesbrand.com)

My small tiny Field Notes collection includes (left to right): Northerly, Winter 2011; Red Blooded; Traveling Salesman, Fall 2012; and Day Game, Summer 2012. I'm waiting for my local source of Field Notes notebooks, Avalon.ph, to stock up on Cold Horizon so I can add it to the lot.

For more information about the FIELD NOTES Brand notebooks, visit their website at http://fieldnotesbrand.com/. 

To read more about their limited edition COLORS notebook packs, and how to buy them, go to: http://fieldnotesbrand.com/colors./.

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Notebook Review: TWSBI

When I shifted to full fountain pen use in 2008, I didn't realize that the major challenge I would have to face was to find suitable paper types for my pens and their inks. My lack of knowledge then about the proper pen, ink, and paper combinations brought home stacks of useless pads and notebooks. Since then, I have found notebooks that are friendlier to my fountain pens, but when Taiwan-based company TWSBI announced that they are coming up with a line of notebooks tailored for fountain use, I was curious. When Scribe Writing Essentials, the local distributor of TWSBI products in the Philippines, sent me a medium lined TWSBI notebook to review, I was thrilled.

TWSBI promotes their notebooks as "universal to all types of writing/drawing instruments, however, specially tailored for fountain pens." Their notebooks have soft and textured but shiny covers made of  fine polyurethane (PU). TWSBI made sure their notebooks are easily identified in the crowd, with the company's logo heat-pressed neatly onto the PU in the front cover.

The logo is again heat-pressed on the bottom of the back cover, but includes their acronym, TWSBI.

TWSBI offers their notebooks in three sizes: small (3.75 × 5.5 in), medium (5.25 × 8.25 in), and large (7.5 × 9.8 in). Each size is available in lined, grid, or blank pages. All notebook sizes have 120 sheets of paper, or 250 pages, but the small notebook has perforated sheets.

A black elastic strap holds the cover and notebook pages together, but it's a bit loose. I wish TWSBI used a stronger and wider strap for their medium and large notebooks.

In the photo below, the TWSBI notebook (on top) has the thinnest elastic strap although it's the thickest. The notebooks below the TWSBI are: Quo Vadis Habana, Moleskine, and Rhodia Webbie.

Despite the thin elastic strap, the red page ribbon marker adds vibrance to this black notebook. It's also a nice, thoughtful touch of TWSBI to have the end of the ribbon glued to prevent fraying. Most new notebooks come with loose ribbon ends and I usually just tie them into small knots to avoid early fraying.

The makers of these notebooks paid a lot of attention to detail: the notebooks have round page corners! I've always preferred round corners in my notebooks. I don't like pointed corners because they are sharp and dig into my palms when I write, and they also fray easily.

The pages of the TWSBI notebooks are sewn, to ensure more page security and flexibility. Sewn binding is so much better than most punch and bind methods because the pages are more secure and they also look tidier.

The paper used in these notebooks is not cream color, but it's not pearly white, either. It is off-white, soft, and smooth. TWSBI did not indicate the weight nor the type of paper used on these notebooks, but I'll guess it to be around 80gsm. Another plus for these cool notebooks: the binding allows them to open completely flat. The pages are not glued to the spine to give it full flexiblity.

The soft PU cover is flexible and the spine easily folds when the notebook is open.

See? No bulges, no bumps, no big creases to get in the way of the inside pages while the notebook is open.

Again, I am not sure about the paper type used in TWSBI's notebooks, but they are certainly excellent for fountain pen use. It's a brilliant move of TWSBI to use a faint gray ruling in the notebooks' pages, instead of black, or blue.

And unlike most notebooks with continuous line ruling, TWSBI used faint dotted lines, which is just fine. The faint gray lines are perfect for writing, but they do not get in the way of it at all.

I was really excited to try this notebook's paper and filled a page with different pen and ink combinations. I also included in the test page some of my remaining gel pens and rollerball pens. True enough to their claim, TWSBI's notebooks are perfectly suited to fountain pen use. Most of my pens have stub, medium, broad, and italic nibs that bleed ink on most paper types. But the paper in this notebook behaved so much better than I expected, and I was so amazed to see clean lines — no excessive feathering, and not a trace of bleeding. There is some see-through though, but again, that's fine because writing on both sides of the page is still possible.

