Happy Fountain Pen Day Giveaway!

Pilot Custom Heritage 912 (Image via JetPens)

The first Friday in November is Fountain Pen Day, and what better way to celebrate the occasion than to give away a few fountain pens!

I have three pens ready for the occasion: The Pilot Custom Heritage 912 with a Soft Fine nib, the TWSBI 580AL Lava with a 1.1 mm Stub nib, and a TWSBI Vac Mini Clear with a Fine nib. I will select a winner for each pen seperately from the comments section below. Here are the rules:

1. Leave one comment on this post anytime between now, and Friday night at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. You are limited to one entry. This contest is open to US and international residents.
2. For this contest, I will pick three winners at random from the comments section of this post. The comments will be numbered in the order they are received, i.e. the first comment is #1, the second #2, and so on. The Random Integer Generator at random.org will be used to pick the number of the winners.
3. The contest winners will be posted on Sunday, November 6th. The winner will have one week to email me via the Contact link at the top of the page.

My thanks to JetPens for supplying all the goods for this giveaway. Good luck, and Happy Fountain Pen Day!

A. G. Spalding & Bros Notebook And Cover Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

The A. G. Spalding & Bros notebook and Notebook Colder are a new entry into the pocket notebook space that offers some good paper and a unique paper case compared to other similar products. The 3.5" x 5" format is a compact, easy-to-carry, and fun to use. It's a great product, but it could also be better.

Since we are talking about two separate products, let's start with the notebook cover. The cover comes in a dark brown that looks great. The elastic band that holds the cover shut is a bit loose if you're carrying only one notebook, but the cover was designed to hold two notebooks. I'd like the elastic to be tighter, but it's not that big of an issue.

The cover has one piece of branding on the front, which is a small A.G. Spalding & Bros embossed logo. It's small and tasteful. The inside of the cover has two flaps that hold the notebooks, and the covers are stitched around the edge of the cover to create pockets.

The elastic closure is attached in the middle of the back cover using a knot on the inside of the cover. In practice, this knot introduces two problems. One, it makes it difficult to slide a notebook into the right side pocket because the knot is obstructing most of the opening. It takes some effort to make it slide in properly, and you might end up bending the notebook in the process. The other major problem with this knot is that it creates a lump in the middle of the page when writing on the right side of the page. I found it pretty uncomfortable to use when on a flat surface.

Overall, the cover looks nice and is an affordable non-leather option for holding your notebooks. At just under twenty bucks, I can't say it's a good deal, however. It offers protection and a convenient way to carry two notebooks, but the knot in the back got in the way too often. Ultimately, I enjoyed the notebook more when the cover was removed.

Now, on to the notebook. The one I have is the graph variety, but you can also find them in lined and blank versions. The front outside cover contains some really nice branding along with an obvious "G, P, or R" to indicate the ruling type on the inside. It's a beautiful notebook on the inside and out. Apart from the front cover, there is no other branding on these books.

The paper is good quality, but not the best. It handles fountain pen and wet inks like a champ, but exhibits quite a bit of show-through on the reverse page. If you're using fountain pens, the back page might be unusable. Aside from that, the paper is really nice and is fun to write on. It's smooth, the ruling is light enough to stay out of your way, and it's thick enough to be durable against accidental rips and bends.

One minor gripe with the build quality of the notebook is that the binding stitching on my notebook has some loose threads. This makes me worry that it may begin to unravel at some point, but it's been stable so far.

Overall, it's a great notebook that works well with fountain pens as long as you don't mind the show-through. The pocket notebook market is vast, and you can probably find notebooks that are either more affordable, more durable, or more fountain-pen-friendly, so the major draw of this notebook for me is the design of the front cover. For me, I like using the notebook, but don't often use the cover. The cover looks nice, but detracts from the writing experience.

You can find the A.G. Spalding & Bros. notebooks from JetPens for around $7.00 in graph, lined, or blank varieties. The separate notebook cover is around $20, and only available in brown.

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

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New Pilot Vanishing Point Limited Edition And Bookbinder's Exclusive Ink Now At Anderson Pens

One of my most used pens is the Pilot Vanishing Point, and the new 2016 Limited Edition Guilloche model has rocketed to the top of the must-have list.

This design takes its inspiration from chased hard rubber pens from the early 1900’s, featuring precise, interwoven lines flowing throughout the body of the pen. The result is a subtle texture and stunning look that sets it apart from other Vanishing Points.

If you are looking for a fresh ink to use in you new pen, Anderson Pens is the only authorized US retailer of Bookbinder’s Ink from Australia. Colors such as Emerald Boa and Everglades Ratsnake jump off the page as much as their snake-related names.

To complete the writing trifecta, Life Notebooks offer some of the best fountain pen paper on the market. This Japanese brand comes in several formats, styles and colors to meet your writing needs. The light green Pistachio paper is a personal favorite of mine.

Anderson Pens has everything you need to Ink It Up and get writing. My thanks to them for sponsoring The Pen Addict this week.