On the Paper Trail Episode 5: Are You a User or a Collector of Stationery?

Do you consider yourself a user or collector of stationery? Maybe a bit of both? In the fifth episode of On the Paper Trail, we talk about a topic that draws strong opinions and maybe even a little bit of judgment in the stationery world. Whether you use every pen, bottle of ink, or rare notebook that you own, or maintain pristine archives for posterity, how we view our stationery is intensely personal and will differ from person to person. We also discuss events at the upcoming Arkansas Pen Show and the San Francisco Stationery Fest!

Note: During the podcast, we discussed the sign-up link for the live-audience episode at the upcoming San Francisco Stationery Fest. Apparently that link is missing from the show website - if you’re interested in attending please sign up directly using this link.

Show Notes and Links

1. ⁠Nagasawa Exclusive Pens⁠ (Lisa's Pen)

2. ⁠Pilot Custom Urushi⁠ (Lisa's Pen)

3. ⁠Pilot Custom 74 Lavender Fog⁠ (Joe's Pen)

4. ⁠Uni Zento⁠ (Joe's Pen)

5. ⁠Pilot S20 Ballpoint⁠ (Joe's Pen)

6. ⁠Roterfaden TGS_25 A5 Slim⁠

7. ⁠Laurett's Pens⁠

8. ⁠Troublemaker Inks⁠

9. ⁠Wearingeul Paper⁠

10. ⁠Nagasawa 6-Ring Refills⁠

11. ⁠Episode 2: Matthew Chen Talks Kodachi Nibs⁠

12. ⁠Akkerman Standard Ink Bottle Example⁠

13. ⁠Akkerman Dutch Masters Ink Bottle Example⁠

14. ⁠Arkansas Pen Show⁠

15. ⁠San Francisco Stationery Fest

On The Paper Trail: Where You Can Download the Podcast

As noted above, if you want to follow along and watch the video, On The Paper Trail has its own YouTube Channel. We have also uploaded the podcast to most popular podcast networks and apps, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Overcast.

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 at our physical stationery store in Nashville, Tennessee.

New Arrivals: Cloth & Paper Sticky Notes to Customize Your Planners and Journals

I’ve always been a big annotator and copious notetaker in my everyday life. My planners, journals, and even paperback and hardback books get actively used, meaning that they’re marked up margin notes, highlights, and sticky notes. Cloth & Paper out of Richmond, Virginia makes an expansive range of index flags, sticky notes, dividers, and other accessories to help you annotate and organize, including lightweight and translucent sticky notes that don’t overly bulk-up your notebooks. This past weekend we added nearly a dozen new variations to the shop, including the larger “Sidebar” series that can help you format your journal pages with a task list or a weekly schedule.

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We carry the Cloth & Paper line, and many more sticky notes, journals, and accessories in the paper section of our shop. Note that “translucent” sticky notes are intended for use with pencils, ballpoints, and gel pens. Water-based inks, including fountain pen inks, will not adhere to the surface and/or will take a long time to dry. Regular paper or matte sticky notes do not repel ink and should be fine with most pens.

Come see us in our Nashville Shop! Our store is open normal hours (1-6pm Thursday and Friday, and 10am-6pm Saturday), so please swing by and see these and more!

Sunday Reading for March 8, 2026

1. The London Spring Pen Show, 2026: My Stall (via Fountain Pen Blog). When people ask me for a recommendation on how to sell pens, I often suggest sharing a table at a pen show to offload pieces from a collection/accumulation that may need to go to a new home.

2. LIVE from the 2026 Baltimore Washington International Pen Show (via Inkdependence). Mike brings his livestream to the Baltimore Pen Show. If you’re in the area you should definitely check it out on the last day.

3. Visit to Tayama Bungu in Hiroshima, Japan (via Inkredible Colours). Another Japanese stationery store recap! I love following along on these tours.

4. Interview with Rob Sanchez of Rob’s Penworks (via dwrdnet). Derek interviews Rob from Rob’s Penworks for the latest season of dwrdnet Stationery Feed interviews.

5. Vazir Lizard Skin Deep Blue (via Figboot on Pens). A brand I have little experience with and need to check out!

6. Ashera Oleatus Review (via Mountain of Ink). Kelli does a pen review! You don’t see as many wood pens reviewed recently, and this one is beautifully finished.

