Colorvent/Inkvent Recap: Days 6-10

Overall, this year’s ink Advent calendars seem to be a closer match than last year, with Diamine’s Inkvent Calendar and Colorverse’s “Colorvent” Calendar each containing an equal number of inks I could see myself actually using day-to-day. This second five-day stretch was a bit underwhelming for me, with a lot of lighter shading inks that don’t seem usable for my purposes and which I probably would have taken a pass on if they were introduced as part of the regular lineup. That said, Colorverse’s decision to include “Gleamix” (a shimmer additive) as one of the choices for the Colorvent calendar was fun. The way it works is that you add a small amount to a sample vial to make any ink a “shimmer ink”, which certainly makes some of the flat colors more visually interesting.

Check out my recap of Colorvent/Inkvent Days 1-5 here, if you missed it.

Day Six: Diamine Inkvent “Fir and Fog” and Colorverse Colorvent “Sungrazing Comet”

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Day Seven: Diamine Inkvent “Blush” and Colorverse Colorvent “LGM”

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Day Eight: Diamine Inkvent “Dream Catcher” and Colorverse Colorvent “Snow Angel”

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Snow Angel is one that would look interesting with a bit of shimmer added. Dream Catcher is too sheeny and not my scene at all.

Day Nine: Diamine Inkvent “Bittersweet” and Colorverse Colorvent “Morning frost on mars Gleamix”

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Colorverse “Morning Frost on Mars” is not intended to be used as a stand-alone ink, but rather as an additive which is mixed with other inks to add shimmer and different color tones.

Day Ten: Diamine Inkvent “Nostalgia” and Colorverse Colorvent “Flame Nebula”

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“Nostalgia” is another Diamine favorite from this week! “Flame Nebula” fell a bit flat for me but might benefit from some of the Gleamix?

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Nostalgia is a color-shifting “Chameleon” ink and is up there with Fir & Fog on colors I might choose to stock as a regular offering.

The Gentleman Stationer is supported by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program. You can also come visit us and see any products we sell directly at our physical stationery store in Nashville, Tennessee! Also, please visit our Holiday Gift Guide page if you would like guidance on stationery-related gifting, and we’re also happy to discuss in-person.

Thursday Drops: NJK Long-Point Pencil Sharpeners Are Back, Along with Allex Scissors!

We’ve been awaiting a huge restock of products from Japan, including in-demand items such as the NJK pencil sharpeners and Allex scissors in multiple sizes and finishes. We also have new Tomoe River notebooks and Journals from Karatis, including vegan leather versions with massive page counts, Caran d’Ache pencil restocks, and even a handful of Standard size Traveler’s Notebooks in Olive. (I don’t expect these to last long so get them while you can!)

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We’re getting very close to Christmas and are shipping orders as quickly as we possibly can. Right now, we are within our usual 2-3 business day ship time, but we continue to encourage people to get orders that absolutely need to be delivered by Christmas or New Years in to us as soon as possible to account for any delivery delays. If you’re looking for gift ideas (including any last minute items), be sure to check out our Holiday Gift Guide, which we update every year!

Our Nashville shop is open this week from 1-6pm on Thursday and Friday, and from 10am-5pm on Saturday. (We plan to close an hour early on Saturday due to a personal commitment.) Check the shop page and on our Google profile for hours.

1. NJK Long-Point Pencil Sharpeners. These long-time T.G.S. favorites are imported directly from Osaka, Japan, and come in several different colors. Replacement blades are also available, though all sharpeners ship with a spare blade. You can read about why we enjoy these sharpeners here.

2. Blackwing Volume 21: The Woodworking Pencil. These unique pencils feature a square barrel plus a stained finish that still allows you to see the finger joints on the wood. The pencil is designed to work in standard sharpeners, including the excellent Blackwing sharpeners.

3. Allex S-165 Office Scissors. The classic Allex Scissors available with three different handles and fluorine-coated or stainless steel blades. (Fluorine is a teflon-like coating that helps cut through substances like tape and sticker paper.)

4. Allex Desk Scissors. These standard desk scissors also come in coated or non-coated blades and feature textured metal grips. This is my personal favorite model and use the standard stainless version in my office.

5. Allex Slim 100 Portable Scissors. These compact scissors are a great choice for a portable stationery kit, and available in either a standard stainless or blacked-out fluorine finish.

6. Exacompta Index Cards. These fountain pen friendly index cards come from the same paper mill as Clairefontaine and Rhodia paper, and come in multiple sizes and rulings. These are classic pieces of stationery that we’ve tried to keep in stock as staples.

