Visconti Millennium Arc Three LE

Tags

reid's stationers, visconti millennium three LE

Before I left Calgary I visited my favorite pen store, Reid’s, one last time (or so I thought). I was hoping they could help me with the faulty feed on my Noodler’s pen but they couldn’t. As I was leaving I spied a pen in one of the display cases and I just had to take a closer look.

I was drawn to the swirling blue with a slight hint of green. I asked them about it and they told me it was a Visconti Millennium Arc Three LE. It was expensive so I left without it that day. I couldn’t get it out of my head though, and when David asked me what I wanted for our 10th anniversary, this pen was the first thing I thought of.

This Millennium Arc Three LE are slightly different from the Millennium Arc Rainbow and Twilight versions released in 2015. These first Millennium Arcs were released in 2000 to celebrate the beginning of the third millennium. They were a limited edition that Visconti released in 3 translucent colours: red (Millennium One), amber (Millennium Two) and blue (Millennium Three). Visconti produced 1,000 of each of the colours and numbered them. Mine is marked 0401/1000. They originally came in a set of three in a special case which included a travelling inkwell. Reid’s had the other two pens available but were selling them individually, no case or inkwell. They promised me a great deal if I bought all three but I knew the budget wouldn’t stretch that far! Penporium has the complete set with inkwell available for $1,895 US.

The body is translucent so you can see the nib and section behind the swirls. I think this is a stunning finish, much nicer than the more recent Millennium Arc offering. Go to the Cowan’s Auctions site to see the amber and red finishes. The amber is trimmed in yellow gold, while the red is trimmed in white gold. And the blue is trimmed in ruthenium.

Each pen has a silicon sac that fills via a crescent filling system. You can see the “hump” of silver in the picture above; the clear collar underneath is movable. A lock ring rotates around the barrel. Rotated one way, the ring locks the crescent from being pressed; rotated the other way and the ring unlocks, exposing a break in the collar which allows the crescent to be depressed. When depressed a metal bar squeezes against the silicon sac. The nib and section are submerged in ink and the metal bar is squeezed a couple of times, filling the sac with ink. The sac is apparently guaranteed by Visconti for 100 years. I have registered it so maybe my descendants will test out that warranty!

Here’s a closeup of the 18k two-tone broad nib. You can see the limited edition numbers engraved on the left side: 0401/1000. Absolutely stunning to look at, and a very smooth writer. It is inked with Waterman Inspired Blue, a great complement to the barrel I think.

I adore this pen. It’s the second Visconti I own, and the first crescent filler. The Rembrandt has the distinctive Visconti clip, which the Millennium is missing. That was a little disappointing but I understand why they designed the clip to match the crescent mechanism.

It’s a glorious wet writer now but when I first inked it up after an initial cleaning there were quite a few skips and hard starts. It seemed like the nib needed work and I was nervous about finding someone to work on it. I had to remind myself that this pen had been sitting in a store for 16 years. But with almost constant use since April it’s now a very reliable writer. It will often spark a conversation when I bring it to work or to a coffee shop for a journal writing session.

See how the Millennium compares to some of my other pens. From left: Nemosine Singularity in blue marble, Delta Journal in pearl red, Monteverde Prima in green, Jinhao 159 in black, and the vintage Waterman Junior in black. The red in the top corner is of course my Visconti Rembrandt.

Beautiful addition to my collection and I am extremely pleased with this very generous gift from my wonderful husband. And yes he got a great anniversary present too: a super telephoto lens for his SLR camera. We spoiled ourselves but hey we made it to 10 years so we deserved it!

New Ink and Some Wreck This Journal Pages

Tags

audacious red, diamine, harmonious green, inspired blue, matador, pilot iroshizuku, reid's stationers, sailor jentle, waterman, wreck this journal, yama-dori

A couple of random things for you today: I have two new bottles of ink and I have made some progress in my Wreck This Journal, and I thought I would share.

Yesterday we celebrated my sister’s birthday by going out for lunch and then shopping at Reid’s Stationers! (She actually loves the place too; I wasn’t being selfish!) We were on an ink mission of sorts and the staff were really wonderful and swabbed a bunch of inks for us. Diamine Matador Red is really amazing; think the red flags in a bull ring, or the colour of blood – vibrant and bright. And the Sailor Jentle inks are lovely; we looked at swabs from the Colors of Four Seasons collection. My sister settled on a bottle of Yama-Dori, which is a breathtaking turquoise. We both bought bottles of Waterman Inspired Blue, and I picked up a Harmonious Green as well.

