Holbein was celebrating its 120th anniversary in 2020. They are the Japanese stationery manufacturer that imported Rotring into Japan and they took on an ever bigger role after Rotring was bought by Sanford and manufacturing was moved out of Germany.
Holbein became a manufacturer in 1946, so you tend to see 1946 being mentioned as their starting date, but their origins lie in 1900 (as a retailer) and to celebrate their 120th anniversary this 3 in 1 Rotring 600 was released last year.
It comes in matt white, which looks very special, probably mainly because that’s not a typical Rotring colour. The 600 3 in 1 is a recent addition to the Rotring lineup and features a black and red ballpoint pen as well as a mechanical pencil.
You change the pen/colour by twisting the knurled top part of the 600. You’ll find more information about this pen in my video.
It’s easy to be suspicious about a product when its name feels a bit overconfident. In the case of the Stabilo legend 1198 eraser, I can report good news, though.
Happy colours
This Malaysian-made eraser is available in five bright colours and is surprisingly cheap: you can sometimes find it for under 50p (~50c; ~50¢) – or rather that’s the price per eraser if you buy a multi-pack. Stabilo’s international and German web sites don’t mention the legend, so it is probably not a very important product for them, but the packaging of my box of twenty is labelled in many languages [1]GB. MY, DE, FR, IT, ES, Pt, RU, GR, SA, TR, HR, which suggests that it is officially available in most European countries.
Notice the rolled up eraser dust on the left
Even though there is no mention of it being dust-free it behaves very much like a dust-free eraser, i.e. the erasing ‘dust’ rolls into strands which makes erasing a pleasant and mess-free task. The ‘dust-free-ness’, together with the nice bright colours, make it a good choice for my taste. The legend is not that common, which is a shame, but if you ever see it in a shop, maybe give it a try…
The Maus pencils are triangular and come in 12 colours
This year the German TV show “Die Sendung mit der Maus” celebrates 50 years on air. By now it is apparently being broadcast in 100 different countries, but I am not sure how popular it actually is outside Germany as I couldn’t find much information online that confirms what I read on Wikipedia about its popularity [1]Wikipedia tells me that there are also English dubbed versions being broadcast, but when I had a quick look I didn’t see any..
The packaging is nice, but on the pencil the outline of the Maus is smaller than the company logo
It is however very popular in Germany and teaches children a lot of things, including how products and things work and how they are made. By now there also a Maus radio station and, of course, there are (or were) Maus pencils.
I am not familiar with the maker of the Maus pencils. Based on what I have seen and based on the sparse information I have seen on the FSC web site I assume the company behind the pencils is a ‘marketing company’ that just paid to use the Maus logo and name on a pencil and then paid a manufacturer to put produce the Maus pencils for them.
The pencils are quite good for a ‘marketing product’, certainly better than some other coloured pencils with famous children characters.
Happy Birthday
All the best to the Maus. If you have a chance to watch an episode, please do so. They are quite informative – even for adults.
A few years ago I bought Kaco’s Alpha gel pens in Shanghai [1]Shanghai is also the city where Kaco is based. The Alpha pens are part of Kaco’s KacoGreen range.
When I asked an employee from a Kaco stall they told me that ‘green’ refers to the fact that the plastic from these pens can be recycled [2]It is rather cheeky to name something ‘green’ because it can be recycled, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the employee just made it up. Green might not mean anything here..
The pens feature a pleasant to touch rubberised grip section and there’s one of each letter and number. The letters, where most pens have the clip, prevent the pens from rolling off the table. The gel ink is black.
As I am currently clearing out I am selling these on eBay for 99p each. Figuring out postage to all countries is messy, but if you are interested and are not in the UK please contact me and I can look into what the cheapest postage is.
Below are two more videos: a funny video I found about the Kaco Alpha…
..and a video I made about some other Kaco products.
It is rather cheeky to name something ‘green’ because it can be recycled, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the employee just made it up. Green might not mean anything here.
Acrylic fountain pens [1]fountain pens with bodies made from acrylic resin are still fairly new to me. The ones I used to see in the past didn’t appeal to me, but in recent months I seem to be warming up to some types of acrylic ‘looks’ or rather: there seem seem to be more and more acrylic fountain pens that appeal to my taste.