The back side of my pen and ink test page did not show any bleeding at all.

I was not able to do a test for different ink's dry times, but I did not have any problems with drying ink when I did the pen and ink tests. Below are samples of the inks I used and there is no significant feathering and no bleeding at all. From top: Diamine Royal Blue (TWSBI 540 medium nib), Pelikan Edelstein Jade (Pelikan M205 medium nib), Diamine Red Dragon (Pelikan M400 medium nib), and Noodler's Air Corp Blue Black (Lamy Safari 1.1 italic nib).

Overall, TWSBI's notebooks are excellent to use with fountain pens. They are simple, yet very attractive and have the "classic black notebook" elegant look. They have soft flexible covers, an elastic strap to keep the pages together, the pages have round corners, and the paper is excellent for any pen type. Each of TWSBI's notebooks has that happy vibrant red ribbon page marker and back pockets with red accents. These notebooks are perfect for note taking and journaling, and they do not cost a fortune. I really, really like my medium TWSBI notebook, and again, it is super friendly to my fountain pens!

To get these notebooks from TWSBI, visit: http://www.twsbi.com/category.php?id_category=9.

In the Philippines, these wonderful notebooks are available at Scribe Writing Essentials together with TWSBI fountain pens and ink bottles, with the following prices:

• Small: PhP 495
• Medium: PhP 675
• Large: PhP 845

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Fountain Pen Review: Sheaffer Taranis

Sheaffer celebrates their Centennial Year - 2013 - with a fleet of writing instruments including super limited edition pens and two new series, Taranis and Sagaris. Here in the Philippines, both pens are sold at National Bookstore, the official seller of Sheaffer products (pens, inks, pen cases, notebooks) in the country.

Robby da Silva, Sheaffer's Brand Manager at National Bookstore has kindly let me borrow a Taranis fountain pen to review and this pen has really caught my interest. Robby sent me the Stormy Night finish with chrome plate trim, and despite my initial impression of the Taranis based on what I have read about it, this is one elegant-looking pen. 

Sheaffer named this pen after Taranis, the Celtic thunder god, to emulate the titan's rule of the heavens, and have a pen that will stand out among other pens. American architect Charles Debbas (inventor of the Ergopen) designed the Taranis, and he successfully combined the classic look and modern details into this pen. The barrel of the Taranis has medium width, with both ends of tapering off neatly to a square. The Sheaffer White Dot® is on the controversial long clip that is similar to the clip design of another Sheaffer pen, the Intensity.

The Taranis is available in two plate trims, chrome and gold, and five different finishes including Stormy Night with Chrome Plate Trim (reviewed here), Icy Gunmetal with Chrome Plate Trim, Sleek Chrome with Chrome Plate Trim, White Lightning with Gold Plate Trim, and Stormy Wine with Gold Plate Trim. It is offered as fountain pen (nibs in fine, medium, or broad), rollerball, and ballpoint.

The Taranis fountain pen is 5.5 inches when capped, and 4.75 inches without the cap. Posted, it is almost 5.8 inches long. Despite the square barrel end, this pen can be posted. It has medium weight at around 35 grams with its cap, and only 26 grams when uncapped, which means that this pen can be used for extended periods of writing.

The section of the Taranis has chrome embedded into it, with SHEAFFER pressed on to the chrome. A lot of fountain pen users do not like this feature of the Taranis, including myself because I find it a little too much, but I realized that the chrome does not make writing uncomfortable at all. It does not get in the way of how my fingers hold on to the section while I write.

Sheaffer offers the Taranis with a semi-hooded stainless steel nib available in fine, medium, or broad. The pen on this review has a medium nib, but I find it too narrow, and I assume that is due to the small and thin nib of the pen. It writes smoothly, but it's not as wet as I want it to be. If I get one for myself in the future, I will definitely have it tweaked to the wetness I am used to with my other modern Sheaffer fountain pens.

The Taranis can be filled with ink using a Sheaffer converter, or cartridges. I filled this pen with Sheaffer Skrip Black, and I like the narrow lines that this medium nib produced. Again, it writes smoothly, but not as wet as my taste demands.