I’ve said this before but buying French ink is like buying French perfume; I feel spoiled and fancy. And in comparison with other inks it is affordable; Reid’s sells Waterman for $11. And they sell Pilot Iroshizuku bottles for $40. I will probably buy a bottle of Iroshizuku one of these days but at that price you REALLY have to love the ink. I should buy some samples from Goulet before taking the plunge.

Anyway this morning I updated my ink journal and swabbed both of these. When we were comparing swabs at Reid’s yesterday I was struck by how bright the Waterman inks are. They swabbed the bottle of Waterman Audacious Red and I know I will never buy that ink. It’s too bright and pink for my taste. But I loved the blue and green.

The blue reminds me of Bleu Pervenche by J. Herbin, which I love. It’s such a gorgeous turquoise. And the green is very close to Monteverde Green. Love them both and I know I will use them in many of my pens.

So that was yesterday, and we did a lot more than shop for ink; I didn’t get her back home until past 6pm and I picked her up at 11am! More details will follow in my post on Wednesday because I’m writing it all down in my journal. 🙂

This morning I was up early (those darling cats of ours!) and I started catching up on my Youtube video subscriptions. The very first video was an update on the progress made in a Wreck This Journal. So I was inspired and for the rest of the morning I worked on mine.

I had so much fun! It was hard to “wreck” a journal in various ways but I managed it and it was great.

I actually did this, although you can’t really tell from the picture. My feet didn’t need to be wiped and they were clean as I was inside so there’s no evidence I jumped on it, but I did. I invited David to do the same but he declined. He laughed watching me do it though! As I said, so much fun.

Yup did what the instructions told me.

This was the last page I completed and I’m really happy with it. I’m feeling the effect of this journal already; much more liberated and free with journaling. Maybe I won’t be so precious with my other “fancy” journals. That’s the aim anyway. I will share more as I progress through the journals.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

 

Journal Writing Wednesday: 20 pages

Tags

online, reid's stationers, staples, sushi, winnable executive journal, writing

What I’m currently using: the Paperblanks Blue Filigree journal, Winnable Leather Journal, Winnable Executive Journal and the Believe In Yourself journal

Total pages written since last JWW post (Apr 29): 20

Total pages to date since project inception (Dec 11/13): 965

Total pages written in 2015: 225

Monthly Pen for May: ONLINE in Black

Next monthly pen will be chosen on May 27

Purchases:

I reviewed my Nanami Paper purchases in this post.

The first pen from a seller on FP Geeks arrived today. Review this Sunday I’m hoping.

I am still waiting on my ebay pen (coming from China) and a pen from another FP Geek seller (coming from The Netherlands).

Some points covered this week in my journals:

• Using my pen of the month, the ONLINE pen, is a bit of a challenge. I cleaned it before inking it up because it had not been cleaned in a while, and now I find it leaking at the section. I hope that is not a permanent condition. I will persevere.
• I went into Staples the other day for post-it notes and I couldn’t find any Winnable Executive Journals! I panicked. I’m almost finished my existing one and I really want another; I love the paper, and how flat it lays, and how I can stick all my paper stuff into it and it still looks good. I just might have to make a trip to Reid’s if Staples can’t help me out.
• I had a fantastic sushi dinner with friends on Saturday night. This particular group is precious to me; I have known them for a very long time and we have the absolute best conversations. You know who you are; love you guys. And yes let’s start a writing group!!

Until next week, happy writing!

Monteverde Poquito

Tags

canadian waterman junior, filofax, finsbury, goldspot, goulet pens, monteverde, poquito, reid's stationers, visconti rembrandt

I realized today I have not reviewed my Monteverde Poquito fountain pen, which I bought for my personal Finsbury Filofax from Reid’s Stationers in December 2014.

Here you can see the Poquito in the Finsbury pen loop, and it is an incredibly tight fit. So hard to find pens that fit that pen loop. But I wanted to have a fountain pen for my planner so I purchased the smallest fountain pen I have yet to see in person. It did not come with a box although the reviews on YouTube show a very nice green Monteverde box.

Poquito in Spanish means “a little bit” and this pen is super small. It measures 11 cm (4.4″) capped, and a respectable 12.6 cm (5″) posted. It is too small for a Monteverde converter, although a couple of the videos I watched mentioned smaller converters that could fit it. It comes with a standard international cartridge; mine came with black. If you want to use bottled ink you can use a syringe to fill the empty cartridge.