The first one I really liked was the (in my opinion ‘happy’ looking) FanMu Hawaii fountain pen. I bought this one on eBay. [2]It wasn’t expensive, but later I found out that I overpaid when I found it being offered much cheaper from another seller
The second acrylic fountain pen I really like is the Narwhal piston filler. The look of the acrylic Narwhal is rather fascinating and nice in a completely different way to the Hawaii: the acrylic resin has a beautiful colour and rather attractive swirl patterns in it.
The Narwhal box
My Narwhal adventure started with KT from Goldspot Pens contacting me and asking whether I want to try the Narwhal. I couldn’t resist (of course), but was torn between the yellow and the blue version. KT then sent me the yellow one.
Inside the box – notice the metal tool that comes with the pen
Nib choice and line width
Goldspot’s blog provides some background information about the Narwhal and the two guys behind the brand and the pens. Times have moved on since this blog post was published: the nib is now also available in medium (the fine nib is of course still available).
Regarding the writing experience: the nib is very smooth. There isn’t much line variation unless you press very hard, i.e. it is not a flexible nib even though you can create a wider line if you want to force it.
Size and colour comparison (top to bottom): Pilot Kakuno, Pelikan M200, Lamy Safari, Narwhal
I asked for the fine nib, because of my small handwriting. For my normal style of writing the nib is actually a bit too big: the nib’s line width is quite wide for a fine nib, certainly wider than lines from fine Kaweco or Lamy steel nibs. I take Pelikan out of this comparison as there is a lot of variation within the Pelikan brand and its nibs [3]in my experience much more than with Kaweco or Lamy nibs.
On Hobonichi paper – top: Narwhal, bottom: Super5 with the 0.7mm nib
My fine Narwhal nib lays down a 0.6mm wide line [4]scanned at 1200 dpi and measured in Photoshop, seen in the picture above, in blue. For comparison: the grey lines under the blue Narwhal lines are from a Super5 with the 0.7mm nib, which produces a (surprise, surprise) 0.7mm line. Please note that these are not standard 5mm squares but smaller Hobonichi squares (English version).
Looks, price and functionality
The pen itself looks great and certainly like a pen from a higher price band than the Narwhal’s $45 (~€38; ~£33). You even get a tool with your pen to help with disassembly, similar to what you get with a TWSBI.
The Narwhal nib
The gold band after the grip section looks very nice, especially without the cap. When the cap is on the pen the transition between the cap and the gold band looks a bit abrupt (check the photos earlier in this blog post) – most pen with bands seem to have the bands at the end of the caps rather than having none at the end of the cap but one ‘in the middle of the pen body’, i.e. after the grip section.
The modern looking cap with I call a ‘goldspot finial’.
The main attractions for me are, other than the smooth piston filling mechanism, the beautiful three-dimensional swirls that seem to defy the laws of physics because the seem to be much deeper and more three-dimensional than the narrow space between the outside of the pen and the ink reservoir should allow. Have look at them in the video below.
You can’t post the cap, at least not in a way that is comfortable and works well, but as I don’t post pens unless they have to be posted (OHTO Tasche, Cult Pens by Kaweco, …) I don’t mind at all.
Ink capacity
I had a look at the ink capacity of the Narwhal and I could fit in a bit more than 1 ml of ink. For comparison: a standard international ink cartridge can hold about 0.8 ml. There is actually more space in the Narwhal than 1 ml, but when you move the piston to the feed there is quite a gap, i.e. there is unexpelled air which is using space that consequently cannot be filled. When filling your fountain pen the traditional way, nib down, the air travels to the top and you still cannot expel the air to fill the ink chamber to capacity. You should be able to get more than 1.5 ml of ink into the pen, if you fill it with the nib pointing upwards, but you’d need some sort of travel inkwell that fits well.
The knob and piston filling mechanism
Conclusion
Overall this pen provides excellent value for money. There are not that many piston fillers in the same price range. The Narwhal is very well made and is also available in a choice of colours. I just wish the nib was also available in EF.
Goldspot provided the pen free of charge and KT patiently answered all questions I could think of. I did no receive any money for this review.
