When I first heard the news that Sharpie was going to be making a liquid pencil I was interested immediately. I press very firmly when I write, so when using traditional pencils or mechanical pencils I would break the tip quite often. It's a cool idea and something that sounds like it's out of the future.  It sounds like something a robot would use to take a math test.  Sadly the Sharpie Liquid Pencil does not live up to its futuristic sounding coolness.  It has the potential to be a great product, but just isn't there yet.

The body of the Sharpie Liquid pencil is nothing extraordinary.  It has a simple design that looks good but not great.  The top 1/4 of the pencil is actually used to deploy the tip of the pen/pencil/cool metal thing refill that writes with the liquid pencil ink.  This makes the design a bit more unified but causes a bigger problem.  When deployed the top 1/4 of the pencil rattles constantly while being used.  This might not bother some people, but it drives me crazy.  Other than this there are no real problems with the body of the Liquid Pencil.  The design is simple but uninteresting.

The other major problem with the Sharpie Liquid Pencil is the way it writes.  To be blunt, it writes badly.  It skips, leaves a ton of white space, and requires a ton of pressure to produce a mark on the paper. It leaves a lot to be desired.


Once again it is a cool idea, and I like thinking about robots taking tests with this.  But until Sharpie makes some tweaks to this product, which I think they will do, I won't be using it very often.  Cool can only get you so far.





5 out of 10 mummies

Today we are starting a weekly post where we will link to other blogs that have interesting things we have been reading.  We weren't sure whether or not to name it something serious or to try and make a pun.  We decided on the pun, so it's PEN + INTELLIGENCE = PENTELIGENCE.

Montblanc Starwalker Red Gold-Plated Fountain Pen  on Gear Patrol

Ohto Graphic Liner Needle Point Drawing Pen 03 Review on The Pen Addict

Moleskine Monday: Great Lakes Writing Set on Etsy on Notebook Stories

Monteverde Artista Crystal Fountain Pen Medium Nib Transparent Turquoise Body on No Pen Intended 

Review: Pentel EnerGel-X Gel Ink Pens - 0.7mm on Gourmet Pens

Pentel Hybrid Technica 0.5 on The Well Appointed Desk 

Fortnightly Inkings #5  at On Fountain Pens 

How to Write a Letter to a New Penpal on The Blog of the European Paper Company 

Every Day Carry on the JetPens Blog

Carnival of Pen, Pencil Paper at Comfortable Shoe Studio

 

 

On lunch break the other day I decided to take a stroll through my campus store. I came across a fantastic deal on what seemed like a pretty solid notebook. I picked up a few.

During my recent trip to New York I stopped at the Muji Store.  I bought a lot of assorted stationary at the store.  The first thing I saw was this nifty little Blue Passport Pocket Notebook.  I love pocket notebooks and this was a really smart looking book so I picked it up.

The Passport notebook has no info written inside of it about the type of paper used, and I couldn't find it on the Muji website.  There are 24 pages of unlined cream colored glossy paper.  The cover is a faux leather-ish material in navy blue, reminiscent of the cover of a passport.  The book is a bit smaller than other notebooks in the pocket category.  It is 4 3/4 inches long and 3 1/4 inches wide. 

The paper in the book is average at best.  It's a glossy type paper comparable to the paper in a Moleskine.  There is a lot of showthrough for most pens.  Every pen except for the sub .5mm gel pens showed through so don't get used to writing with heavy flowing pens.  The wide nib fountain pens bled through a very little bit but this isn't the type of notebook you would normally be using a calligraphy pen in anyway. 


Overall the book is a quality little pocket notebook that will be a good company on your everyday note taking missions.  The paper isn't super high quality, but if you have .5mm or smaller tips for your pens you should be fine when it comes to showthrough. This notebook was around $2.50 so you really can't beat it for the price.

7 out of 10 mummies.

a Rafflecopter giveaway Winner of the Muji Notebook is Melissa Winner of the personal letter is Chris Lo Winner of the poorly drawn postcard is Ira F. Stone email or direct message us your mailing address and we will ship your prizes out as soon as possible. Thanks everybody for participating in our first ever giveaway here at #penswag. You can expect more throughout the year.

Hey everybody. Sorry for not posting as usual on Tuesday, but I was in New York on a mini-vacation.  While in NYC I picked up some pretty cool products.  Some of which we are giving away at the end of this post!

