May-August 2024 in Stationery
Earlier this year, I did a little retrospective of my stationery discoveries in January-April of 2024. This was fun, so I decided to do it again now that summer is coming to a close.
Pens
Scribo Piuma Levante. Catch and Release in May, I had it for about a day. Bought from Goldspot on an excellent sale, but I have two other Piumas, and while I loved the muted orange color and the F Flex nib, ultimately I felt that this pen created too much duplication in my collection. I let it go. This pen does not count towards my pen purchase count for 2024, since this was an immediate catch and release.
Aurora Internazionale Arancio. A beloved member of the Gathering, the Internazionale had to be sent back to Italy as it developed a hairline crack in the cap. This was frustrating - the Internazionale is strictly a desk pen, I take immense care with it, and when I sent it away, I felt the lack of orange in the Gathering. Luckily, Mario of Stilo e Stile came through and took care of everything, and the Aurora returned to me in early August, looking pristine and feeling fine.
Aurora Internazionale Arancio, a locally made glass dip pen sourced from Wonderfair, and a menagerie friend beadcat (there are a few beadcats, but the two grumpiest ones are my special friends).
The temporary departure of the Internazionale created a yearning for orange, which I planned to satisfy via the purchase of a Conid Wild Tiger. I sold a few pens, including my last Montblanc (the Bohème), and though I did not snag a Conid during the initial release, I managed to get one a bit later. (I wrote about this purchase in “Alabaster and Orange and No Immediate Clarity.”) I am still experimenting with the pen. Even though Conid tests every nib before dispatching them, this particular nib needs a tune. One tine hangs slightly lower than the other, resulting in some hard starting; I made it better, but it’s not perfect. The issue is not major, but it’s enough to be annoying. I am also still getting used to the filling system of this pen. Time will tell how this will shape up.
Conid Wild Tiger and Aurora 88 Volterra, with menagerie friends amber bear and beadcat.
Aurora 88 Volterra with an F nib. I wanted this pen for two years and finally got my hands on one. I love it so far. It’s a perfect match to my aesthetic, it’s gorgeous, comfortable, and the nib is sublime.
I continued using my pre-existing pens, inking the Onoto Keats, Onoto Scholar, Scribo Maddalena, and Scribo Piuma Impressione through the summer.
Total pen acquisitions so far in 2024, not counting catch and release situations: 3
Temptations
I passed on excellent deals on another Aurora 88, a Pelikan Glauco Cambon (which was on my 2024 maybe list), a few new Leonardo releases, a fun Kilk release, and a bunch of other pens and nibs. Not today, Pen Satan.
Platonic Ideal
Having assembled quite a few grail-level pens at this point, I have a clearer feeling of my platonic ideal of a pen, though it’s not that much different from how I envisioned this before. Here is what I’m thinking:
An in-house nib. This is not as important now as it was for me a few years ago, when I was on a quest to try as many in-house nibs as I could. Sadly, I am not a huge fan of many in-house nibs which are the golden standard, such as Sailor nibs (although I may make an exception for the right KOP), the modern standard Montblanc M, Pelikan, or Lamy. For other brands, I am a huge fan of the nibs, but the pens themselves did not gel so far: I am especially looking at you, Santini. However, a perfect in-house nib for me does exist, being represented by two Italian brands: Scribo and Aurora. Both brands produce delightful nibs which have character and range (though Scribo nibs in my experience often need tuning).
A nib I like. A nebulous definition. I like stiff nibs, and I also like nibs with some softness and bounce. I like nibs to be a bit on the wet side, but I’ve moved away from gushers. I moved away from M widths towards European Fs. I love a good stub, and there’s never yet been an italic I disliked. I love sharp italics, cursive italics — any italics. I’m a huge fan of my Onoto nib in F 18k, which is produced, I believe, by Schmidt and tuned in house. Funnily when I first got that nib in my Onoto Magna Keats, I disliked it and swapped it out for an Onoto steel M from my Scholar (Onoto produces perfectly tuned steel nibs - kudos). Early last year I tried the F again and wow, a soft, juicy, perfectly tuned nib, why did I put it away before? So it goes.
