New Life Stationery Notebooks Now At Vanness Pens (Sponsor)

Life Stationery is as good as it gets when it comes to paper goods, and two new notebook releases at Vanness Pens have my interest piqued.

The Life Stationery Margin A5 Notebook is a new interior and exterior look for the brand. The cover style is more subtle and modern, and the paper features a faint red margin on the left side on all of the blank, lined, and grid models. The Life Stationery Spiral A5 and B6 Notebooks are a traditional school-style notebook with double ring spiral binding and grid paper on the inside.

What makes both of these notebooks special, and all of Life’s products special, is the paper quality. It is top-tier for nearly every pen, pencil, and ink you can throw at it. Yes, even your wettest fountain pens. They also have letter writing accessories with wonderful Airmail Envelopes, Airmail Writing Pads, and Bank Writing Paper.

Vanness Pens offers free shipping in the US on orders over $40, so get shopping and try out the products from Life Stationery. My thanks to them for sponsoring The Pen Addict this week.

Posted on August 21, 2017 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Featured Sponsor.

Lamy Pico Pearl Chrome Ballpoint Pen Review

In all of my recent discussions around pocket pens on the blog and the podcast, the Lamy Pico was left out of the primary conversation. That was a mistake on my part, because it is one of the best pocket pens on the market today.

The main feature of the Pico is the unique retractable mechanism it offers. When closed, it is a sleek, compact pen that is easy to slide into a pocket or a bag. When deployed, the pen extends into a full length writer that is comfortable to hold in any situation.

Many compact pens offer a standard length when in the writing position, but what sets the Pico apart is the full-sized, or even over sized to some, barrel diameter. Pocket pens generally have a slimmer profile to suit their reason for existence, so it is nice to see a normal barrel width in a compact pen. The Kaweco Sport series is another pocket pen that does this well.

The refill is above average quality for a ballpoint, but the size is proprietary. So, there is no swapping of refills for your favorite D1 or Parker. The Pico ships with a medium black ink cartridge, but Lamy offers a fine blue refill, which is always my go to choice if possible.

Aside from being an excellent pen, the Pico is part of Lamy’s limited color rotation, so you will see fun colors like Neon Pink and Blaze Orange pop up about once per year. This Pearl Chrome is part of the stock lineup, and features a satin silver finished that feels great. And since the barrel is metal, is is perfect for engraving, which makes the Pico a great gift.

This makes my second Pico, although I can’t seem to find my white one at the moment. Regardless, it won’t be my last, especially if Lamy keeps releasing fun colors in this lineup.

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

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Posted on August 21, 2017 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Lamy, Pico, Ballpoint, Pen Reviews.

The Midori MD Notebook (A5 Gridded): 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.)

The Midori MD Notebook is an A5-sized, 88 page (176 pages front and back) notebook with cream paper. I couldn’t find the actual paper weight on the Midori site, but they describe the paper as

"provid[ing] a fine balance between a slight catch on the paper when writing and a smooth writing feel. With this paper, you can enjoy the sensation of writing."

After writing on this notebook for a couple of weeks, I completely agree with that description.

The MD Notebook is packaged in a clear cellophane package. The notebook is wrapped in slightly opaque paraffin paper that you can remove or leave on for protection. I have a thing about the texture and crinkly sound of paraffin paper, so I’m keeping my notebook wrapped.

The notebook is bound in cardstock (though Midori is careful to say that this is not a cover—it’s more like the end pages you would find in a hardbound book. The notebook pages are bound using the traditional thread-stitched method. This allows the book to open completely flat.

In minimalistic fashion, the binding and stitching can be seen through the cheesecloth tape on the spine. This would normally be hidden underneath a hardbound cover. It really is quite beautiful. You can even see the book ribbon through the tape.

I chose the gridded version of the MD Notebook, but they also come in blank and 7mm lined. The gridded lines are 5mm, and there are tiny dots along the margins marking every 10 squares on the long edge and 10 and 5 squares long the top edge. This allows you to count characters if you like, or use the dots to create even grids.

I tested my MD Notebook in several different ways. I tried it with different pens and inks writing alphabets. It handled all three pens and inks perfectly with no bleed-through. The writing does show through the paper slightly, but I couldn’t get a good photo of it.

*Top: Wahl-Eversharp Decoband with Kyo-Iro Moonlight ink, Middle: Pilot Custom 92 with Iroshizuku Shin-Kai ink; Bottom: Conid Minimalistica with Diamine Purple Pazzazz*

One of the things I love about grid paper is the fact that you can write on it either in portrait or landscape. So, next I created a to-do chart for my Fall classes. The gridlines make it easy to create columns and checkboxes.

Next, I tested the paper with all of my currently-inked pens, a gel pen, and a rollerball. Again, no complaints. All the inks performed well.

Then I wrote a test page using the Emancipation Proclamation for text. I found the 5mm grid size to be too small for my usual handwriting. That’s probably because I’ve gotten accustomed to 7mm lines in my journal. For people who print or write using fine nibs, the size should be adequate. By the way, if you read the quote carefully (please don’t) you’ll see that I totally muffed it up. My eyes skipped an entire paragraph, so I’d make a horrible scribe.

I also did some ink swabs to see how the paper handled thick, wet ink. Once again, it aced the test. No bleedthrough at all.

The MD Notebook paper is really, really nice. I’m a Tomoe River Paper fan, but I must say, this MD Notebook is giving my Seven Seas Journal a run for the money. Both kinds of paper are fountain-pen friendly. Both papers come in creamy colors. Both papers are bleed-resistant. Both display sheeny inks well.

*Hobonichi Cousin Tomoe Left; MD Notebook Right*

The main difference between the two is Tomoe River Paper feels much thinner and smoother. MD Paper is thicker, and it has some tooth to it. That’s not to say that the paper is rough or catches your nib. It just provides more feedback.

You can purchase the Midori MD A5 Notebook Gridded at JetPens for $14.00. They also carry the blank and lined versions. If you want a sleek cover for your MD Notebook, you can get a goatskin cover for $84.00.

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