I'm A Sad, Pathetic Stationery Junkie.

[Runnin_Ute]

New arrival today from Vanness - a Leuchtturm1917 A5 with 120 gsm dot grid paper in Navy, two "Baker's Dozen" vials and two bottles of the new Colorverse USA Special Series ink The Great Salt Lake. Very cool blue, unlike anything else I have seen/have.

 

[A Smug Dill]

Why do I keep venturing further and further off the beaten path of “known” paper brands and types? CRENA Spark paper was already quite “out there”. Wearingeul, in spite of being a darling among some too-hip fountain pen users for its inks (often named with literary pretensions) and ink swatching enthusiasts for its fancy swatch cards, don't seem to get much of a mention for its Reservior and Impression papers in more down-to-earth retail packaging, even though the company's own global online store would take orders for all those items and ship internationally, with our without local stockists of such in individual Western markets. Then, six other types of writing paper from CRENA that are even more unknown at large to the English-speaking hobbyist communities online.

 

Now, just this weekend I ordered:

• one A4-sized 200-sheet ream each of two different paper types from 猫头鹰工作室 (Owl Workshop)
• one A5-sized 500-sheet ream each of two different paper types from 荔知文房 (Lizhi Stationery)

all to be delivered by slow boat from China (and still costing me gruesomely in shipping charges relative to the item prices), of course.

 

(This bottle of Ostrich ink was added to the checkout at the last minute, only because the marginal shipping charges for it is nil when ordered at the same time.)

 

There is one more “obscure” brand, 水上书纸品 (Calligraphy On Water Paper Products?), of paper on my radar to prospective explore; but presently it doesn't have stock of the sheet sizes and/or ream sizes I want, and there are other pricing and shipping considerations that dissuaded me, so I'm going to “park” that one for now.

 

[inkypete]

3 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

Why do I keep venturing further and further off the beaten path of “known” paper brands and types? CRENA Spark paper was already quite “out there”. Wearingeul, in spite of being a darling among some too-hip fountain pen users for its inks (often named with literary pretensions) and ink swatching enthusiasts for its fancy swatch cards, don't seem to get much of a mention for its Reservior and Impression papers in more down-to-earth retail packaging, even though the company's own global online store would take orders for all those items and ship internationally, with our without local stockists of such in individual Western markets. Then, six other types of writing paper from CRENA that are even more unknown at large to the English-speaking hobbyist communities online.

 

Now, just this weekend I ordered:

• one A4-sized 200-sheet ream each of two different paper types from 猫头鹰工作室 (Owl Workshop)
• one A5-sized 500-sheet ream each of two different paper types from 荔知文房 (Lizhi Stationery)

all to be delivered by slow boat from China (and still costing me gruesomely in shipping charges relative to the item prices), of course.

 

(This bottle of Ostrich ink was added to the checkout at the last minute, only because the marginal shipping charges for it is nil when ordered at the same time.)

 

There is one more “obscure” brand, 水上书纸品 (Calligraphy On Water Paper Products?), of paper on my radar to prospective explore; but presently it doesn't have stock of the sheet sizes and/or ream sizes I want, and there are other pricing and shipping considerations that dissuaded me, so I'm going to “park” that one for now.

 

You are fantastic at finding new sources - always enjoy following your searches and orders.

[A Smug Dill]

I just ordered:

• More paper from China. Both 90g/m² and 105g/m² variants of 雅致 writing paper, advertised as being fountain pen friendly paper that can be used as printer paper (as if the two were mutually exclusive by default?). I can't find anything about the brand, and there does not appear to be an official store on Taobao for it, but the papers are sold by multiple sellers, so the name is possibly a trademark of some paper mill or wholesale paper supplier. Two 50-sheet packs of A4 paper cost me a little under AUD $10 all up.†
• A bunch of rubber stamps with wooden block handles, as opposed to clear latex ones that have to be peeled off and stuck onto a perspex or acrylic handle or stamping press to use. Most of them are for line drawings of bottles.
  
• Twenty-one rollerball pens that take fountain pen inks and come with a converter each. Much cheaper than the Herbin and other-branded ones I ordered on Amazon Australia previously; the split-out Taobao order containing the three seven-piece lots comes to $21.80.† Sold by a Taobao store that also sell inks, including some store-exclusive/collab sheening inks I've previously bought; and so the store makes a point of stating that these rollerball pens can be used to write with sheening inks, but it did warn against using shimmer inks in them.
• Twenty more Jinhao Shark pens in a single ‘clearance’ lot.

 

Those cheap rollerball pens could be a good way to allow others to try certain sheen inks, especially in a writing instrument that lays down narrow ink traces, at an in-person pen meet without risking contamination of the bottles left open for others to sample. I'd be curious to know how chromatographic shading inks would work coming out of those pens.

