You might ask yourself, “Less didn’t you learn your lesson from the AmazonBasics fountain pen?” I did, but I ordered these on the same day. The fountain pen was much easier to review since well, it was not great. The pencil on the other hand was more difficult. Why? Because it’s unusually good. No really.

Okay first off let’s talk about looks. It’s okay in the looks department. It’s plain silver with blue accent (red if you go with 0.7mm) and a simple rolled clip, with the Basics logo in right hand orientation. It’s minimalist in looks. And really, not bad. But it does have a feeling of being a knock off of another brand, and I do wonder who manufactured it for Amazon, because it’s made in Japan, and for other reasons that I’ll harp on in a moment.

Breaking it down, it’s mostly metal with a plastic sleeve inside. The entire body of the pencil is aluminum and steel. The bit of plastic inside is what holds the leads. Everything screws securely together. The cap covers a nugget of eraser that is useless in size. I’m disappointed that they didn’t include a lead clearing wire in the eraser end, but you can’t have it all.  The cap is nice enough with a rolled end that is open. If you lose the eraser you’ll end up dealing with your leads spilling out.

One of the reasons I want to know who made the pencil for Amazon are those leads. I’m not usually a fan of HB leads, usually they are trash and I replace them with NanoDia leads in B grade. Not these, oh now, sign me up for a tube of these AmazonBasics HB leads. Buttery smooth without that plasticy feeling of some leads. These are better than the NanoDia HB leads and look dark. They feel smooth too. So nice.

The pencil has a retracting pipe and a double nock. I won’t lie, I was very confused at first. I kept clicking the nock to see how much lead was deployed and kept retracting the nock. I only discovered the extremely gentle second nock for lead deployment when fidgeting with the pencil. The first click exposes the pipe and a small amount of lead. The next click pushes out about 1mm of lead, and every click after gives you another mm of lead. Perfect. To retract the pencil, you click the nock fully again while pushing the lead into the pipe. The tip then retracts. Easy.

I found the weight of this pencil to be perfect. The balance is slightly toward the front of the pencil, which I find to be very comfortable, it is a subtle shift in weight that I really appreciate.

I also really appreciate the packaging. Unlike the fountain pen this pencil is sent in the usual AmazonBasics cardboard box with clever slots to hold the item. The pencil is in a simple plastic sleeve in the box. With the exception of the plastic sleeve the rest of the packaging can go into cardboard recycling.

Overall I found this to be a perfectly enjoyable mechanical pencil with features not usually found on one so inexpensive. It’s surprisingly well built and the double nock and retractable pipe make this an excellent choice for someone looking for a gift for a kid or a pencil to toss into a bag for everyday use. At $9 bucks it’s money well spent. Now if they made it in matte black it’d be killer. Continue reading →

I have a sheet that I developed to log and track all of my pencils. I have a small collection of over 300 unique pencils! I use my sheet to record each new pencil that comes into my hands. I buy pencils in 2s or 3s and always use one and store one. My collection fits into a couple of those plastic pencil cases you find for kids. I frequently forget to log a pencil.

When Gary sent me over the Pencilog I was taken by it’s cute cover and the simple multi color print. I like both but the cyan and magenta toned one really strikes my fancy. At first glance it looks like any other 2-pack of pocket notebooks but with cuter covers; complete with a nice little belly band. Inside things are different. Inside each cover are interesting tidbits and then an index. Then the guts have a place to record the pencil. Some of the info is based on facts- brand, type, grade. Other information is subjective.

You could use this to record your notes on a collection, it’s a great way to log each pencil quickly and easily. All the info is there at hand.

I’m using it to log my in use pencils. I have to write about my pencil cup but I’m currently using a small rotation of pencils and replacing as I use them up. This is a great way to keep note of which pencils I’m using and replacing.

It should be noted that the paper inside these notebooks is great- it’s got enough tooth to be nice with pencil but not so toothy it chews them up. It feels smooth too. It is a great paper.

I like these and have found a use for them, though not quite the same as the intended use, it works for me.

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This popped up into my suggested items based on my searches and I had a good chuckle. Then I did a search for other reviews and found that they were all over the map in terms of experience, so I had to get one.

Like many Amazon items this fluctuates in price from the base of $9.99 up to $15. I snagged mine at $12. Not bad, not great.

