A Rolex and a Montegrappa

I have talked before why people chose to use a fountain pen. My conclusion is they chose for the same reason they chose to wear a mechanical watch. And I think the two are a match made in heaven.
Maybe Rolex Rainbow is not the most conspicuous watch to wear, but I think it will go really well with the Montegrappa Rainbow. Assorting your watch with the fountain pen could be a new trend.

And I think that was what Nomos was trying to do with the rebranded Kaweco, even though for me both are more valuable on their own. Rather than having a weird branded fountain pen I would go for the "real" one if I can say so.

But maybe we should take the good idea behind this. When you buy a Kaweco make sure to buy a Nomos, and vice versa.

Follow the link to see the post with the first watch - fountain pen combo, a match made in heaven between Kaweco sport and Nomos.

Pencils in hotel rooms, Stabilo Schwan 306

Usually, hotels offer you a little notepad and ballpoint to write down things, but I was greeted in my short Hamburg visit by an HB Stabilo Schwan 306 pencil.

I found the markings on it curious, as I know the US marks the lead harness by numbers and HB is the #2 pencil. Well, this is a 2 1/2 pencil so a bit harder than a regular HB.
The finish of the pencil was made for this hotel room, it looks like woody and unfinished. Like a raw pencil. The same feeling the room left me, an old cabin in the woods, except it wasn't in the woods.
I do not know if it was a calculated decision to leave this particular pencil in the room or it was just a coincidence.
So, on the natural finish of the pencil, the brand name, and model number are written in a very dark paint.
The lines put down by the pencil look dark enough and smooth, so no complaints about the writing or the handling of the pencil.
I had to take the paper back to the lab (back home) to test the ease with which the lines are erased from the paper. And it is no problem, it erases well.
Also, there is no sharpening test, as I did not have my Opinel #8 with me.

All in all, it is an ok pencil, that has an interesting finish that goes well with the looks of a cabin in the woods.

Preview OHTO Conception Mechanical Pencil

A few days ago I received in the mail a small but very impressive package.
Thanks to: Stationery Wiki, and the people who made it possible
Matthias from Bleistift blog the mechanical pencil sponsor
Dave from Dave's mechanical pencils judge
Brad from The Pen Addict judge

How I got the mechanical pencil?
I ended up with this beautiful mechanical pencil as a prize in a competition hosted by Stationery Wiki. I participated with a post on the wiki about the Rotring 500. Irony or not I could choose between a Rotring 500 and the OHTO Conception. I chose the OHTO Conception because I am not familiar with the brand and their products
I also got a cup

What is Stationery Wiki?
A place where to find information and facts about stationery related products and these great people are the

Why this wiki and not Wikipedia?
Because Wikipedia has a filter and if it considers that the page is not of great importance for the public it will delete it to save precious space. At the same time, it can be tricky to find information about pencils, fountain pens, and other similar products and companies.
I wrote a few posts in which I tried to start from the beginning and go to the present days (short timelines): Rotring Tikky, Rotring 500 (the runner up post), Koh-I-Noor Versatil. And every time it was a difficult task.
The Rotring Tikky post was planned more than half of year before i started to write it. Partially because it was hard getting all the info, partly because I wanted to find more info and confirm what I have found, and largely because many times I am pretty busy and when I am not I am lazy :)
Joking aside the project is a great cause and I am a supporter of it.

I did not had the time to enjoy the pencil yet as I was on the road most of last and this week. I will make time for writing a review of the OHTO Conception in 0.3 mm shortly.
Until then you can read the review of the OHTO Conception on Bleistift. Some time has passed since I read this post and can't remember the conclusion or the positives and negatives. So it will be interesting to see how I rate it compared to Matthias.

Hamburg, Germany and Montblanc in a duty free shop

I just came back from Hamburg, Germany, after a very short trip. And I learned 2 new things.
First, I have to look for flights with more time between them or I should get in a better shape. It was a short and intense trip, as for my flight to Hamburg I had to change planes in Munich, and because the first one had a delay of over an hour I had to run for about 15 gates to get to my second flight just to realize that the gate number had changed and had to run back another 28 gates. I was completely out of breath. I can't even believe that a few years back I ran a full marathon.

The second thing I learned is that Montblanc is also a perfume maker ?!? What ?!?
Maybe Paco Rabanne will start making inks... Not trying to be mean but I do not like this kind of style of business even though this seems to be the future for all brands.
Have someone produce whatever you want to sell, and you use the brand name to make people pay as much as possible for a generic product.
I just hope this is not like Armani watches (replace Armani with whatever clothing brand you would like), pricey pieces of quartz that you should pay around 30 $.

I can't say much about Hamburg as I did not get the chance to visit anything. But I saw a lot of construction sites, brick buildings, and graffiti. Oh, let's not forget about the bubble machine on a car.