The pen business must be OK in Taiwan. The Lee brothers have moved their store 小品雅集 to new digs around the corner.
The new place is impressive.
More than enough pens to keep you busy for a while. The Lee brothers have their own pen models...
To my mind, the Moonman M100 pen was a watershed. It put Chinese pens in a new league. Where PenBBS pens are clearly the product of people who know and love fountain pens, their strength is in the engineering, manufacture and huge range of materia...
Fuliwen is not a pen brand I'm overly familiar with. It's been covered in Frank Underwater's blog and this particular pen, dubbed the Sceptre, has been reviewed by chrisrap52, WaskiSquirrel and Aaron's Pen Videos on YouTube. I didn't pay much a...
The PenBBS 471 is like a little jewel - a bauble of sorts - at least when closed. Assembled for writing, it's as big as a PenBBS 355 and less than two grams lighter.
The 323 was an early PenBBS model, coming to market in late 2017 - a bit before PenBBS came on my radar.
Was the 323, after the 266, the second pen PenBBS released? Drop some knowledge in the comments. It's hard to find background info on Pe...
The PenBBS 456 is what the TWSBI Vac 700 could have been. Great size. Great weight. Great balance. This has got to be the best pen PenBBS makes right now.
Attention fountain pen lovers. PenBBS is at it again. They've just rolled out another new pen. The new PenBBS 355 is interesting from a couple of angles:
Bulk Filling System Pen makers have been thinking about ways to make pens hold mor...
Wing Sung have released a lot of pens recently. But, then again, so have Moonman and Delike. It’s easy to lose track, especially when new pens don’t jump out and generate a bunch of buzz in the pen community. The Wing Sung 627 is a release that...
Kaco has been busy. Their new pen is interesting.
Kaco is a Chinese stationery company that put themselves on the fountain pen map with their Sky model.
The Sky set itself apart is a couple of ways.
All in all, the Sky has been well recei...
It doesn't take too long poking around the pocket knife world to discover great swaths of titanium.
Traditionalists may consider it out of bounds, but titanium is a premium handle material for all kinds of modern folders. And for good reas...
For a moment there, orange was my color of choice. I think I was coming off a sepia phase, but don't rightly recall. I got myself some Diamine Autumn Oak and took a flier on J. Herbin Orange Indian.
The Autumn Oak was a great success but I c...
Think PenBBS, think great pens and quality nibs. Even if the nibs only come in one size. 😄
Think ink too! I just got my hands on a bottle of no. 232, Ugly 丑. What a name! What a color!
More and more, think crazy-cool materials. Stunning eye-...
First things first. This pen works really well. It's an achievement in terms of design and functionality. The more I use and understand it, the more I appreciate what the Parker 45 accomplished. What? Parker? But this is a Moonman... More on t...
Article originally posted in Nov. 2015 on the Fountain Pen Network. The nibs were part of a group buy that took place on the forum.
The Ambitious Nib group buy proved to be a real treasure trove and a great experience personally in trying out d...
A vintage Aurora 88 has been on my grail list ever since I first encountered pelahale’s landmark video paean to this pen, HeartBreaking Pens of Staggering Genius. Naturally, I set my sights on an original 88 in Nikargenta. The Aurora 88 is intr...
Part of the pleasure of vintage pens is thinking about what it was like to experience the the golden age of fountain pens. The drawback is it’s an impossible task.
NOS (new old stock) and vintage pens in near-unused condition is a game for f...
Chinese pens continue to impress. It’s clear manufacturers are investing in improving their products to grab market share. The Wing Sung 618 is an excellent case in point. Bottom line: this is a terrific pen and, at under $8 on Taobao, a great ...
The PenBBS 308 is a pen designed by fountain pen lovers. People who know their stuff. For me, it's an instant classic.
This was a pen I was prepared to like. At $12, it's a bargain. Its small size, however, will keep it from becoming a personal favorite. But for some folks, this new Delike wood fountain pen can be a real winner.
I love the wood. After my positi...
This is a fun, diminutive-sized writing instrument, with a twist. The nib retracts! It's proving to be a pleasant alternative to the larger pens I've been enjoying lately. I can see it as a take-along pen for notes or general writing duties any ...
If you'd asked me a year or two ago to have a look at a wood-bodied fountain pen, you'd not have gotten much more than polite interest. I mean, where do you find wood in vintage pens or among modern makers? Wood, I figured, was for home hobbyis...
C'mon. This doesn't need to happen. If Apple can build a bazillion dollar headquarters down the road, somebody can come up with the peanut shells to keep the Oasis open.
The news broke a couple of days ago. People are now lining up in mourning ...
I want to start off with the fact that I am personally not a very good dancer: but definitely one in learning. I have never found 'not knowing how to dance' a huge problem (except for in school dances, of course) until I started to do theater.
...
This is a VERY debated over topic, especially with those of us in the music community. Everybody has a different preference whether it be listening with playing these types of groups.
Chamber Music (Quartets, Octets, Duets) usually involve muc...
Well...not exactly, but as long as you know what you're doing, it can easily be pulled off.
One of the main things to make sure before you do any sort of (formal) public speaking: i.e speeches, presentations... you HAVE to know what you are ta...
We've all been in school, or are still in school, and understand that it is a system of constantly being told what to do and when to do it. You are taught discipline, to "not disrupt", and generally are discouraged to do things "your way", but to ...
Everybody cares what their self-image is and how others view them. The idea of maintaining a "good" self image has been around for so long that the desire have a good image to other people seems completely normal; and to an extent it is: but at wh...
To be honest, I am not sure at all how to get motivation, and the only thing keeping me going throughout the week is knowing that the weekend is coming. I know this kind of mindset probably doesn't help with getting things done efficiently, but ho...
Going to the gym to me always seemed like this great big commitment that required a lot of mental and physical strength to maintain, which is why, with my busy schedule and lazy attitude, gym-ing never became my thing, until it suddenly became req...
It was my first good knife. I can almost picture the the out-of-the-way tool store I bought it at, there being no fancy kitchen shops where lived. I certainly remember the kitchen job where I used it. The place was a madhouse.
Digging my thum...
