Karas Kustoms has been innovative in new pen designs, materials, and colors. At the end of 2017, they analyzed their entire product line to find any gaps they needed to fill and found they did not have any products in the “Pocket Pen” market. Taking inspiration from the Space Race as well as mid-century Americana, which has always played a big role in Karas Kustoms, they developed the new Reaktor series. This new affordable product series consists of two lines – the Galaxie and the Starliner. The Galaxie line includes a clipless, smaller ballpoint pen and an XL rollerball pen with a clip. The Starliner line includes a clipless, smaller fountain pen and a XL fountain pen with a clip. This review will be of the Starliner line. Paul from Karas Kustom graciously sent me several of the new pens to review, and I will be running two giveaways – one here and one on my blog, pengeek13.wordpress.com. This giveaway is for a Starliner XL with a blue grip section and medium nib as well as a Galaxie XL rollerball with a blue grip section, both in the silver anodized aluminum finish. The giveaway will run from August 14, 2018 […]
Read More
I hope you liked the first part of the Rohrer & Klingner Ink series. Today we have the next 3 inks in alphabetical order, being Blu Mare, Cassia, and Fernambuk. Rohrer & Klingner ink bottles are made of amber-coloured glass with an aluminium screw cap. The reason why some ink suppliers like to fill their inks in amber glass is that some inks may be photosensitive, which means that they might degrade or change in colour over time, when exposed to light. It usually isn’t as bad as it sounds, but if you are very particular about it, just don’t store your inks under bright sunlight and you would do just fine. Blu Mare • Sea Bluish • Bleu Marin • Blu Mare I get a little confused over the naming of the Rohrer & Klingner inks at times. Here we have Blu Mare, which sounds like Italian for “blue sea”. But maybe a name is just a name. Blu Mare is a delightful cyan, a very bright and attention-grabbing colour. I would associate the colour to some of the gel pens we used during high school days to write girly notes to one another. In a more picturesque manner, […]
Read More
Rohrer & Klingner Leipzig Co. was a cooperation between Johann Adolf Rohrer and Felix Arthur Klingner in 1907, in the German city Leipzig. The company specializes in making inks using natural materials and methods, and today, already the fifth generation of employees are keeping the company running. Rohrer & Klingner produces 2 kinds of inks which are safe to use with fountain pens: writing ink and document ink. Many of their other ink types are pigmented inks, and not likely suitable for fountain pens. In this new series of ink introduction, I’ll be talking about the writing inks that come in 18 different colours, and I will run through them in alphabetical order. As this is just an overview, I am not going into the depth of the ink, but just providing a description of each ink and my own thoughts of each. I’d like to extend my thanks to Fook Hing Trading Co. for generously sponsoring me this entire set of inks to showcase on OFP. As usual, all opinions here are my own. Alt-Bordeaux • Old Bordeaux • Bordeaux Vieux • Bordeaux Antico This ink is reminiscent of wine, and judging by the name given to it, it is not […]
Read More
I’M SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY in putting up this post. Finally I have picked the lucky winners to receive the prizes of the Mystery Draw this last quarter! First let’s have a look at the prizes. They are all Chinese brand pens and a notebook: I’ve gotten a few of the above pens for myself and decided to run a giveaway as they are pretty interesting. I have not tried the Hero 345 yet myself, though. Here’s my review of the Sailor fude nib pen for you to check out what fude nibs are. I’m also including a Penbbs notebook in the pack. It comes in either dotted or lined format. So the pack you will receive looks like this: Now… for the winners! There will be two such packs available and they will go to: a*******y@gmail.com and s*****.a***@gmail.com Congratulations to the winners! I’ll be emailing you and you have one week to reply to this post to acknowledge winning, if not I’ll give your prize away to someone else. And fret not if you didn’t win anything yet. Stay tuned for December’s OFP Mystery Draw for your chance to win stuff! For those of you who are clueless […]
Read More
Hello there dear readers! Thank you so much for the support on the SG50 Online Vision Calligraphy Set. There was an overwhelming number of entries! I have not had the chance to pick the winners the last few days, but I am finally able to do so today. I bet you are all excited. The winners are: a Rafflecopter giveaway Congratulations to Sandra and Sok H.! Sandra has won for leaving a comment on this post, and Sok has won for subscribing via email to OFP. Of course, I have also verified if they have performed the mandatory action to qualify for the draw (which is to leave a comment on the original post), and they have: To the winners: I’ll be sending each of you an email on winning. Please reply me with your contact details so that I can get the gift to you. Also, leave a comment on THIS blog post to acknowledge winning. To those who didn’t win: don’t give up! There will be more giveaways on OFP in future, so do stay tuned, especially via your blog subscription, to be the first to know about latest posts, reviews, and giveaways! MaybellineI am the founder of […]
Read More