 

† Including discounts, GST, apportioned shipping charges, and Alipay's foreign credit card processing fees.

 

[A Smug Dill]

I bought a Life Margin B5 notebook with plain/blank pages (except for the vertical red margin line on each page) on clearance and with a stacked discount yesterday from Milligram in Newtown. Original price $35.99, now $16. Two of those remain, as well as another with grid pages. It appears that Milligram is no longer carrying Rhodia, Life, and Penco paper products, after having already discontinued with Leuchtturm1917 and Hobonichi some time ago. I never saw the clearance of Rhodia in the Sydney CBD store or on Milligram's website, but staff in the store told me yesterday that it did happen, and everything was sold out.

 

While I was in the Newtown store, I also picked up its last 50ml bottle of Pilot Iroshizuku Tsutsuji for $16. (There weren't any in the CBD store.)

[Gloucesterman]

3 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

I bought a Life Margin B5 notebook with plain/blank pages (except for the vertical red margin line on each page) on clearance and with a stacked discount yesterday from Milligram in Newtown. Original price $35.99, now $16. Two of those remain, as well as another with grid pages. It appears that Milligram is no longer carrying Rhodia, Life, and Penco paper products, after having already discontinued with Leuchtturm1917 and Hobonichi some time ago. I never saw the clearance of Rhodia in the Sydney CBD store or on Milligram's website, but staff in the store told me yesterday that it did happen, and everything was sold out.

 

While I was in the Newtown store, I also picked up its last 50ml bottle of Pilot Iroshizuku Tsutsuji for $16. (There weren't any in the CBD store.)

Was that $16.00 Australian currency? If so, that was a really great price.

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, Gloucesterman said:

Was that $16.00 Australian currency?

 

Yes. Both items were stickered at AUD $35.99 each, reduced to clear at $20, then as from yesterday a further 20% discount applies on sale items while the promotion lasts. Tsutsuji was the only Iroshizuku colour discounted; as far as Milligram isn't dropping Pilot products from its range yet.

[Misfit]

Impressive deal @A Smug Dill 

[Gloucesterman]

9 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Yes. Both items were stickered at AUD $35.99 each, reduced to clear at $20, then as from yesterday a further 20% discount applies on sale items while the promotion lasts. Tsutsuji was the only Iroshizuku colour discounted; as far as Milligram isn't dropping Pilot products from its range yet.

Almost worth a trip to Australia...

[Penguincollector]

   I bought an A5 Tomoegawa TR52 grid notebook from Wonderland 222. 

[Doug C]

I got a Pengineer ink station. Incredibly neat. 

[ParramattaPaul]

21 minutes ago, Doug C said:

Pengineer ink station

This?  Ink Station – Pengineer3D  (The image won't copy and paste.)

[Penguincollector]

22 minutes ago, Doug C said:

I got a Pengineer ink station. Incredibly neat. 

  I just heard about this and the ink stand today. They look super cool!

[inkstainedruth]

@Doug C and @ParramattaPaul That's a neat looking gadget.  I'd be curious as to how large a bottle would fit in it.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Penguincollector]

Wildly Imaginable video on some Pengineered tools

 

  My friend Grace just posted a video on what bottles fit

 

2 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

@Doug C and @ParramattaPaul That's a neat looking gadget.  I'd be curious as to how large a bottle would fit in it.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[Doug C]

41 minutes ago, Penguincollector said:

  I just heard about this and the ink stand today. They look super cool!

It works great!

 

[Doug C]

6 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

@Doug C and @ParramattaPaul That's a neat looking gadget.  I'd be curious as to how large a bottle would fit in it.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Everything i have tried. Pilot, ferris wheel press, Birmingham, sample ink, etc.

[inkstainedruth]

@Penguincollector Unfortunately, when I clicked on the YouTube link, I got a bunch of stupee ads and some video about what appears to be a high-pressure spray hose that MIGHT be available at Home Depot.... 

 

edited for typos

[Penguincollector]

2 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

@Penguincollector Unfortunately, when I clicked on the YouTube link, I got a bunch of stupee ads and some video about what appears to be a high-pressure spray hose that MIGHT be available at Home Depot.... 

 

edited for typos

   There’s very few videos that don’t start with ads on YouTube if you are not paying for it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don’t see them, but I know there are browser extensions for those that do.

[Penguincollector]

  Today I went to MUJI and Kinokuniya with a pen friend. There seems to be less choices for the MUJI High Quality Paper line, but I did buy a few of those and some other made in Japan notebooks and loose leaf paper. At Kinokuniya, the ink choices were slim pickings- they had their inventory this week, and are expecting a shipment soon. I did buy some super cute penguin themed memo pads, and a pack of Etranger di Costarica Blanc de Blancs  in A4 size.