A lot of the focus of expense is focued on boxes of pencils, inks, pens and all of that.

You buy a Lamy 2000 and a bottle of Iroshizuku ink; that’s probably $230 or something. Then, if you want to use all of that ink you probably have to buy 10, 20, 30 or more A5 notebooks. If it is 30 you’ll probably spend 3-4x what you spent on the expensive pen and ink.

So, is it really that important if you spend $5 or $30 on a bottle of ink?

When I was a student I took all my notes on paper, and usually wrote first drafts on paper as well.

My setup then was in the beginning to use Pilot G2’s and Retro51’s on Moleskine. Then I got into Pilot Metropolitans, before eventually getting a Lamy 2000.

My paper choices went from Moleskine to whatever college rule was available before I eventually landed on these thick A4 hardcover notebooks. There was a few different models, ranging from like 200 pages to 500 I think.

There was a lot of feathering going on, but it was a great compromise for me back then to use these. Because they were the only notebook I could get locally that handled fountain pens in any usable way. And not having to pay for international shipping for notebooks saved me a lot of money.

When I had the Lamy 2000, I used to refill it every morning and if I for some weird reason ran out of ink I’d just use the Metropolitan as a backup.

This was my first orange ink. I got this because Myke Hurley talked about it all the time for a very long time on The Pen Addict Podcast.

It was a really great ink, I think this was one of the inks that I mostly used non stop until I ran out.

This is one of many inks I’ve owned that was really awesome, but I probably will not get another bottle of it. Not because of any reason except that there are so many other orange inks I want to try out.

When I got into pencils I used a lot of time looking for a good pencil case. And I hated most of them.

Either they were really expensive, didn’t really look at that great or wasn’t practical for what I wanted.

Then at some point Nock.co put out this inexpensive but not cheap as in low quality pencil pouch that I fell in love with. I kind of regret not buying a few spare ones before them closing up shop.

It is just this fabric puch you can fit a lot of pencils in. I think it works great. And it it isn’t so fancy that you feel bad about the pencils fucking up the inside.

I love mine.

At work:

• Rhodia pads
• Blackwing pencils
• Zebra gel pens

Fountain pens

• Pink TWSBI Eco with a EF nib
• FC Pocket 66 with a EF nib
• Ystudio brassing wit ha FC EF nib

Notebooks

• Pocket: blank Field Notes in my Bellroy case
• Long form writing: lined Leuchtturm1917 A5
• Tasks and stuff: dot pads

Travelers notebook:

• Common place notebook
• A diary refill to do some high level task planning

Going to attempt at doing this kind of posts a few times a year. Or at least when I feel like things change.

This was kind of the ink that started it all for me. Before this ink I just focused on black inks that dried really fast.

Then I got this one, and realized that inks that dried fast but not very fast still worked for me. And a few months later I had a handful of ink bottles and used the next 5 years not buying that much ink and using it all.

This is the black Iroshizuku ink.

I loved it so much. The bottl was so cool, and the ink looked so dark and black compared to the black inks I’ve used. Another thing I fell in love with was how much better the writing experience was.

I’m not sure what the correct wording for this is, but some inks feel more lubricated than others. It feels very smooth to write with, while others feel dryer. It is kind of like it feels wetter.

I still have a bottle of this ink. My second one. Black isn’t something I use a lot, but sometimes I do.

I have tired getting into index cards multiple times over the years, and they just aren’t my kind of thing. It all just ends up in a place where they are a thing that is better served by some kind of a notebook.

The ones Nock.co used to make was really awesome though. The paper quality was amazing, and a lot of interesting formats.

I think they are the only ones I have tried out of many that actually worked well with fountain pens.

Hopefully someone else will pick up where Brad left things off and start making and innovating in Index Cards.

I used a very long time to pick this ink.

It all started when I decided I wanted a red ink. Then I started to look at Iroshizuku inks, and didn’t find anything; or I can’t remember if I didnt find anything at all, anything that I liked in Stock at Tudos or anything i liked in general.

So I started to look at Rober Oster inks. And this lead to this insane cross referencing all the ink they had in stock versus the PDF color chart that Robert Oster has on their site. And I decided on Direct Sun.

I think it is a good color, but in retrospect I wish I had gone with a lighter and more vibrant color.

Other than that a great ink. I like the Robert Oster inks a lot. They are almost as good as Iroshizuku in terms of writing experience with a lot more color options.

If you’re into good paper, you are most likely familiar with either Rhodia or Leuchtturm1917; most likely both.

I use the both of them.

Rhodia has the “better” paper, but I like the Leuchtturm1917 paper better. The difference is that the Rhodia paper is coated and deal better with some inks / ink amounts. But it also means it dries slower. That is the reason I prefer Leuchtturm1917.

But I do prefer Rhodia in other ways. Especially in how they have more different kinds of notebooks that Leuchtturm1917 has. Like their inexpensive dot pads. And not just the expensive hardcover A5 notebooks.