I found the ink was VERY slow to dry and made a mess of my fingers and my journal. And yes I realize now I spelled it “Paquito” at the beginning of the journal entry, and also in my Waterman Junior post.

I originally bought this pen to use in my Finsbury but the paper is not meant for fountain pen ink; there was tremendous showthrough and the long drying time meant messy pages. But I do use the pen; it is a good smooth writer and very comfortable in the hand despite its small size.

Here is the pen in action on a Filofax page.

Definite showthrough.

Here’s a closeup of the pen. I chose the silver, but it comes in turquoise, pink and steel grey. The turquoise and pink are metallic. I chose the silver to match the rings in my Finsbury.

The section has a bit of a step down and the nib is standard iridium, made in Germany. I think the Goulet Pens video said it was a #5. Currently this model is sold out on the Goulet Pens website.

I was given these Monteverde cartridges when I purchased my Visconti Rembrandt from Goldspot, so they will come in handy when the black cartridge that came with the Poquito runs out. But it will accept any short international cartridge.

And here is that picture I used in my Waterman Junior post, comparing pens. From left: Monteverde Poquito, Waterman Junior, Monteverde Crystal Artista, Pilot Metropolitan, Cadence, Lamy Al-Star.

Overall I would recommend the Poquito for a small everyday carry pen. It is very comfortable in the hand and writes well. I’m not a big fan of the long drying time of the ink but that could be the paper I was using for my tests as well. Let me know in the comments if anyone has had any experience with this pen, good or bad.

Journal Writing Wednesday: 12 pages

Tags

fountain pen revolution, guru, incowrimo 2015, reid's stationers, winnable executive journal

What I’m currently using: the Paperblanks Blue Filigree journal, Winnable Leather Journal, Winnable Executive Journal and the Believe In Yourself journal

Total pages written since last JWW post (Feb 25): 12

Total pages to date since project inception (Dec 11/13): 827

Total pages written in 2015: 87

Purchases:

I wrote about my latest shopping trip to Reid’s Stationers in this post, and I liked the Winnable Executive Journal so much I put it into the rotation. Four journals on the go isn’t too many, is it? Nah.

I purchased a Fountain Pen Revolution Guru pen from Deb at Goodwriters. It was put in the post earlier this week (it’s coming from Scotland) and I will review it as soon as I get it. I’m thinking of using my World Mail Panel money to purchase a vintage Waterman from her as well. Stay tuned!

Some points covered this week in my journals:

• Final update on InCoWriMo 2015: As suspected I did not reach 28 by the 28th. I sent 14 and received 7. It has kickstarted my letter writing again so that’s a good thing. I am tackling my Reply To pile with ferocity!
• We got a new sectional sofa! New to us that is. My very generous co-worker gave us a terrific deal, and moving it was not the nightmare I feared it might be. Although David was injured during said moving of said sofa, he grunted and heaved like a trooper and set it up that same night. It looks wonderful and so comfy! Even the cats approve.
• Our poor kitty cat is still sick and no one seems to know why. Tonight she is in the hospital receiving fluids and medication, in the hopes she will use the litter box on her own. Fingers crossed.

Until next week, happy writing!

Paperblanks, Winnable and Plan Ahead Journals at Reid’s

Tags

paperblanks, plan ahead, reid's stationers, sir thomas more, william shakespeare, winnable

So last Saturday I found myself downtown and decided to visit Reid’s Stationers, my favorite pen shop in Calgary. I still had a Christmas gift card to spend and what better place than one filled with notebooks, pens and ink?

This was a journal-finding mission, for no other reason than I was in the mood to buy journals. So many choices. But I narrowed it down to three.

The brown on the bottom is a Winnable Executive Journal. The orangey one in the middle is a Paperblanks William Shakespeare Sir Thomas More Ultra Journal. And the blue one on top is a Plan Ahead Journal.

The Winnable Executive Journal has a leather-like cover with stitching all around the edges. The covers must have a layer of foam as they are rather splodgy (if that’s a word).

Nice dedication page.

The cream-coloured pages have a 0.65 mm ruling, which I prefer.

