Image via JetPens
I love what Blackwing does every quarter with their Volumes releases, and the most recent - Vol 16.2 - is a personal favorite for the style and the subject. If you haven’t made the jump into wooden pencils yet, this is a great place to start. I have one box of these pencils to give away to a lucky reader, so read the rules below and enter away!
The Uni Boxy 100 Ballpoint is a pen I expect fills office supply cabinets and student desks all across Japan. While it’s not quite the exquisite writing experience of it’s very successful sibling - the Jetstream - it fills the basic ballpoint needs of Uni-ball’s product lineup.
Assumedly, the Boxy gets its name from the rectangular shape of the barrel. Surprisingly enough, I find this shape to be comfortable for my grip and writing style. Not everyone will have the same experience, especially if you grip is outside of the traditional tripod realm. It is very light and the corners are rounded, so you still may be able to work with it.
The two longer sides of the rectangular barrel have grip ridges, but they don’t really come into play for me unless I want to hold the pen like I’m playing the game Operation and going in for the Funny Bone. Electrocution is super hilarious!
This is a retractable pen, but with two separate stages. You click down to engage the tip, then press the orange button on the side to retract it. Is there a practical benefit to this? I guess the tip is locked in more, but I’m not sure that is an issue people were looking for a solution to. It looks cool and is fun to play with. That’s as good as I could come up with.
I’m glad the standard tip size of this pen is 0.7 mm, which I think is the sweet spot for ballpoint pens. This one leaves a nice, clean black line. There was little to no extra ink buildup around the tip, which is a problem many basic ballpoints have. This one is a good writer, although I do wish the line was a shade of two darker. The Jetstream solves that problem.
For $1.75, I admit that it is a little expensive for an entry level ballpoint. I imagine in Japan, and before the import fees and taxes hit, that this is the equivalent of a 50 cent pen. A dollar at most. It’s a nice, useful, fun pen of good quality, but not necessarily a must have. It’s the type of pen I keep hanging around in a desk drawer for quick notes and scribbles.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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Each week in Refill, the Pen Addict Members newsletter, I publish Ink Links as part of the additional content you receive for being a member. And each week, after 10 to 15 links, plus my added commentary on each, I'm left with many great items I want to share. Enter Misfill. Here are this weeks links:
-- Lush Dive, Oslo (The London Parchment)
-- WHSmith buys Cult Pens (Stationery Matters)
-- Photographer Puts Her Archive of Photos Documenting the 1970s New York Punk Scene on Instagram (Open Culture)
-- Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours: a Pre-Photographic Guide for Artists and Naturalists (Colossal)
-- Kokuyo Systemic Refillable Notebook Cover – A6 – Khaki/Navy (No Pen Intended)
-- The Penton F20 Demonstrator Will Bring You a Barrel Full of Sadness (The Economical Penster)
-- This Morning’s Cup (The Cramped)
-- Karas Pen Co. Decograph Fountain Pen Review (The Pencilcase Blog)
-- The original US patent drawing for the Lego brick, filed 60 years ago (Kottke)
-- Hand-lettered illustrations reflect distinct personalities of London Underground lines (Creative Boom)
-- Uni-ball Signo DX Gel Pen in Lavender Black (Tools and Toys)
-- Scout Books Pocket Notebook Review (Ken Crooker)
-- I Tried Bullet Journalling For A Year, And Here's What I Learned (Buzzfeed)
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