Pens From Europe!

Stockholm, Sweden

In July, my husband and I went on a cruise that left from Stockholm and traveled to several European countries. We had an extra day on either end of the trip in Stockholm so I had a chance to do quite a bit of browsing for both office supplies and everything else.I took this opportunity to purchase a lot of pens and paper in Stockholm and Visby, Sweden.  I have always loved the idea of buying the supplies that "the locals" use so this was my chance!   

We saw a lot of amazing things on the trip, but Stockholm was one of my favorite places. To quote my husband, "Three truths I have learned about Stockholm: 1) Stockholm is an IKEA the size of a city. 2) Every store is apparently a TARDIS, from the street they look like a small storefront, but hold more stuff than a Wal-Mart. 3) There are only about twenty different stores in Stockholm, they just repeat every few blocks.

One store that I only came across once in my travels, was a department store called Ahlens. This is where picked up the Muji markers above and the unknown short makers in the photo.  The pen test is for the white markers.  I think the real winners in the maker set are the  purples, there are a lot of very subtle shade differences that make each color unique.  If there was a tag with these markers, it was long gone by the time I took the pictures, so I am not sure what brand they are.  There is a tiny tag inside the zippered pouch they came in, but it says made in China, so that isn't much of a clue. (The Muji pens below also came from Ahlens.)

In Visby, I stopped into a bookstore and they had a large stationery section.  I picked up several of the pens in the following pictures from there.  I think my favorite one has to be the retro looking, retractable, teal BIC pen.  I also like the orange BIC pens because they are fine point and they aren't sold much, if at all, in my area. 

 

The pen above the Faber-Castell pens is a "b.n.t/office pen." I do not know much about this pen, and a quick google search didn't shed any light on it for me either, so I am not sure if it is sold in the US or not.  But it seems to be very similar to a Pilot G2 pen, only in ballpoint.  Surprisingly, I do not have a G2, otherwise I would compare them side by side to be certain that they are as similar as I think they are.

I know I have a few more pens hanging around that got adsorbed into my pen drawer at work so they weren't available for review.  I also have around 10 notebooks that I picked up in Sweden, but I'll save all that paper for a following post!

If there is anything you want to see a better of picture of or would like more details about, just leave a comment and I'd be happy too oblige!

Hi-Tec-C Multipen

I have had this Hi-Tec-C multipen for a few months. It is a pink pen body, which is still mostly see through. I originally bought the brown, violet and blue black inks. Recently I added in the clear blue, cherry pink, and apricot orange.


I just did a quick writing sample in a Myndology notebook so you can get a sense of the colors. The brown, blue black and violet inks are fine and what one would expect. The colors are bold and strong. I haven't had many troubles with it not wanting to write which is nice. The .5mm writes much more smoothly than the others.

Out of the three other colors, I find the clear blue to be too much of a sky blue and the orange is difficult to see. The clear blue is the only .5mm refill. The rest are .3mm. I really think that I would be happy if all future refills were .4mm. The blue runs out so quickly but I am okay with that because it gives me a chance to buy more refills.

The cherry pink is nearly a perfect color for me. It isn't red and it isn't pink, but it is a nice color that can pops from the page without trouble. Completely unlike the orange. There isn't much I can do with that color other than doodle.
Notice that the .5mm does look quite a bit larger than the .3mm
On a side note, I absolutely love the Myndology line of notebooks. The paper is nice and responds well to almost all of the pens I have thrown at it so far.