Vanness Pens

You guys and girls are a hot mess, buying out the inventory of the new Blue Matte Pilot Vanishing Point earlier this week. Lisa Vanness has let me know they are back in stock and she is ready for more Pen Addict action!

Vanness Pens is now also carrying one of my favorite pens, the Pilot Custom 823, which is the biggest and best of the Pilot lineup in my book.

And don't forget to check out the wide range of Tactile Turn fountain pens that are now in stock.

My thanks to Vanness Pens for sponsoring The Pen Addict this week.

The William Hannah Notebook: A Review

(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)

I first saw a William Hannah notebook on Instagram and was immediately entranced. The supple leather, metal accents, and industrial-strength rings got my undivided attention. So did the price.

I am a hoarder of notebooks. I love the smell of paper and all the different notebook designs available these days. It is hard for me to settle on just one notebook–and why should I? I am currently using a Hobonichi Cousin for my calendar, a Nanami Seven Seas Notebook for my journal, a half-dozen Word notebooks for various things, and a passport-sized Traveler's Notebook for my purse. Then there's my Baron Fig (blank, so far) and a trove of other notebooks sitting on my shelves for which I've yet to find a purpose.

Why on earth would I need another notebook? Well, who doesn't always need another notebook? Besides, I figured that having a British-made notebook with buttery leather and lovely paper would inspire me to write poetry. I have a poetry thesis coming up, so I need to get more poems written. That's what my William Hannah Notebook is for . . . though I've yet to write even one poem in it. I have managed a calendar page.

I originally planned to get the whiskey notebook with the kingfisher interior. But when I went to order my notebook, there was a lovely color called agave. I ordered that. I expected it to take up to two weeks to receive the notebook, so I was amazed when it arrived in five days. The packaging is fantastic, as you would expect from a British company. Everything is wrapped in William Hannah paper.

The notebook is inside a sturdy outer box that opens like a book:

There is a card inside with your receipt and a handwritten note:

The person who packaged my notebook included some extras for me since I was ordering from America:

• A sampler packet of all the different sorts of paper you can order with your notebook.

• A packet of additional lined paper ("To maximize shipping costs to the US").

• A card with extra hardware in case I want to remove the pen loop.

The notebook itself is a simple design. It is made from one thick piece of leather with a suede interior. They offer many different colors. I chose agave which is a beautiful teal. You can even order custom colors if you wish. Both the outer and inner covers are stitched in a coordinating color of thread.

The leather is luscious. It smells wonderful and is so smooth it makes you want to stroke and hold the notebook all the time–which is weird, and people will stare at you, so you might want refrain from this in public. Because the leather is so soft, it is prone to scratches and scrapes. But these will add character to your notebook as it ages.

The only decoration on the front is a William Hannah pin made of steel with the initials WH engraved on it.

The pin screws on, so you can opt for a pen loop, which is what I did. I'm not sure I will make use of the pen loop, though, since I rarely carry just one pen with me. I may remove it and go back to the simple pin.

My Lamy 2000 in the pen loop

The only other decoration is the William Hannah logo engraved on the back.

I wish the notebook had a closure system of some kind, for example, a loop that could be used with the pin. This isn't a deal breaker, of course, but I do like to keep my notebooks closed when not in use or while I'm carrying them.

As stated above, the interior of the notebook is lined in suede. I chose the petrol color for the interior, but the agave notebook can also be paired with lime or fuchsia suede. I would like the option to have pockets sewn into the interior for cards and other loose items.

The discs are made of 303 gauge stainless steel. These babies are meant to last and will not tarnish. They are sewn in place and are sturdy.

The discs don't open and close like a three ring binder. They are solid rings. Instead, the paper is cut to fit the rings, and you can easily remove paper by pulling from the upper right downward. To insert paper, you simply press the pages onto the rings. What is wonderful about this system, is you can arrange and rearrange pages in any order you want.

The 100gsm paper is magnificent. It is almost as thick as index cards and is smooth–no grainy stuff to clog up your extra-fine nibs. When you order your notebook, you also order paper, and you can configure it in any combination of 60 pages (or more, if you wish). They offer plain, lined, grid, and dot-grid paper. You can also choose templates for to-do lists and/or weekly calendar pages. You even get to pick the ink color for your pages. I chose 50 pages of lined and 10 pages of dot-grid in petrol-colored ink.

I tested the paper with several different inks.

The only one that didn't do well was MB Toffee in my Cross Concord nib. Admittedly, this is a super-wide, wet nib, and the ink feathered. All the other pens and inks worked perfectly on this paper.

Only the MB Toffee ink in my very wide Cross Concord nib feathered

The paper has a little bit of show through, but absolutely no bleed through, even with the wettest inks. I did some ink swabs with some of my most saturated colors, and not one bled through.

The ink shows through the paper slightly, but there's no bleed through at all

My only complaint about the paper in the William Hannah notebook is that it isn't perforated. When you pull sheets out, you wind up with a side that has snaggy edges, like spiral notebook paper. If the pages were perforated, you could remove these easily, and that's important for those of us who are OCD about smooth paper edges. I'm a professor, okay? I hate snaggy paper.