I did a pen test (which I don’t always do but I was feeling ambitious). You can see only the De Atramentis ink in the Monteverde Prima with a 1.1 italic nib showed any feathering. Please disregard the Monteverde Prima above it; I think the Green Swirl is running out of ink. I always have difficulties with that pen. 😦 Anyway, the ink test did really well on this paper. It’s not exactly the same as my Winnable Leather Journal but it’s close. The 1.1 italic feathers on that paper too.

Show through is rampant, with the Pilot Metropolitan being the worst culprit. I suspected as much as the paper is super thin. This journal retails for $21.95.

Next up is the Shakespeare journal for which I have been searching a long time. The cover is a facsimile of one of three pages of the play Sir Thomas More, of which Shakespeare was considered to be one of the authors. Experts have determined the pages are Shakespeare’s own handwriting, and the fly leaf shows one of the six known (and authenticated) signatures.

I get chills just looking at it now. I almost squealed when I saw it in the shop!

No surprises on the inside. Standard cream, lined paper with a 0.8 mm ruling. And the ever-present red ribbon.

Lovely inscription on the back.

Here is another pen test on the Paperblanks. No feathering whatsoever with the italic nib, which one would expect because of the better paper.

And no show through at all. Very nice. Exactly what one expects from Paperblanks. This journal retails for $24.95.

And finally a journal I’ve never seen before: the Plan Ahead Journal. This small journal retails for just $8.99. At that price I couldn’t resist.

Nice endpapers.

Cream-coloured paper once again, with a 0.65 mm ruling. Lovely navy ribbon.

Another pen test and interestingly, not as much bleed through on the Prima italic as with the Winnable Executive.

Pretty much identical to the Winnable for show through. If show through is important to you the Paperblanks is the clear winner there. And it’s also the winner for no feathering. But for value for money you can’t beat the Plan Ahead Journal. None of them had pen loops, which was disappointing but hey you can’t have everything.

I hope you enjoyed sharing my little shopping trip. If you ever have a chance to visit Reid’s Stationers in Calgary, Alberta, Canada do not pass it up. Wonderful selection and amazing staff. And they do not sponsor me in any way; I purchased all of these items and all of my opinions are my own.

🙂

Journal Writing Wednesday: 6 pages

Tags

halley, incowrimo, reid's stationers, toyota

What I’m currently using: the Paperblanks Blue Filigree journal, Winnable Leather Journal and the Believe In Yourself journal

Total pages written since last JWW post (Feb 18): 6

Total pages to date since project inception (Dec 11/13): 815

Total pages written in 2015: 75

My Amazon order arrived early, and I wrote about what was in it last Sunday. I recently made a trip to Reid’s so that’s on deck for this Sunday. Stay tuned!

Some points covered this week in my journals:

• Update on InCoWriMo: I’m beginning to have doubts that I will reach my goal of 28 letters sent. I’ve written 12 letters and received 4, in total. The 28th is fast approaching so I need to bust my butt this weekend. We’ll see how it goes.
• Our cat Halley finally seems to be on the right medication. It’s still early days with this new regimen but we are cautiously optimistic. We’ve been at the vet hospital for the last 3 weekends; fingers crossed that’s it for a while!
• We were offered an upgrade with Toyota; we returned our 2011 RAV4 and drove away in a 2015 RAV4 for the same monthly payment. Gotta love Toyota!

Until next week, happy writing!

2015 Planner – Personal Filofax Finsbury

Tags

filofax, filofax flex, finsbury, pilot, pilot coleto multipen, pilot g-tec c4, reid's stationers, toffeenut

I have a new planner for 2015, which kind of surprises me. I was very happy in my Filofax Flex, and used it for a number of months (wow, from May to December 2014, which is something of a record for me). I had no plans to change but I found myself in December with no calendar drawn for January. December was super busy, more so than normal, and I really needed a January calendar to record things but couldn’t find the time to draw one. I grabbed an undated planner and used that for a couple of weeks (similar to the Toffeenut Planner) but then I found myself with a gift card in Reid’s Stationers. And they had a personal Finsbury Filofax in Raspberry, and well, I was sold.

Obviously I like this style, as I already have a Filofax Finsbury in Raspberry in the A5 size, which I reviewed here. And I did consider using the A5 as my everyday planner, but it is heavy and I’ve been trying to cut down on the weight in my purse of late, so I was thrilled to find the same binder in the Personal size. The Personal is much easier to carry around. And it was a bargain at $66.

