Sunday, January 10, 2010

Gift For A Stylophile


What do you give a writer and stylophile (as in stylo lover, one who appreciates fountain pens) like Reggie? Why, another journal, of course. Can't have too many of those.


As you can see, I tried out different pens on this page, all of which agree very well with the quality of the paper. What is this mysterious notebook? Clue: It's a black hardcover notebook with a marker ribbon, and it's not the brand that you think it is.




You gotta love a notebook with a flexible enough cover and spine to let the pages lie flat. It's also got very high quality paper. 90 gsm lined, creamy white Clairfontaine paper, to be exact! No feathering, no bleedthrough, and best of all, loves ALL fountain pens and inks! Yes, those are some of my vintage Sheaffer fountain pens in a case above. I decided to give this journal to Reggie at the Fountain Pen Network - Philippines Christmas Pen Meet last Dec. 30th. About 18 enthusiasts attended the meet, bringing together various pens, inks and papers. We'd just raffled off some very nice items, and Reggie won the blue J. Herbin glass pen I donated to the raffle. I thought I'd raise the excitement level some more by giving her this:

The Quo Vadis Habana Notebook!




This excellent 6" x 9" notebook came to me, on a very long journey, from the very generous Karen Doherty of Exaclair, Inc., distributors of Clairfontaine, Exacompta and Rhodia paper products in the US. I first heard of the Quo Vadis brand online, from various reviews. This year my friend Clem Dionglay, whose blog was recently included in the Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper, mentioned that she had written Karen for products to review, and was surprised to receive the Habana, despite being all the way in the Philippines. I started following @exaclair on Twitter, and one day, I read that they were again offering paper products for review.

I emailed Karen and then kept my fingers crossed. To my great big shock, the items I emailed Karen about arrived two weeks into December without getting lost in the Christmas postal backlog! (It arrived with a plain Clairfontaine notebook with a maroon morocco cover, plus J. Herbin inks Poussiere de Lune and Lie de The. I'll describe these in later reviews.)

Now if the Habana is so excellent, why am I not keeping it? I'd just won 2 different Clairfontaine notebooks in previous FPN-P pen meet raffles. Reggie just got a new job teaching World Literature at the College of St. Benilde. She needed a notebook JUST LIKE THIS! She's had plenty of the other brand, now's the time to try something new.


Now check out that big smile :)

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Clairfontaine paper products are available at all branches of Fully Booked. The Quo Vadis Habana is not yet available in the Philippines, but other Quo Vadis and J. Herbin products are available at Scribe Writing Essentials at the 3rd Floor of the new Eastwood Mall, Libis, Quezon City.

This blog has no affiliation with any of these outlets.

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