A William Hannah notebook starts at £95 (=$137.54 at the current exchange rate). A pen loop is an additional £6, and shipping is £17.50. Bespoke notebooks start at £120.

Paper refills are £5 for 50 pages and £9 for 100 pages plus shipping. You can buy an Atoma punch and use your own paper. However, the punch costs £139 at CultPens, so it's quite an investment. I couldn't find any American retailers who sell an Atoma punch.

The William Hannah notebook is an expensive purchase. But I think it is worth every penny. The care that went into its creation is obvious. It is configurable to anyone's taste, and the paper is outstanding. The William Hannah notebook will last a lifetime.

Pros

• The William Hannah Notebook exhibits top-quality workmanship.
• It is configurable with multiple options for printed paper, including templates for weekly calendaring and to do lists.
• The ring system is sturdy and allows you to arrange and rearrange pages.
• The notebook lies perfectly flat when open.
• The leather is pure bliss and comes in many different colors. You can even create your own bespoke notebook.
• The 100gsm paper works well with any sort of pen or pencil, but it is especially good for fountain pen users.

Cons

• This is a very expensive notebook.
• The notebook does not have inner pockets nor is there a way to keep the notebook closed.
• When paper is removed it has snaggy edges.
• Refills can get expensive because of the exchange rate and shipping from England.

Staedtler 925-35 2.0 mm Lead Holder Review

(This is a guest post by Nick Folz. You can find more of Nick and his work on his blog, Smallberry Drive, Twitter, and Instagram.)

Staedtler finally pitched me over the edge of Mechanical Pencilville, into Lead Holder Valley. Lead holders, for the uninitiated, are mechanical pencils whose lead is 2.0 mm or larger. They have a couple of lead advancement systems, the most common is a “clutch” system that holds onto the lead like a claw until you hit the knock and then it releases, dropping the lead until you let off the knock and it grabs it again. This is fine if you have a free hand to stop the lead, otherwise it’s hitting the floor. The Staedtler 925 35-20 thankfully has a typical lead advancement, like what you would expect from a regular mechanical pencil; each click extends the lead bit by bit. Its navy blue all metal body and precise construction are attention grabbers from the get go. This pencil is as no nonsense as it is aesthetically pleasing. There are some nitpicks and strange decisions, but Staedtler's 925-35 2.0 mm Lead Holder is one stunner of a tool.

The all metal build is not overly heavy, thanks to aluminum. The knurled grip is a series of textured ring areas. The knurling is not extreme, but just enough to be grippy. The lead guide is fixed, but since it is such a wide diameter it is pocket safe. Toward the body of the pen is the lead grade indicator, so you can mark what type of lead is currently in the pencil (2B for life). The slick blue body features their name and logo. I think just the helmet logo would have looked better, but I am nitpicking.

The clip is okay, not great. It has a tendency to slide a bit, by a bit I mean a few centimeters a week with pocket carrying the whole time. I usually prefer a built in clip so that might be a personal bias. You can remove it if you want. The cap in has “2.0” printed on it, and it has a satisfying resistance to it when advancing the lead.

I am not sure why they opted out of putting a sharpener on the inside of the cap. It is a feature that most mid-level lead holders have, so if you want to put a point on the lead you can do it on the fly without having to grab another tool. I might have understood if they swapped it for an eraser - I would still rather have a sharpener - but even that is absent. The lack of an eraser is not as egregious as the missing sharpener, since it would be eaten alive by this amount of lead. I wound up buying a little plastic sharpener and a kneaded rubber eraser that I keep in an Altoids mini tin. These tins are quickly becoming a favorite storage device of mine.

This goes for all lead holders, but it's worth mentioning, these are garbage for taking notes or writing unless you print very large. I like a thick mechanical pencil lead, .7mm and .9mm usually, but this is too much. I had to adjust the size of my lettering to be able to write anything legible at all. You can get a fine point with a sharpener, but it wears down quick, especially my soft 2B lead. If you are looking primarily for a writing device you should probably look elsewhere, otherwise you'll be sharpening this thing non-stop.

All and all the results are sort of mixed bag. Once I got used to the larger lead size I really enjoyed the experience. I kind of liken it to brushes versus ballpoints, you can get a ton more expression out of a lead holder versus a typical mechanical pencil. The drawbacks weren't enough to keep this thing out of my pocket day in and day out, but if I did more writing than drawing you can bet it would have not lasted long. One of the things that really helps this pencil is the aesthetic and its price. At $20 it is top tier quality at a mid level cost. The blue is very eye catching and the weight and feel is solid. If you are in the market for a quality lead holder that looks as good as it works, this is going to be a serious contender.

The Staedtler 925-35 2.0 mm Lead Holder is available from JetPens and also comes in standard mechanical pencil sizes (which have erasers in the cap).

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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