7. Nikitana Looseleaf Paper and Notebook Review (via Pen Addict - Kimberly). I need to check out some of the offerings from Franklin-Christoph subsidiary Piper Trading Co. I enjoy textured paper, so the combination of texture and lighter weight makes this sound interesting to me.

8. What’s in My Bag: Travel Edition (UPDATE) (via Well-Appointed Desk). Ana is back on the road this weekend to the Baltimore Pen Show, with a fresh travel kit!

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In Case You Missed It….

This week I was finally able to get back to making content, which is the part of writing this blog that I truly love. I wrote a piece on pen transport and pen storage, in which I walk through what pen cases I’m using and how I’m using them. Saturday’s post was a bit more specific, in which I spent some time walking through my pencil pouch and what I travel with when I decide to carry pencils on the road, which recently has been more frequent. Finally, as a special bonus, we did a short YouTube video demonstrating how you can cut down a standard A5 notebook to A5-Slim size. If this is something you’re interested in, reach out through the site, as we may start to offer this service on a case-by-case basis.

Note that we’ve added a social media account and now have a presence on TikTok. I know TikTok is not for everyone, but customers have asked to be able to tag the shop, so if you’re a TikTok user you can find us there.

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This Week in the T.G.S. Curated Shop - Roterfaden A5 Slims!

As you might guess from this week’s YouTube video, the Roterfaden A5 Slim notebooks are back in stock in advance of the Arkansas Pen Show and the San Francisco Stationery Fest. We’ve also added some new pens from Lamy and Kaweco, including the Dialog 3 Capless Lamy and the Metal Kaweco Sports and Liliputs. Finally, we have a major washi tape restock from iLootPaperie, as well as a new shipment of sticky notes from Cloth & Paper in all sorts of unique formats for you to combine with your journals and planners. Check out each week’s Thursday Drops post for a full recap of new arrivals and restocks.

Normal store hours this week in the Nashville Shop, from 1-6pm Thursday and Friday, and from 10am-6pm on Saturday. Come see us in person!

Kaweco

Cloth & Paper

Craft Design Technology

iLootPaperie

How to Support T.G.S. and Our Various Projects

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 “On the Paper Trail” which have not been publicly released.

Five Items for A Pencil Travel Kit (Mechanical and Woodcase)

In this week’s post on pen cases, I mentioned that I use stationery pouches to hold my pencils, as well as any ballpoints and gel pens that I generally take with me on the road for my everyday working needs. Since I rely fairly heavily on pencils, and because pencils have their own set of accessories separate and apart from any sort of pen, I thought it might be fun to break down my preferred pencil travel kit. I’ve photographed two setups that I use - one when I’m using mechanical pencils (which is most of the time on the road), and another for when I’m using mainly woodcase pencils.

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Woodcase pencils will require a longer pouch. Blackwing makes a specialized canvas pencil pouch long enough to hold an unsharpened Blackwing Pencil, which is probably the longest pencil you would want to carry.

1. Mechanical or Woodcase Pencils. First up - the pencils themselves. Lately I’ve been traveling exclusively with mechanical pencils. I generally write smaller for work purposes, so the finer .5mm lead size suits my hand. My current carry for this week is a Lamy Safari .5mm pencil in Scarlet and a .5mm Pentel Sharp Kerry in light green, and I almost always have at least one Uni Kuru Toga thrown in. While I still love a good woodcase pencil, due to their inherently messy nature I don’t work with them on planes and therefore rarely travel with them. If you do decide to travel with woodcase pencils, you will need a different set of accessories, including a sharpener and possibly a point protector.

2. Erasers. Very few pencils have decent integrated erasers, so I always carry a separate handheld eraser in my pencil pouch. In my opinion, the best ones are made by Pentel and Tombow. Currently I am using one of the Pentel erasers by Craft Design Technology, and the excellent Tombow Mono comes in a sizes ranging from small (tiny) to Jumbo (friggin’ huge) depending on how much you can carry.

3. Pencil Caps or Point Protectors. If you prefer woodcase pencils to mechanical, you may want to consider a pencil cap to protect your pencil points. Personally, this isn’t something I’ve worried much about over the years, though we’ve sold so many of the Viarco spring-loaded caps that this is obviously an in-demand item that people use.