7. Clairefontaine “My Essentials” A5 Notebooks. These were top sellers when we had them in the shop the first time around, and we finally got around to restocking. We have all cover colors available!

8. Herbin “Shogun” Ink. Way back when we first launched the store, we included this dark grey shimmer ink with an understated look. I’ve never been a huge proponent of shimmer, but it’s growing on me as I expand my range, and Shogun was one of the first that really appealed to me.

9. Lamy Bottled Ink. We have the full line of Lamy bottled ink back in stock, including Petrol, Sepia, and Dark Lilac.

10. Tom’s Studio Fountain Pen Ink. Tom’s Studio recently released several new ink colors, including a Clementine Orange, Espresso, and Sepia. These are warmer colors perfect for autumn and, soon, winter!

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Blackwing Volume 21: The Woodworking Pencil

2025 Year-End Review: Most Popular T.G.S. Posts, Both New and Old

Each year during the month of December, I write a series of posts recapping various things from the prior year, one of which is the most popular content as determined by views received. This year I’ve broken the review into two categories: Content Published or Updated in 2025, and Overall, including older content that continues to receive a lot of traffic. The value of this exercise to me is to see what readers are enjoying, and in the case of the older stuff, to see what content needs to be revisited and updated!

Most Popular Posts, 2025 Content

1. Hierarchies of Fountain Pen Friendly Paper. It’s probably not a surprise that this “evergreen” post, which I refresh and update every year, gets the most views by far. As I test out and explore new papers, expect it to be updated further!

2. Joe’s Picks - Five Favorite Inks from Pilot’s Iroshizuku Lineup. I’ve been asked to do more posts like these with other ink lines, but it’s so hard to choose! Iroshizuku was easier because I’ve been using the ink for well over a decade.

3. My 2025 Techo Kaigi: A Mostly Fond Farewell to Hobonichi. While technically a 2024 post, it addressed my 2025 planner/notebook setup so it remained relevant throughout the year. Look for another post like this one soon, before January 1.

4. Is the Uni Zento Gel Pen Worth the Hype? The Zento took the pen world by storm this past year, especially with the capped “Signature” barrel essentially disappearing from standard retail and reappearing on the secondary market for astronomic prices. Personally I think the mid-level “Flow” version offers the best value, and I do enjoy how the Zento writes.

5. The Kaweco Perkeo, on Its Own Merits. This post surprised me a bit with how much traffic it received this year, but given price increases, economic pressures, and a flood of new enthusiasts entering the hobby, it probably shouldn’t come as a shock that lower-cost pens are drawing attention.

Most Popular Posts Overall (New and Old Content)

1. Top 5 Mechanical Pencils: For When You Really Want to Write Small. Wow, my most popular post for 2025 is a 7-year old mechanical pencil ranking that is hopelessly out of date. Herein lies the value of doing this annual year-in-review exercise! All of the recommendations in this post remain good ones, but I would have a bunch of recommendations and substitutions, and a few of the mentions are no longer available or have been updated to new models.

2. The Best Pen for When You Only Want One Pen. Another post from way back (2018) that I should probably revisit, this post looks at “one pen carry” (which for me is more of a thought experiment since I switch things up so often). Some of the pens featured here are no longer available, but the multi pen remains my top choice for this type of setup.

3. My Five Best Pencils for Everyday Writing, Five Years Later. This post remains accurate, though from a recommendations standpoint I need to revisit it because the market has changed and many pencil brands have revamped their lineups and discontinued certain models.

4. First Impressions: The TWSBI Swipe Is a Steal. Like my review of the Perkeo above and the Pilot Explorer below, I suspect interest is being driven by the combination of quality and price point, with people looking for a reliable everyday writer that won’t set you back more than $30.

5. The Pilot Explorer Is a Low-Cost Workhorse. Regardless of price point, Pilot pens always perform, and the Explorer remains my go-to recommendation for those looking for a no-nonsense writer that for now comes in a wide range of colors. A key selling point of both the Swipe and the Explorer is that they ship with a converter, so that you can use either cartridges or bottled ink right out of the box.

The Gentleman Stationer is supported by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program. You can also come visit us and see any products we sell directly at our physical stationery store in Nashville, Tennessee! Also, please visit our Holiday Gift Guide page if you would like guidance on stationery-related gifting, and we’re also happy to discuss in-person.

New Arrivals: Karatis Tomoe River Paper Notebooks

Tomoe River Paper has long been a favorite choice of fountain pen enthusiasts, and now that production issues have seemingly stabilized, we are once again starting to see many new brands release notebooks and journals using “TRP”. Our most recent arrival is a line of notebooks from Karatis, featuring blank 52gsm cream paper. (Each notebook ships with guide sheets for maximum versatility.) Karatis notebooks are available in multiple formats, including “Soft” kraft cover notebooks in two sizes, and vegan leather journals containing a substantial 240 sheets/480 pages for those of you who love to journal for multiple pages a day.

