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Every wednesday morning, I stop by this café for about forty minutes, before heading off to my tai chi class... Yesterday, was using my Aurora 88. One of my favourite pens. The cap is engraved with the A.G.V. logo with the Venetian Lion (an Italian insurance company) For you viewing pleasure.

Recently saw an ad on Amazon for the Monsieur series of notebook. The two reviews of these books are not really enthusiastic. However, the books are made in Great Britian, have leather covers, and seem to be pretty decent for paper. Price is not bad either. So I bought one and here's what I noted about it: Good looking notebook, bought the sketch book since I like unlined paper. Tried my favorite Noodler inks and got good results. Noted that previous reviews compared Monsieur to Rhodia and (gasp) Moleskin. So used the same pens and inks in a Moleskin and a Clairefontaine (no Rhodia in hand), got comparable results. See next post for pictures of the comparison notebooks. What do you think? Comparable? Or not?

hi All im hoping to harness the Power of FPN im looking for a case for my ipad mini and want one that incorporates a notepad as well. I know moleskin make one but given the bad behaviour of the paper with my FP's im keen to find an alternative any suggestions would be great I live in the uk so uk supplied would be best but iv imported form the states before when what I wanted wasn't available in fact I have my scottyvest fleece on as I type this thanks Peter

In the past 12 months or so... I have run through four notebooks.. here is my review hoping it is helpful. If one reader finds light at the end of this message.. my mission is complete!! Before notebooks I tried all types of printer paper with a wide range of average results... until I found the first one: 1) Composition book (From STAPLES made in Brazil) (100 pages? / $1.00 aprox?) I was honestly surprised by the performance of this underestimated notebook. All inks behaved fantastic .. with very low tendency to ghost (see-through) and practically NO feather or bleeding. Some inks even seem to get better over time, like Noodlers Blue Eel and Noodlers Black Eel. Great notebook for the price. 2) NotePad: Rhodia / dot ruled. (160 pages / $8.00 aprox.) a complete shift from the previous piece. I found out I hated the notepad for my journal purposes and thats the only thing to dislike. The paper is outstanding.... with NO feather at all... zero ghosting and zero bleeding. All inks behave great and some produce fantastic shading... like P.R. Sherwood Green and PR. Orange Crush. The dot ruling allows to use it vertical or horizontal which is a great feature! A serious performing paper for fountain pen users. 3) Notebook: Moleskine / line ruled. (160 pages / $18.00) cant remember the model, but it is a very typical.. about 5.5" x 8"... Great built. sturdy hard covers... looks great everywhere with its fancy elastic to hold pages (or hold it closed, depends how you use it) and spreads open almost flat. Nevertheless... I was a bit disappointed by the paper itself on fountain pen inks. It is too absorbent, tends to feather and ghost.. and some inks even bleed. Some inks behave terribly like Pelikan Amber and Montblanc Black,. first and last moleskine Im buying. 4) Notebook: "Seven Seas Writer" Tomoe River paper (from nanamipaper dot com) (480 pages / $35.00) ...and worth every penny! I had a tough time finding tomoe river after testing a couple of sample sheets a friend gave me in a pen show. Let me say, this paper is a Jewel! You would easily underestimate its performance if you judge it by its weight and thickness (or better said: "thinness") It is incredibly thin (of course, a bit transparent) but takes a load of your wettest Montblanc or Pelikan nib without the slightest hessitation. Zero in major categories: 0 Feather / 0 Bleeding. some ghosting (some say) but I dont blame it.. being soo thin. My most underestimated ink behaves fantastic here: Pelikan royal blue. and the better inks.. are outstanding like PR Orange Crush, Noodlers El Lawrence.. and some others yield a fantastinc shading like J.Herbin Cacao do Brezil or J.Herbin Bleu Pervenche. Only downside ... takes a bit longer to dry.. but, hey, Im not competing in any race against time... oh! and it comes with a VERY helpful piece of blotter paper to prevent staining pages on wet ink) !! happy inking! enjoy!

When I was posting in another thread I had a quick list written on a sheet from my large moleskin cahier (gridded) journal. http://static.karlblessing.com/pens/batch_03152014/write.jpg I noticed that note only did some of the ink, such as the Noodler's Black eel out of my Sheaffer snorkel Admiral seem to have a 'raised' effect on the paper (once dried it's like I could rub my finger over it and literally feel each litter). Which is kind of nice in itself. BUT, I noticed looking up and down the page I had a lot of little 'spikes' no matter which pen I used that I didn't notice on just regular old mead/cambridge paper (on those there would be some feathering depending on the ink, but not the 'spikey' look). So decided to take a look under my macro lens: http://static.karlblessing.com/pens/batch_03152014/write_sample_1280.jpg Full 10 megapixel image can be seen here: http://static.karlblessing.com/pens/batch_03152014/write_sample_full_res.jpg It's almost like tiny individual strands of fibre are quickly sucking ink right down the path of the fiber giving the some of the slightly wetter pens the appearance that there was some erratic jerks of the pen writing, but that's not the case. Not so much with the Noodler's Black Eel or Noodler's Bad Green Gator, but definitely from the Skrip Melon Red, 1670 Ocean Bleu, and Platinum Carbon Black. The Scabiosa doesn't seem to do it at all, and the waterman intense black (in the pen using the 1.5mm stub nib) does it a tad less than the noodler's permanents. Don't think wetness is a factor cuz with the snorkel it's wetter than when I use the Goulet EF nib, as a result gives it that 'raised' feeling off the paper once dried.