4. Mechanical Pencil Leads. Be sure the lid tightens securely, otherwise you’ll have a dusty mess on your hands because loose mechanical pencil leads simply won’t hold up in a pouch. Uni makes these metal cases that have a sliding closure, which are a favorite of mine for travel.

5. Pencil Sharpeners. NJK out of Osaka, Japan makes the best portable long-point sharpener on the market, especially for the money. While the Blackwing One-Step Long-Point sharpener is probably my favorite handheld sharpener overall, it’s slightly too large to carry in a pencil pouch.

You can and should design your own “carry kit” to fit your specific needs, but I get so many questions about what I use day-to-day that I wanted to do a couple of layout posts showing exactly what items I carry for which purposes. I will plan on doing a few more of these bag dump-style posts and possibly even some posts on how I set up and format my notebooks and planners.

The Kuru Toga Alpha Gel Switch (another regular carry), plus the metal lead case linked to above.

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 at our physical stationery store in Nashville, Tennessee.

Thursday Drops: Lamy Dialog CC, Roterfaden TGS_25, Galen Leather Cases and More!

We’ve been scrambling to get all the recently arrived inventory listed, in light of two upcoming pen shows (the upcoming Arkansas Pen Show and San Francisco Stationery Fest)! We recently received a large Kaweco restock along with additional Roterfaden TGS_25 A5-Slim covers. I am planning to set aside a portion of these for pen shows later this month, so if you are looking to purchase one online please get your orders in sooner rather than later as a subsquent restock may be delayed.

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Craft Design Technology makes these gorgeous leather pen/pencil pouches in either black or brown.

We also have some new pens to announce, including the capless Lamy Dialog CC in two different finishes and more of the Kepler pens from Craighill, a range of pen cases and portfolios from Galen Leather in different finishes, pen and pencil pouches from Craft Design Technology, and fresh washi tapes from iLootPaperie, including restocks of old favorite as well as some fun new designs!

We have normal Nashville shop hours this week, open from 1-6pm Thursday and Friday, and from 10am-6pm on Saturday. Come by and see these and more in-person!

1. Lamy Dialog CC Fountain Pen. Lamy’s take on the capless fountain pen, the Dialog Series, includes two pens: the Dialog 3 and the Dialog CC. The clipless, more compact Dialog CC is in my opinion the most usable for the most people, as it’s shorter and a much more well-balanced pen.

2. Roterfaden TGS_25 A5-Slim Notebook Covers. We have fresh stock of our exclusive Roterfaden model in A5 Slim. Based on the volume of requests, we chose to restock the dark green cover with dark grey suede interior. For those who made requests for a cover, I have e-mailed most of you regarding availability, but please note that if I don’t hear from you by tomorrow or see an order I will release held-back stock for online and pen-show purchase.

3. Kaweco Collection Sport Fountain Pens. We have additional stock of most Kaweco Collection fountain pens, including the Honey (yellow) and Apricot Pearl releases.

4. Kaweco Metal Sport Fountain Pens. We have also received additional stock of the Kaweco Metal Sport pens, including brass, stainless steel, bronze, and titanium.

5. Kaweco Liliput Fountain Pens. Stainless Steel, brass, copper, and “Kolibri” Liliput fountain pens are available, in addition to the standard aluminum in all the popular finishes.

6. Kaweco Sketch Up Clutch Pencil. The Kaweco Sketch Up is a versatile tool that can be used as a clutch pencil, a drylighter (highlighter pencil), and even a dip nib holder!

7. Galen Leather Pen Cases. We are happy to announce that we are now authorized resellers of Galen Leather, including zippered cases, Magnum Opus cases, certain A5 notebook covers, and bankers bags.

8. Craighill Kepler Pen. The subtly sculpted Kepler pen uses universal D1 refills, so it can serve as a classic ballpoint, low-viscosity ballpoint, or gel pen, depending on your needs.

9. Craighill Summit Card Case. These hefty metal card cases caught my eye at the NYNow trade show, and I picked up a couple in two different finishes. These can be used as both business card holders and even as a metal cardholder/wallet.

10. Craighill Chroma Scissors. These large, sharp desk scissors not only work extremely well, but they make a statement on your desktop!

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I personally think the Honey Sport from the Kaweco Collection series is one of the better looking Kaweco Sport fountain pens that Kaweco has released in recent years.