Alright, as promised yesterday, I have an awesome giveaway for my readers today. In case you’re wondering, yes, it is the Online VISION Special Edition Calligraphy Set which has been launched to commemorate SG50, Singapore’s 50th birthday! The sets are disappearing fast, but I’ve managed to secure 2 sets to be given away, thanks to the very supportive sponsorship of Fook Hing Trading Co. The VISION Calligraphy set consists of a pen with 3 italic nibs of different sizes: 0.8mm, 1.4mm, and 1.8mm, which can be fitted onto the brilliant red body of the VISION fountain pen. The pen itself has a red barrel, the colour of the red of the Singapore flag. It is made of aluminium with a brushed surface, and on it there is a diamond-engraved map of Southeast Asia, featuring Singapore as the star of the region. The pen comes together with a chrome cap with the SG50 logo engraved on it. There is also a 15ml bottle of Rubin Red ink included – “Rubin” being the German word for “Ruby”. The ink is of a bright red hue. The packaging of the product is very attractive – in contrast to the metallic material of the pen, the […]
Read More
Have you been looking forward to the OFP Mystery Draw that is held once every quarter? The June draw has finally taken place, but before I announce the winners, let me talk about the prizes first! This draw’s exciting gift pack that each winner will get will be: One Kaweco metal gift tin One Kaweco Sport Chess fountain pen (either in black or blue), F nib One cartridge each of all the Kaweco ink colours There are two sets available, which means 2 potential lucky winners could get one of these prizes. The ink cartridges have been sponsored by Fontoplumo, while the fountain pens and gift tins are sponsored by… yours truly (me)! Now for the lucky winners… Cchang0122 and Janisf Crystal_lancer (Janisf did not reply to my email!) Congratulations! You will each receive an email from me on how to redeem the prizes. If you do not reply to my email by 5 July (next Sunday), I will have to pick a new winner instead. To be eligible for the next draw, be sure to subscribe to my blog via email (subscription form in my sidebar)! MaybellineI am the founder of this website. Chemist by day, slacker by night, […]
Read More
Sorry for the delay in putting up the winners of the Backpocket Ink Testers. 1st Winner Congratulations to Jeff from the U.S.! Your winning entry is the comment you left on my blog post. 2nd Winner Congratulations to Dale, also from the U.S.! Your winning entry is by following me on Twitter. To Claim Your Prize You will each receive one Backpocket Ink Tester notebook. Look out for my email which notifies you of winning. I will send the prize if you complete the following: Leave a comment at this blog post to acknowledge winning Reply to my email with your mailing address Do both of the above by Saturday, 13 Jun 2015. If I don’t receive any notification from you, I will pick a new winner. Meanwhile, if you really love the Backpocket Ink Tester, you may visit Straits Pen to ask about availability and to see what else they have there! Also, Curnow Bookbinding & Leatherwork has graciously allowed to let me share a photo of their notebooks with you (below). If you happen to be interested in what other kinds of notebooks they have, visit their Facebook Page. As for the photo below, Steve Curnow has informed […]
Read More
I have lately received an interesting product from Straits Pen, and the product is from a company I have never heard of before. It is the Backpocket Ink Tester. I love new products from new brands, so I was pretty excited to review this notebook! The Backpocket Ink Tester is a pocket-sized notebook which reminds me much of Field Notes, the super-popular pocket-sized brand of notebooks that everyone seems to love. It is made by Curnow Bookbinding & Leatherwork, from Dixon, California. These are handmade journals, which makes it even more appealing to me! When you flip to the middle of the book, you will be able to see the binding, which seems to be some sort of wire or twine. It’s an interesting way of binding (while Field Notes are bound by classic staples). Within the book, there are 46 pages of forms for you to fill out your ink records, so you can record 46 different kinds of inks in one single book. The fields allow you to record the ink brand, ink name, the pen and nib you used for the record, and the date. Following those, you can give star ratings for ink characteristics like shading, saturation, […]
Read More
It’s time to do the drawing for the quarterly Mystery Gift! Out of all my email subscribers (and WordPress subscribers too, I’ve tried my best to figure out all your email addresses), I have used random.org number generator to pick 3 subscribers to win this month’s lucky draw. The number generator has picked out era*************@gmail.com, p**@cogeco.ca, and ukm*******@hotmail.com! You will be receiving one each of a Pilot Kakuno (fine nib), Pilot Penmanship (EF nib), a Pilot Con-50 converter, and a Renover notebook (picture below)! Items and colours will be sent at random, but if you have a preference, let me know in the email and I’ll try to get you your preferred one. Look into your inboxes as I will be sending you an email notification on this. Then, come over here to comment on this post to acknowledge receipt of my email. As I will be away for 2 weeks starting today, I do appreciate your patience as I won’t be able to mail out the items until I’m back. Subscribe via email to this website to have a chance at winning a mystery gift at the next quarter (in June)! If you already have subscribed and want more chances […]
Read More