There are a couple of drawbacks to moving to the smaller size however. I didn’t think to research “lay flatability” before buying but while the A5 size lays flat out of the box, the Personal size does not and probably never will without breaking the mechanism. Not a deal breaker for me but disappointing. And the smaller size only has one pen loop. Who can limit themselves to one pen?? Not I. 🙂

In this picture it’s laying flat because of the silver paperweight in the upper left corner. Otherwise it would lie about half open. Anyway the inside of each is laid out in a similar fashion. The pen loops are tight but I had no problem with my Pilot G-TEC C4. And I keep my Pilot Coleto 5 barrel tucked into the rings. I created a plastic dashboard out of the packaging and keep it at the front to protect the pages. Sorry for the glare!

I don’t like to stuff my planners so I just keep a couple post-it notes, flags, paper clips and a single sheet of calendar stickers.

 

The planner didn’t come with monthly pages and I find it hard to get by without them, so I was back to drawing boxes! But at least I could draw them on graph paper, which did come with the planner.

The week on 2 pages format comes standard but I wanted this one, with the week on the left and a generous space for notes on the right. The lovely folks at Reid’s swapped them out for me at no extra cost.

And of course I had to add a little bit of bling!

I’ve been using this planner since the last week of December. So far I have no problems with it. It goes in my purse with me every day. I’m quite happy with it. I’ve never been one for decorating the pages, and I don’t colour code, although I do enjoy using different colours of ink for contrast. I do like that it matches my A5, which I leave at home. The paper is not good for fountain pens and ink but that’s ok – on such small spaces I prefer the gel pens.

We’ll see how long the love lasts!

 

Monday Miscellany

Tags

a penchant for paper, decomposition notebooks, inkonhand.com, jack london, reid's stationers, winnable, wonderpens

Elizabeth over at Wonder Pens offers a hilarious take on being a pen clerk in 2014. And their baby is just so darn cute!

I was reading about a new feature at inkonhand.com: Writers on Writing. They will be looking at famous quotes from writers, interpreting them and seeing how they apply to their own writing. First up is Jack London. Looks interesting.

And finally Heather at A Penchant for Paper goes into great detail about Decomposition Notebooks, which I’ve been interested in, ever since I found out that Winnable doesn’t sell refills for their leather journals. I’m coming to the end of mine and I cannot find an exact refill anywhere. I talked to the great folks at Reid’s Stationers and they said the Winnable people suggested composition (or decomposition) notebooks would fit, because they are nearly the same size. I may just have to go with one of those when my Winnable is filled up. Heather’s verdict on the paper quality is disappointing but not surprising. Great review though.

Until next time, happy writing!

A Flowery Pencil Case and a Purple Metropolitan

Tags

lamy safari, pentel slicci multipen, pilot metropolitan, pilot metropolitan leopard, reid's stationers, ted baker london

A few weeks back some friends and I went to Reid’s Stationers to get started on our Christmas shopping. It was a lovely day and I wanted to share a couple of the items I bought for myself.

I spotted this pencil case as soon as I walked in the door.

Ted Baker London has some high end stationery items and this pencil case was not cheap but it was so beautiful I had to have it. The zipper and pull are rose-gold-coloured.

The case opens to reveal a bright pink interior and 6 pencils. The pencils are coloured on one end and black on the other. They have cute sayings like To Whom It May Concern and Straight to the Point. Once the pencils are used up you could use this case to house thin pens, which I intend to do. The loops on the opposite side were empty so I’ve added a purple Pilot Metropolitan, a Slicci multipen and my black Lamy Safari. They fit very well and the case closes with room to spare. Very stylish and lady-like for my purse, I thought.

I noticed the purple Pilot Metropolitan Leopard towards the end of the shopping and debated over lunch whether I should go back and get it. Obviously, I did, and I don’t regret it. It’s a beautiful colour and I think it’s a limited edition; at least the salesperson indicated it was and it would be gone in a few days so I should snatch one up while I could. I always believe what a salesperson tells me so the purple one came home to live with her silver brother.

And like her silver brother, the purple Metropolitan doesn’t disappoint. Such a beautiful writer. Reid’s didn’t have the purple cartridges so I bought a box of Mixable Colour which has 12 different colours, which is a great idea. Once the cartridge is empty I will just fill it with a purple bottled ink; have to match the barrel of course. The box says exclusive for Parallel Pen but the cartridges fit the Metropolitan.

Here’s a bit of a close-up of the barrel, showing the leopard print that gives the pen its name. Love the purple colour.

Until next time, happy writing!