The Sheaffer Taranis is a well-balanced, elegant fountain pen for anyone. It's an eye catcher on any shirt pocket or pen wrap because of its clip, and a conversation starter when uncapped because of its unique grip section. I like the Taranis, but I wish the nib would be a bit wider, bigger, and wetter.

The Taranis pens (fountain pens, rollerball, ballpoint) are available in the Philippines at National Bookstore branches with the following prices:

• Stormy Night (chrome plate trim): FP PhP 2,700 / RB PhP 2,520 / BP PhP 2,520
• Icy Gunmetal (chrome plate trim): FP PhP 3,060 / RB PhP 2,700 / BP PhP 2,700
• Sleek Chrome (chrome plate trim): FP PhP 2,700 / RB PhP 2,520 / BP PhP 2,520
• White Lightning (gold plate trim): FP/RB/BP PhP 10,800 each
• Stormy Wine (gold plate trim): FP/RB/BP PhP 11,500 each

Sheaffer Skrip ink in bottles and cartridges are also available at National Bookstore branches.

Size comparison: The Taranis (middle pen) with my other modern Sheaffer fountain pens.
On top: Sheaffer 300 Straight Line Chased Chrome. Bottom: Sheaffer Prelude® Black Laqué.

I found that the Taranis fits perfectly into the single leather pen case that my friend Rhona Carantes made for me. For more of her lovely leather creations, check her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/rhonacarantes?fref=ts.

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Fountain Pen Review: 2013 Limited Edition Lamy Safari Neon

I was not happy when I heard that Lamy's Safari color for 2013 is not purple but a vivid, bright, and intense neon. I was thinking that if I ever get one, what would I do with it? But Lamy always proves me wrong, and I instantly liked the neon Safari fountain pen the moment I saw it in its box.

NEON is Lamy's limited edition Safari color for 2013, and it is available as fountain pen, rollerball pen, or ballpoint pen. I received the fountain pen in this review at no charge from Lamy's authorized and exclusive distributor in the Philippines, Times Trading Company.

Neon Lamy Safari fountain pen comes in a self covered plastic box, and inside is a soft plastic clamp that holds the pen in place. The bed inside the box is felt, ensuring that the pen will not be scratched.

This Safari pen is truly neon! It is bright and intense, and that made it a bit hard for me to shoot photos for this review. I had to reshoot my exposures several times to ensure that I will get one where the pen doesn't appear to be glowing.

Lamy Safari pens are student pens, promoted for extensive use in school. For many fountain pen users, the Safari becomes their starter fountain pens, but these are made from sturdy ABSP plastic – the same material used in Lego blocks and inner walls of refrigerators – a thermoplastic used in many products for its hardness, gloss, toughness, and electrical insulation. The Safari fountain pen was first introduced during the 1980 Frankfurt exhibition, and has been in regular production since then. Wolfgang Fabian designed the pen.

The neon Lamy Safari's major parts, as with the other Safari fountain pens, include the barrel, section with converter, and cap. Safari fountain pens measure 5.5 inches while capped, 5 inches uncapped, and quite long at 6.5 inches when posted. It's a light pen, and anyone can use it for extended periods of writing. The cap with the oversized chrome-coated stainless steel clip is 2.5 inches long, the length from the nib to converter is 4.6 inches, while the barrel measures about 3 inches.

Lamy's proprietary piston operated Z24 converters are used to fill the Safari fountain pen with ink from a bottle, but the T10 ink cartridges are also available for use on this pen.

Lamy Safari fountain pens and rollerball pens have cap buttons, a truly unique feature of the series. Rollerball pens have a line, and fountain pens have a cross (or x) sign in their cap buttons. The previous two years' fountain pens (Aquamarine, Green) had cap buttons in the same color used in their caps and barrels, but the neon Safari has a black cap button similar to that of 2008's limited edition lime green, and those of Safaris in regular production (glossy white, glossy black, matte black, blue, red, yellow).

The changes in Safari fountain pens' cap buttons through the years. Lamy reissued pink and orange Safaris recently, and their cap buttons are of the same color as their caps and barrels, too.

