Hovering and flying fountain pens

2 Comments / Fountain pens, Seen in the wild / / ,

In a recent issue, Time Magazine presented a list of the best inventions of 2022. This also included stationery: specifically the Novium Hoverpen 2.0.

Below is a video where you can see it in action.

In the UK it currently seems for a bit more than £100, so it is a bit more expensive than in the USA. On the other hand it seems to be sold out in the USA in many shops. The next version, which converts into a fountain pen, is in the works.

From hovering to flying fountain pens:

Something else that is new: The Diplomat Nexus has a patented sealing system, that cuts the ink supply off when the cap is closed. This might be quite useful when flying. On the other hand if have flown many times with a fountain pen in my shirt pocket and didn’t have any ink spilling issues yet. Many fountain pens leak though when thrown into bags and carried around, so this mechanism might help. I assume the ink near the nib can still ‘escape’ and make a mess, though.

Watch a quick overview from Pen Chalet here:

…or a longer version from Brian Goulet here:

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Rapidograph designs

1 Comment / Koh-I-Noor, Rotring, Seen in the wild / / , , , ,

A fun fact involving pens, taken from the current issue (240) of Retro Gamer: The original design of the Atari logo was created using Radiograph pens.

One constant in the Atari story is its striking logo, long referred to as Fuji after its resemblance to the Japanese mountain. In 1972, Evelyn Seto was a production artist, working for George Opperman who had produced the original design, and it was her task to create the artwork for printing. “This was pre-computers, so it was done by hand,” she explains. “I had to draw and ink the symbol using tools such as French curves and Rapidograph technical drawing pens. We used the font style Harry for ‘ATARI’.

Retro Gamer 240, p. 23

The question is whether these were Rotrings or Koh-I-Noors. It seems more likely they were Rotrings. As far as I know the Rapidograph had been around for around two decades at that time.

Rotring Rapidograph - in box
Rapidographs

This blog post contains embedded Flickr images.

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Hobonichi Techo 2023

7 Comments / Hobonichi, Paper & Notebooks / / ,

New arrival from Japan: my wife’s day-free Techo and my One Piece Techo (I missed out on the One Piece pre-order, so so could only order it on 1st October). The parcel took less than two weeks to arrive.

His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs must be pretty busy. Since Brexit many parcels I receive are not getting checked, so for this year’s Techo I was not asked to pay any fees.

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A snowy Lumograph

2 Comments / Seen in the wild, Staedtler / / , , ,

If you are filming a movie or TV series set in the last fifty years and need a pencil to be used on screen, then Staedtler’s Mars Lumograph is not a bad choice at all: The Lumograph is available in many countries – unlike some other Staedtler pencils, for example the Noris that is extremely popular in some countries, but unavailable in others…

In the USA the Lumograph has been available for many decades. Lexikaliker previously showed an ad for this pencil from the 1950s.

Season 5 of the TV series Snowfall, set in LA in 1986, shows the main characters using the Lumograph. Nice!

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