Left to right: Scribo Piuma Inmpressione with 18k F nib; Onoto Magna Keats with a 18k F nib; Aurora Volterra with an 18k F nib (each of these Fs is different!), Aurora Internazionale with an IB nib.
An ink window - but not a demonstrator. Most of my pens fail this, spectacularly. Only three out of eighteen have an ink window (two Auroras and a Leonardo), and one is a demonstrator (Conid). I like the ink window to be trimmed on both sides and again Aurora delivers, and so does my Leonardo Momento Magico.
Closeups of fountain pens and caps. The cap of the Onoto Scholar is graced with a nightingale. Maybe one day they’ll issue a Percy Bysshe Shelley pen with a skylark on it, so I can have it too. Living the dream of bird-themed poetry in fountain pens. Extremely niche, but so it goes.
A filling system that works for a particular pen. I like piston fillers, but I am not welded to them. 9 out of 18 of the pens I have right now fill via a cartridge converter or cartridge only. It is a more economic delivery system and it also allows for an easier cleanup and a more frequent rotation of inks. I like it for most of my pens. I do struggle with a few of them. The Sailor converter in my Pro Gear is tiny and not comfortable for cleaning or installing in the pen. My Leonardo Momento Zero converter has a metallic cap, which can produce an annoying sound that bothers me. My single remaining Kaweco is cartridge only, and that is annoying too. 7 of the Gathering pens are piston fillers, one is a vac filler, one is a bulkfiller. Variety is great.
Easy Nib Modularity. I love it when a nib easily unscrews and can be replaced with a different nib. In that sense, the Conid is dreamy, and so is my Leonardo Momento Magico and a few other pens which take Jowo #6 and are easy to swap.
Size. Small pens are a no-go from a usability standpoint, but I love them aesthetically. My sweet spot is somewhere between the Aurora 88 and the Scribo Feel.
Character. This has to do with the pen’s overall design and aesthetic, and how closely it matches the vibe of the Gathering. Again, a nebulous criterion, but I enjoy beautiful trim and furniture on a pen, distinctive materials, and/or an organic modern design. I love a consistent aesthetic that is executed throughout, and I know it when I see it.
There’s no perfect pen that matches all of those, but probably the Aurora 88 Volterra ticks off the most boxes, the Scribos and Onotos have a beguiling appeal despite not ticking the most boxes, and the Aurora Internazionale does not have an ink window and has needed a repair, and yet remains my absolute favorite pen.
Ink
I bought 5 bottles in Jan-April. I should have known I was in trouble the moment I said “no ink guardrails,” but with 5 bottles to start off the year, I was still feeling optimistic. Then I wanted to get my hands on some Montblanc Origin inks, and I had to order them from Cult, and they were having a sale, and it was cheaper to buy four bottles with free shipping and a discount than to buy two with no free shipping and a smaller discount. So I bought four bottles, of which I only used the Origin inks (I review the Montblanc Origin Coral and Green here). The other two are Herbin Vert Atlantide (I finished a sample in 2022 and wanted to buy a full bottle for a while, just did not get to it), and Pennonia Árvácska, which I bought because the discount and free shipping math mathed that way.
So now I was at nine bottles, two of them unopened, and I should have stopped there, but I did not. I got a used bottle of Angers Kantarelli from a fellow pen lover just because I wanted to try a Sailor vase bottle, and who doesn’t love a Finnish-themed Sailor LE? Then I was up to ten. I should have stopped there. You know where this is going.
After a lot of hesitation, I bought the new MB Jane Austen ink. This was the one ink of the year I was actually planning to buy, as soon as I heard through the grapevine that Montblanc was doing an Austen edition. I hoped for a burgundy, which I felt would have been a perfect match with Jane Austen’s books, but I told my pen friends that I don’t even care about the color (foolhardy in retrospect). The color turned out to be a drab purplish gray, which I never write with, and so I almost, almost passed on it. But in the end, I could not resist. The ink is actually lovely.