Some users dislike Lamy Safari fountain pen’s triangular grip, because they find it uncomfortable and annoying. This feature, however, is designed to make writing easier – it is meant for users to have a firm and secure grip on the pen. Near the end of the section is the anti-slipping brake to prevent a user’s fingers from slipping into the nib while writing. I do not find the triangular grip uncomfortable at all. I actually do not notice it when I'm using my Safari pens.

The best feature of Lamy Safari fountain pens is the interchangeability of their nibs. A Safari fountain pen uses the same feed and nib as those on the Lamy Vista, Al-Star, Joy, Nexx, and Studio. The default nib on Safari fountain pens bought in the Philippines is medium, which is my preference, but other nib sizes are available: extra-fine, fine, broad, and left-handed. It can also be fitted with an italic nib ranging from 1.1mm to 1.9mm since the Safari shares the same section, feed, nib, and cap designs with that of the Joy, Lamy’s own set of calligraphy pens. I have seen a yellow Safari fountain pen fitted with a 1.9mm nib used as a highlighter pen. I will do the same conversion and make my own highlighter pen!

The Safari fountain pen’s barrel has an ink window that allows me to check on my pen’s ink level without having to screw out the barrel. Towards the end, neatly etched in clean, sharp lines is the Lamy logo.

I flushed this pen before filling it with ink to ensure that there is no factory residue in it. After filling, the pen wrote instantly and smoothly. It did not even skip as I wrote on my Banditapple notebook. I filled my neon Lamy Safari fountain pen with J. Herbin's 1670 Bleu Ocean. I used a dark ink for this bright pen to achieve some contrast. I wrote the quote with the default medium nib on my pen. The writeup below was written with a medium stub nib done by my friend Jose Reinoso.

This neon Safari is an awesome addition to Lamy's growing line of fountain pens. It feels good in my hand when I write with it because it is light, but sturdy at the same time. And it comes in many different colors! My green fountain pen from last year still looks new and now I have the 2013 neon Safari in my hands. Now it makes me dream again of a purple Safari. But don't let that keep anyone from getting one of this impossibly impossible to ignore pens. Go get yours now! 

All of my limited edition Lamy Safari colors. From top: Lime Green (2008), Orange (2009), Pink (2010), Aquamarine (2011), Green (2012), and Neon (2013).

Which pen is the brightest of them all?

Lamy Safari pens are widely available in reputable pen sellers worldwide. For a global search of Lamy sellers worldwide, check this link.

In the Philippines, the neon Lamy Safari (and other Lamy pens and ink) is  made available by Times Trading Company, through their kiosks at National Bookstore branches around Metro Manila. Lamy pens are also available at Scribe Writing Essentials, a specialty store offering fountain pens, inks, and paper products, located at Eastwood Mall in Quezon City. A Lamy Safari (including the neon pen) fountain pen sells for PhP1,499.75 (~USD35).

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It's Carnival Time!

It's Carnival time once again at Rants of The Archer! Everyone, welcome to the May edition of the Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper!


Pens

Millie Logica of Planet Millie presents a review of the lovely Platinum Kanazawa-Haku  fountain pen with cherry blossom.

Azizah Asgarali of Gourmet Pens reviews three fountain pens: green Pilot 78G, Faber-Castell Ambition Pearwood, and Levenger True Writer Kyoto.

Photo grab from Gourmet Pens.

My friend and fellow member of FPN-Philippines Leigh Reyes featured the Sailor Nagahara Retirement Commemorative Takenuri fountain pen in her blog, http://www.leighreyes.com/

Photo grab from leighreyes.com.

Notebooks

TonyB presents Reporter's Notebooks Are Perfect For Everyday Carry posted at Tiger Pens Blog.

travisthetrout presents To Do List Notebook posted at Notes in a Book.

Azizah Asgarali presents a review of the Midori Traveler's Notebook STAR Edition - Passport Size.

Photo grab from Gourmet Pens.

Sandra Strait presents Review of the Midori B6 Bee Side Spiralbound Envelope Notebook posted at Life Imitates Doodles.

Photo grab from Life Imitates Doodles.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of pen, pencil and paperusing the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.