 First, my family and I went to the Museum of Modern Art.  It was a fantastic trip and very interesting.  As we were leaving I decided to check the gift shop.  In there I found a very cool booklet of blank postcards that doubled as a sketch book.  I picked it up and can't wait to send some postcards.  Check the end of this post for a chance to win a personalized postcard from #penswag.

After some more sightseeing we went to Times Square. While there I saw one of several Muji stores in New York.  These stores have been on my to do list for a while now and I was excited to try out some of their products. When I entered Muji the stationary section was right up front. I felt like I had gone to stationary heaven.  There were cups filled with pens of all different colors and tip sizes.  Stacks on stacks of notebooks of all sizes.  I bought a little bit of everything.  I bought three mid size ruled notebooks, a ringed smaller notebook with dot grid paper, a letter set, and a small passport size pocket notebook. I also bought 4 pens, ranging from .3mm - .5mm. You can expect reviews on all of these in the coming weeks. Below you'll find a chance to win one of the ruled notebooks, and a personal letter from #penswag.




Now for the giveaway. Use the Rafflecopter submission form below to enter.  One person will win the Muji Notebook, One person will win a personal letter from #penswag, and One person will win a postcard with a something badly drawn by #penswag. Enter below and tell your friends!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Last semester at college when things really started to pick up with the blog, and infatuation with writing materials I thought it was a good idea to pick up a journal. Many people think it may be corny or childish, but I think it is a great way to get down lingering thoughts that one may have at the end of they day, it is therapeutic. I didn't do much research on journals, so I just went to my local staples and picked one up that suited my needs.


The Eccolo World Traveler is your basic leather journal, with one of those nifty strings to mark your page. It is a good looking piece, and makes me feel legitimate while writing in it. The pages are a yellowish off white, with grey lines. It gives a nostalgic feel that I really care for.



The quality of the pages are good. Compared to my black and red notebook, they are a little less glossy but provide a fine writing surface. The pages show little to no bleed through regardless of what pen you are using (I use a plethora of pens while writing in it). This is essential to a journal because you usually write on the front and back of the pages.


Now I am not going to share one of my personal entries, but here is a little writing sample.


I would highly recommend a journal (doesn't have to be this one) to everyone. It is a great way to collect thoughts and to end a day.

8 out of 10 mummies.


-Cody

I have very bad memories of erasable pens.  In third grade when we learned to write cursive I was not allowed to use a real pen because my handwriting was so bad.  Instead of a beautiful liquid ink or regular gel pen I was forced to use erasable gel pens.  I believe the brand I used back then were Papermate's but I'm not positive, all I know is that they were awful.  The pens clumped, didn't erase properly, and were all around displeasing to use. Now I see these Pilot FriXon's and all of my bad childhood memories come flooding back.


Erasable gel pens are, to my knowledge, mostly used for beginning writers learning their letters and what not.  Right off the bat you can tell that the Pilot FriXon is designed for young boys, and 25 year old guys wearing ED HARDY tee shirts.  The barrell is covered in what looks like a tribal tattoo from the aforementioned 25 year old's bicep.  Also, don't forget that the x in FriXon is capitalized, for XTREME COOL FACTOR!!!!.  I find both of these design elements cheesy and unnecessary.  I'm not going to lie I felt like an idiot in Walgreen's when I was buying these.  I was embarrassed to be associated with these poorly designed pens.  I told the cashier they were for my younger brother.  She didn't care, and I don't have a younger brother. 


The writing is not as bad as I remembered.  There is no clumping of the ink around the point of the pen. However, slightly better than awful is still bad.  The ink is barely dark enough to be called black, and is more like a watery grey color.  There is a ton of white space in the lines.  The pen does erase pretty well.  I was quite happy to erase the horrible grey ink off my paper.  The eraser is a bit of a conundrum to me.  It is placed on the back of the pen, not the cap.  So if you want to erase something you can't have the cap posted on the back of the pen.  Although before I knew this I tried using the cap and it worked surprisingly well at erasing.


 Obviously I am pretty biased towards erasable pens, but they really are crappy. Overall this pen is an improvement on the erasable pens I remember from my grade school days.  However, I can't say that I will ever use these pens again.  I would rather use a pencil if I need to erase something.

3 out of 10 mummies