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We carry a wide range of notebooks featuring Tomoe River Paper, which you can find in our shop. These include the soft and hardcover Sakae notebooks, along with looseleaf sheets, as well as the entire Lochby notebook lineup which uses the slightly heavier 68gsm variant. Visit our Curated Paper section to see all of these and more!

This week our Nashville shop will be open normal hours, from 1-6pm Thursday and Friday and from 10am-6pm on Saturday. If you’re looking for gift ideas, be sure to check out the 2025 edition of our Annual Holiday Gift Guide!

Sunday Reading for December 7, 2025

1. Colorverse Inkvent: The First 6 Days of Ink Christmas! (via dwrdnet). Derek walks through the first few days of the Colorverse “Colorvent” ink advent calendar. As I’ll note in my own recap, I think Colorverse takes the prize for “usability” of the inks they decide to include.

2. The Sweetest Pen Show You Haven’t Heard of: Tainan Pen Show (via Inky.Rocks). That’s a fun show report, and check out that 9-layer nib…

3. #2025StationeryHighlights: Now as a Journaling Prompt! (via a Gathering of Curiosities). I’ve enjoyed working my way through these prompts this year, and I hope this is one trend that continues. I plan to answer these questions as part of my own year-end recap that I do every year.

4. 12 Pen Person Questions (via Weirdoforest Pens). I promise I’ll get caught up on posting all the different takes on these questions, as they are fascinating for people to read and get to know members of the community.

5. 25 Days of Dupes 2025 (Week 1) (via Rachel’s Reflections). This post works through the first week of the Diamine Inkvent Calendar and explores what inks are similar to each day’s reveal - whether from Diamine or another brand.

6. Doodling with Fountain Pens: How Ink Can Affect Doodling (via Fountain Pen Love). No matter how you use your fountain pens, the success of any project will depend on the combination of pen, ink, and paper, and how those three things interact.

7. The Retreat (via From the Pen Cup). Sounds like the perfect weekend setting. I always enjoy Mary’s posts.

8. Yamamoto Canopus Paper Review (via Pen Addict - Kimberly). We will be bringing the Canopus notebooks back, probably after the first of the year. Kimberly has a very detailed review on how this in-demand paper interacts with inks.

9. Inkmas Time Is Here Again! (via Well-Appointed Desk). Ana releases an annual flurry of ink reviews in December to close out the year and get caught up, and Inkmas has commenced!

10. The Wet Pen Western Trillium Ink Review (via Pen Addict). I’ve picked up several bottles of Wet Pen inks this year and have enjoyed the (generally murky) colors so far! They’re quite usable for everyday writing while remaining interesting.

In Case You Missed It…

This week I recapped the first five days of Diamine Inkvent and Colorverse Colorvent up on the blog, but most of my effort this week content-wise went into readying the launch of a new video/podcast project I’ve been working on with my friend Lisa Vanness of Vanness Pens! Titled “On the Paper Trail,” you can start looking for new episodes after the first of the year, but for now you can enjoy the video from our first livestream from Thursday evening where Lisa recaps here recent trip to Japan and more.

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This Week in the T.G.S. Curated Shop

It’s the Holiday Season, and in addition to getting your orders packed and out the door and keeping the Nashville store staffed, we still have new stuff coming in as many distributor orders placed pre-Thanksgiving have been somewhat delayed. Recent arrivals include a range of new Tomoe River notebooks from Karatis, which are made in Turkey and feature a very high page count of 52gsm cream-colored Tomoe River. The vegan leather journals feel very nice and would make great gifts. We also received restocks from Maruman and Lamy, as well as the new Field Notes “1943” edition! And while the new Lochby Field Slings sold out quickly, we do have new cases and colors in nearly all other formats. Be sure to check out each week’s “Thursday Drops” post for a recap of all new arrivals and other developments on the retail front!

Blackwing Volume 21

Tom's Studio

Karatis

Field Notes

How You Can Further Support T.G.S.

If you enjoy our content (whether here on the main website, Instagram, YouTube Channel or elsewhere), and would like early/extra access to shop releases and special promotions, consider supporting us via Patreon. The T.G.S. Patreon includes early access and discounts on exclusive shop releases, a monthly updates newsletter, and of course our monthly meetups. As of this morning, ALL Patreon supporters (including non-paying free members) have access to one or more initial “practice” episodes of our podcast experiment discussed above.