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Review: Unlimited Notebook by Rhodia

When I received these Rhodia UNLIMITED notebooks that Karen Doherty sent to me last year, I asked her why they're called UNLIMITED. Karen said the name UNLIMITED refers more to a lifestyle with no limits on activities or ideas which could be noted in a stylish pocket notebook. And I thought she's right, these notebooks are aptly named UNLIMITED. This post will tell you why.

I've always preferred big notebooks and pads because I could write more in bigger pages and they take longer to run out of pages. They are heavier, though, and when I saw the pocket-sized Rhodia UNLIMITED notebooks, I immediately took one as my 'pen and ink test notebook.'

Rhodia's UNLIMITED notebooks come in pocket size only, measuring 3.5 x 5.5 inches, just like the size of a small index card. These notebooks are available in black or orange covers, with ruled/lined or grid/graph inside pages. What I really liked about this notebook is the cover which is not just ordinary laminated board, but a soft, velvety material called Verso soft touch. 

Another feature that I liked about Rhodia UNLIMITED notebooks is their round page corners. I have always preferred round corners on my notebooks because they do not dig into my palms when I write, and I do not see frayed corners as the notebook gets used.

A bicolor (black with three orange stripes) elastic strap keeps this pocket notebook tidy, a feature that I do not often see in pocket notebooks available in the market. The strap is held tight by small grommets in the notebook's back cover.

What's clever with the elastic strap is that it covers the grommets while keeping the notebook closed. I just worry that these grommets may create bumps in the notebook pages, especially if I am near its last few pages.

Most pocket notebooks are either sewn or stapled in the spine, but Rhodia's UNLIMITED notebook has its pages glued to the spine. I tried pulling on the pages to test if they will fall off the binding but they did not. The glued binding in this notebook is definitely durable, but it prevents the notebook from lying flat.

Both ruled/lined and grid/graph notebooks are perforated so users can easily tear a page off when needed. This feature may be welcome to some, but I hardly tear a page off my notebooks, so I don't see this feature as useful to me. I still think it's thoughtful of Rhodia to include perforations in a pocket notebook.

These pocket notebooks have 60 sheets (120 pages) of 80gsm white paper. Both ruled/lined (right) and grid/graph (left) notebooks have double ruled margins at the top of the pages.

I noticed that the ruling of the UNLIMITED notebooks is gray instead of the usual purple used in most Rhodia pads. I prefer this color because it is more subdued and does not compete with the bright colors of my fountain pen inks.

Just like all the Rhodia notebooks that I've tried before, the 80gsm smooth white paper of the UNLIMITED is perfect for fountain use. I tested my daily writers on a page (left) - most of them have either medium or broad nibs filled with wet and saturated inks - and the paper held up well. Feathering has not been a concern for me when I'm using Rhodia paper, although I noticed that inks took longer time to dry.

I also tested other pens on the UNLIMITED notebook with ruled/lined pages, and again, the paper held up well. I tested a rollerball, several gel pens, felt-tipped pens, a ballpoint and highlighter, and Sharpie, of course.

The photo below shows the back sides of my pen and ink test pages. There is some bleed in the fountain pen and ink test page, and I attribute that to the medium nibs on my pen, and the BB stub nib on my Pelikan M205 filled with Private Reserve DC Supershow Blue at that time (bleed on top of the page). I believe it's understandable that wide nibs and saturated inks create messy show through and ugly bleeds, but for most of my medium nibbed pens, the paper held up well. The rest of the pens in the other test page did not bleed at all, except for the Ultra Fine Point Sharpie which bleeds on any paper.

Overall, Rhodia's UNLIMITED notebook is an excellent pocket notebook to use. It has a unique cover which comes in two colors, the elastic strap is tight and keeps the notebook together, the pages have rounded corners, and the paper is excellent for any pen type. It doesn't have a back pocket or page marker, but for such a small notebook, who needs those? I've been using my orange UNLIMITED notebook for pen and ink tests and I'm happy with it. It's a wonderful pocket notebook that can be used for different lists, fits in small pockets and bags, and it's a Rhodia. Why don't you get one for yourself?


The Rhodia UNLIMITED notebooks used in this review are from Exaclair, Inc. through Karen Doherty. The pens and inks used in this review are from my personal collection.

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