Love/Hate relationship with my Moleskine, but only love with my Hero 329 :o)
Recently, I became a bit of a Moleskine addict, and as I've been looking through various sites ('Skine Art), and somehow, I fell on some interesting pen/notebook sites, some that you should check out: The Pen Addict, Future Nostalgic, Potentially Percipicacious, Good Pens, An Inkophile's Blog, and Notebook Stories to name a few. Anyways, since lately I've been having issues with bleed through and feathering with my fountain pen, in my moleskine, I posted a tweet on my account (@ecram), asking if anyone knew of a great, affordable, moleskine friendly fountain pen. Of course, @futurenostalgic, always ready to help, responded with a link to his glowing review of the Hero 329. The Hero 329 is a Chinese-made fountain pen, with an extra Fine hooded nib, and an aerometric filling method. But wait, it gets even better, the pen is available at HisNibs, for only $15!!! I almost immediately purchased it. Though I should have listened to @futurenostalgic, and purchased his recommended Aurora Black ink, instead I went with convenience, over quality, and bought the only ink my local stationery store carries, Private Reserve Velvet Black. This pen/ink combination is OK, but there's still a lot of bleed/show through. Aside from that, when I'm not writing in my Moleskine (or when I come across pages that are actually good quality paper. More on that later.), I use my Hero 329, it's a great pen. Puts down a nice, smooth, wet line, and fares better than some of the pens I have that cost three times that! Anyways, onto my grippes with Moleskine, more specifically Moleskine paper, even more specifically; Moleskine's shitty paper. Since I got my Moleskine, one of the many things I enjoyed about it, was its smooth, creamy, ivory-colored FOUNTAIN PEN FRIENDLY paper. But... I guess the wonderful... smooth... creamy... ivory-colored... FOUNTAIN PEN FRIENDLY paper, was there by mistake, since as I continued writing in my trusty notebook, the paper quickly quickly degraded, and my words started to feather, and bleed through. I mean, it's SO bad, that even my Pilot G2 (THE G2!!) bleeds through, A LOT, when it used to not (bleed through). So, if any of you pen/notebook fanatics/enthusiasts/addicts, could please give me some advice on an inexpensive, pocket sized notebook, with FP friendly paper, that's available in US (locally in San Diego, California, would be even better!), it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Eric (@ecram)