Well, I didn’t stop there either, because I also bought a bottle of UNICEF Blue on a deep discount (still en route). Writing with Jane made me pivot hard to a searing turquoise.
So how is that “no ink guardrails” idea working out for me? Let’s put it simply, I’m not doing this again. And I’m not looking forward to the last four months of the year, because I am still not remorseful enough to abandon my no guardrails challenge and impose restrictions. I need to know how bad this will get, so that I will forever remember why I do guardrails.
Ink samples from Mary - thank you, Mary! :)
I also swapped ink samples with various pen friends, and this made me happy.
Paper and Journaling
In the end of my January-April 2024 retrospective, I wrote that I planned to acquire a Plotter A5, and I did just that. I’m very happy with it, even though an A5 does not fit as neatly on my desk as a Bible does. I have been very happy with various Plotter A5 inserts, especially the Chart Grid, which is making a big difference in my planning. I reviewed the Plotter A5 Chart Grid and the Quadrant grid here.
I am finishing up the second Hobonichi Techo Day-Free A6 insert of the year (May-August 2024), and will set a new one for Fall. This one was a great journal, but not nearly as dear to me as the first one I finished this year.
Notebooks of the summer: Plotter A5 Wine, Travelers Tokyo, my Hobonichi Day-Free A6 in the Orange Leatherworks cover.
My Orange Leatherworks A6 cover is still going strong. I am wondering whether to condition the leather, but did not get to it yet. No other notes.
Last time, I wrote,
In less successful experiments, I gave my Travelers system another try while I was in Oregon and it was a no-go - I am not really enjoying this system, although I love the aesthetics and the quality of the paper. I was briefly tempted by the new Tokyo LE for Travelers, but I am glad I passed - it sold out almost immediately, and I don’t really have a good way to use it (yet).
You might have guessed, I got the Tokyo. And I continued using my old brown Travelers for ink dragon doodling and general inky adventures. The Tokyo is now earmarked for travel planning.
Accessories
I got two Toyooka Craft desk boxes for six pens. I have been wanting a larger Toyooka, but could not commit without trying one first. I am enjoying these two so far.
Some recent currently inked pens in two Toyooka trays.
My friends at Wonderfair redesigned Wonder Gallery as Secure Attachments, a stapler store and art gallery. People were lining up for the opening, which was excellent but not for me — so we went a few days later, after many art staplers were already sold. It was still a fabulous experience. I bought two books, a vintage folder, and a vintage badminton racket paper clip. I actually need a stapler, so I’ll go back at some point.
Travel
We went to Estonia for a conference in May, and then I went to Boston to launch my new book. Estonia was great, but the trip back was exhausting, and Boston was plain exhausting. I did give away a bunch of ink samples and stickers, and penabled a young person via a TWSBI pen and some inks. The young person and their parent came to my reading. The parent was in cosplay inspired by one of my books, and this was probably my favorite moment of the whole trip.
I am still recovering from all this travel. I do not have the health for so much travel, and I do not want to travel more this year. Which also meant that I passed on my pen show travel opportunities - St Louis is within driving distance, but I teach a writing workshop at this time; and DC looked cool, but also like a potential superspreader, and the dates did not work this year. I really do want to make a pen show, just for the experience. Maybe next year.
A sample of Oblation Sitka Spruce from Jessica - thank you so much! I love this color.
What’s next?
I need a nibmeister for some of my pens. I would prefer to see someone at a pen show - mailing pens is always a bit anxiety-inducing for me, especially if those pens are expensive. We’ll see.
I also want to purchase an alternative nib for my Conid. Ideally it would be a soft, bouncy #8 F, or an Italic #8 M. Where to get this and how quickly? I am not sure.
My birthday and the holiday shopping season are on the horizon, and people are beginning to ask me for my wishlist. At this particular moment, I don’t want anything. My pen box is full of excellent options, my ink drawer needs pruning, and the Internazionale is back home. Peace.
How long will it last? Time will tell.