October 2016 - Page 2 of 3

Super5 at Insights X 2016

10 Comments / Papierlabor (Super5) / By memm

Super5 presented their new fountain pens, the 07 and the B) at Insights X. They belong to Papierlabor / Format from Darmstadt in Hesse (not to be mixed up with Austrian paper manufacturer Format Werk).

Additionally to the 0.5mm nibs they now also sell 0.7mm nibs, M nibs (1.0mm) and B nibs (1.5mm).

Like the 05, the 07 version has no iridium point – that’s what gives the Super5 the very different writing experience and style. The M and B versions do have iridium points, though.

Robert Neumann, the man behind the Super5 fountain pen.

Some sources on the Internet suggest that there is no iridium in fountain pens’ iridium points, e.g. this article, but when I asked at the stand about this I was told that there is in fact iridium in the iridium point of the nibs.

Also available at the stand were Super5/Papierlabor’s waterproof inks, their ink cleaner concentrate and their new brush with soft synthetic fibres.

When you see the new fountain pen colours on a screen they look good, but in reality they look absolutely amazing! Especially the blue and green versions, but also the yellow one look just so good to me.

Robert Neumann, the man behind the Super5 fountain pen, also told me about the flex nib verison of the fountain pen they are working on, together with JoWo. I love flex nibs, so I am definitely looking forward to their new fountain pen.

By the way, the new pen bodies don’t have the logo printed on the body anymore. Instead they are embossed. I preferred the old look, not only because on the new body you can see on the outside where the thread is, but everyone has a different taste.

Top: the old Super5 body with the printed logo
Bottom: the new body with the embossed logo

You might remember my leaky Super5. Luckily I got it swapped for another one.

Kaweco at Insights X 2016

3 Comments / Kaweco / By memm

Kaweco’s stand was the stand most visitors would see first as it was just next to the entrance to the first hall.

They showed many of their new products. I particularly liked the red fountain pen. It is a red colour that feels like a red that has been revived from Kaweco’s past, but when I asked about this I was told that it is a new colour they came up with recently.

Kaweco also introduced new packaging in the form of a big plastic screw (you can see it in the back on the left, in the photo above).

The employee at the stand also told me that black is their ‘best colour, so they introduced black as part of their ICE Sport series (that’s the series of Sport pens that are half transparent)

Ink-wise they showed their new colours Smokey Grey and Sunrise Orange.

Kaweco’s new aluminium dip pen / nib holder was also being presented at their stand. There is only one nib for now, but more will be available in the future.

What I found most exciting: They brought all the tools needed to assemble their fountain pens. I was lucky enough to have witnessed how these tools are being used and made a little video. The pen being assembled is a fountain pen that is a bit darker than the new Macciato colour. This Caramel colour is limited to 300 pieces.

The last item I want to show is their new pen holder in the shape of a German Shepard, Kaweco’s heraldic animal. The pen is made from artificial stone. I have used Pelikan’s pen holder in the shape of a pelican, but it is made of some sort of ceramic and will scratch the plastic body of Pelikan pens. From the looks of it I think the problem with scratches shouldn’t be as bad with Kaweco’s pen holder, but I haven’t really tried it out.

I was happy to hear that all of these items will be available in the UK.

You can find more information about Kaweco’s new products on their web site.

I found more information about the Kaweco pen holder at mostwanted-pens.com.

At the Insights X 2016

4 Comments / Uncategorised / By memm

I’m back from the Insights X and hope there’ll be enough time in the next few days to write a few short blog posts about the trade fair.

We ^[1]My wife and son went, too. had a great time at the trade fair. Seeing the stationery blogging royalty in real life was great, too.

I was most happy to finally have met Lexikaliker. I have been in contact with him since 2009.

I also met Dries. I have exchanged emails with him since he started blogging in 2013.

Then there were Aziza and Stephen. Aziza has been blogging about stationery since 2010 and Stephen must be the most popular stationery vlogger on YouTube.

I wasn’t the only one from the UK. Tessa was there, too. I just heard her talk on the Pen Addict podcast a few weeks earlier.

I also met Christian and Markus. I remember looking at Christian’s blog post about the posh edition of the Gessner in the past. Very tempting. Markus’ blog is quite unusual as it doesn’t only cover stationery, but lots of lifestyle topics, too.

The view from the press centre. A panorama shot from my phone. Excuse the panorama stitching mistakes.

References[+]

References
↑1	My wife and son went, too.

2x Staedtler

Leave a Comment / Uncategorised / By memm

Greetings from Nuremberg.

If you follow the Bleistift Facebook page or my Instagram feed you might have noticed that I’m on my way to a stationery trade fair, the Insights X in Nuremberg.

On the way there two exciting things have happened. Out of the blue I saw someone at Manchester Airport with a t-shirt that seemed to feature Staedtler’s Mars logo from fifty years ago – you can see the old logo in this blog post from Lexikaliker. I assume this seeing this Mars head on a t-shirt is a coincidence and not linked to Staedtler, but to the Mars symbol itself …but seeing it in an unexpected place was still exciting.

Then when the second plane was landing in Nuremberg things got even better, we were flying just next to Staedtler’s headquarters I visited earlier this year.

Unfortunately the photo, taken with my mobile, is not that clear but if you look closely you can just make it the Staedtler logo. In reality it was very easy to see.

Stationery Fever

4 Comments / Uncategorised / By memm

How exciting, yesterday I got the Stationery Fever book I mentioned previously.

Amazon is quite cheeky. They give you that price guarantee that you pay whatever the lowest price is between you ordering and the book coming out and then they lower the price one or two days after the book is out. When I ordered it on Monday Amazon’s official price was still £24.99, so I ordered from Amazon Marketplace instead, from a seller called Speedyhen ^[1]They seemed to be faster than others, which turned out to be true, I ordered on Monday and got the book on Wednesday., and paid only £16.96. Now that the preorders are fulfilled Amazon UK lowered their price to £19.98 (October 2016). On their Marketplace you can still get it cheaper, but might have to wait a bit longer before the book arrives.

The US release date is still set for 8 November and the price is still $39.95. This is one of these rare occasions where something in the UK is cheaper than in the USA.

The first thing I did was (of course) to read Lexikaliker’s article about the Grenade…

…followed by admiring a picture from Sean’s collection.

The photo of the table of contents will give you an idea about the other things you can find in the book.

I haven’t read more than that so far, but am looking forward to exploring the other pages of the book.

Brownie points: If you read this blog post you can make a connection between Stationery ‘Fever’ and the Pencil Cedar.

I believe that showing a few pages from the Stationery Fever book in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

References[+]

References
↑1	They seemed to be faster than others, which turned out to be true, I ordered on Monday and got the book on Wednesday.

Month: October 2016