It arrives in a bubble mailer and a very sturdy cardboard box that is sealed with packing tape. Inside the box is an extremely nice and well made gift box in forest green. It snaps open and stays open. Inside is a die cut foam piece, instructions, and some satin covering of the rest of the foam. It is a stellar presentation of a pen.

The pen itself is pretty small and glossy black with silver trim. The clip is adorned with the AmazonBasics logo in left handed format. Odd choice but I’m here for it. The cap snaps on and off with some force and posts well. It does not feel as if it will work loose easily. There are fingers inside the cap that could be adjusted with a wooden skewer if needed.

The solid metal construction of this pen is done well, it feels pretty good in hand. It weighs less than I expected given what I read in other other reviews. It is lighter than the Pilot Metropolitan but weighs more than my Wing Sung 601. Though it posts I will not be using this pen posted, the balance is wonky once posted, leaning very heavily to the back of the pen. I have small hands so this might be a more balanced feeling for someone with larger hands.

Initially, in use the pen had nice ink flow but the nib wasn’t amazing. Eventually in the midst of writing a letter it just dried out completely. Later during a journal entry it also dried out. The nib didn’t dry because I wasn’t writing, it dried out of ink completely and took a few minutes for ink to flow back into the feed and nib, weird. It took a bit of work to get the nib to feel good. The tip was just a smidge scratchy but also only in one place, it smoothed out easily. Other reviewers had a smooth experience with their pens. The grip was a good size for my hands, though the step from body to grip section sits exactly where my thumb holds the pen. It’s rounded and not sharp so it’s not painful, just annoying.

My thoughts on this pen are mixed. It’s okay. It has a very classic pen look- glossy black lacquer on a brass body and nicely done silver trim. The unadorned silver nib has only the M on it to designated the size of the nib. I think it’s a better pen experience for me than the Metropolitan, but the nib is not as nice. For $12 I think most folx would be better off buying a couple of WingSung 3008/9 etc. The AmazonBasics logo is a wart on this pen. The gift box is unadorned and could easily be repurposed to hold another pen for gifting. It’s a solid meh on this pen.

This pen was, sadly, purchased with ko-fi fund. I feel as though I have wasted your money. Though I have assisted you in avoiding this purchase. If you like this sort of review, feel free to buy me a coffee via my ko-fi button on the sidebar.

For those of us who straddle the cultural divide between the 80s and 90s the move from 2020 to 2021 stationery fashions has been very very kind to us. We have the TWSBI rainbow plated eco/diamond, the emergence of teal as a fashionable color, and hot damn Baronfig has brought us all the Holofoil of our dreams. Well, mine anyway.

I am here for it all it’s garish beauty, the holofoil isn’t garish though, the book itself is tastefully done as are the envelopes, but that insert, man, I just want to stare at it and let the rainbows glint off it into my eyes. RAD.

We all know that Baronfig’s paper is great with everything I’ve ever thrown at it, LttF is no exception- great paper, great binding, lovely cover, and a ribbon that could be about an inch longer for it to be useful. No elastic. In the holofoil highlighted box, we have the journal, that lovely holofoiled card and 12 envelopes.

I’m also here for the concept of LttF. One of the most interesting things I did in grad school was write a letter to myself. It was written about a week before graduation and we were instructed to write a letter to ourselves that would be sent to us one year from that date. It’s been several years since I wrote and then read that letter. It’s tucked into a journal somewhere and I don’t remember it’s contents, but I do remember the feeling of reading that letter, it was good. It was a touch sad, but mostly it was helpful and dare I say even useful?

It was nice to see where I was a year post graduation, unlike many of Baronfig’s other offerings this one ships with little in the way of instructions. 12 envelopes could lead you to writing a letter to yourself every month for the next year. Or a letter to be read at a specific time in the year. OR a letter a year for 12 years (whoa that is a commitment.)  Or some other combination. But it is an interesting journaling and motivational tool to explore. When would you want to read the letters? When do you want to leave them to yourself?

Overall I’m in love with the concept, though I’ll likely only use a few of the pages for the intended 12 letters and the rest for letters I’m sending out to friends. 

As an aside, the book I just finished, Harrow the 9th, featured letters written to the self in code. The reasoning for these letters are multifold and sad, and at the end of the book revealed to be totally unnecessary. 

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