If I had to make a short list of favorite fountain pen accessories, the Col-o-ring would be at or near the top. It is so good, and so fun! Even if you don’t have hundreds of inks to play around with, keeping a few swabs handy to match up and compare with is a great idea. Ana Reinert - Chair of The Desk, Maker of Things, First of Her Name - knocked it out of the park with this limited edition version for the Chicago Pen Show, and I have one to give away to you. Read the rules below and enter away!
Posts filed under Col-o-ring
Col-o-dex Rotary Cards: A Review
(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)
When Ana Reinert from Well-Appointed Desk came out with her Col-o-ring cards, I was thrilled. I wrote a review here, and discussed the nice quality of the cards and how convenient they were for doing ink swatches.
Recently, Ana came up with a new ingenious idea: Col-o-dex Rotary Cards. What a terrific brainstorm! The Col-o-dex cards work on any normal-sized Rolodex card system. So, no longer do you have to fiddle with rings, now you can put your ink swatch cards in a Rolodex and organize them with the Col-o-dex Tab Cards.
The Col-o-dex cards are 4 inches x 2.625 inches, which is plenty of room for whatever you want to include. On my cards, I put a large swatch at the top so that I can easily compare colors within color groups. I wrote the name of the company and the ink color in the middle. On the left side I did some swirls to test for shading, and on the right I did splats since those often are what show off an ink’s sheen. For all my cards, I used a Brause 361 Steno Blue Pumpkin Calligraphy Pen Nib for consistency. Plus, this nib (for dip pens) is super easy to rinse off, so I could do numerous cards at once.
The Col-o-dex cards are made of 160gsm European pure white paper. The paper is thick enough that ink does not bleed, feather, or show through. It has some texture that you can see in your swabs, but the paper fibers do not get caught in your nib.
However, the cards do curl a bit due to the wetness of the swabs. I’m sure you could press them between heavy books to flatten them out before you put them in your Rolodex.
The best part about the Col-o-dex Cards is that you can organize them with a set of tab cards. I labled the tabs with color names and then organized the cards by company name alphabetically. This is an OCD-ink-fanatic’s dream system!
Another wonderful thing about organizing your ink swatches this way is you discover interesting things about your ink collecting trends. For example, I have a zillion blue and turquoise inks, which makes sense because blue is my favorite ink color.
But, I was surprised to discover that I own only three red inks: Montblanc Corn Poppy Red (my favorite); Robert Oster Astorquiza Rot, and Diamine Red Dragon. I don’t use red ink very often, so that’s why I don’t own many bottles of it, but it’s definitely a color I need to test more. In fact, I need to get out of my blue ink rut and try more pinks, yellows, golds, and browns.
I think the Col-o-dex Cards are an absolutely fantastic way to organize your ink swabs. The only caveat is that it is super hard to find a freaking ordinary Rolodex! Sure, you can find some models on Amazon, but most of them are for business cards or they get horrible reviews. I finally caved and bought this massive Rolodex 200-card File.
This thing is TOO BIG, but it matches my triple-decker pen box, so . . .
At first I thought, “This thing is way too big! I’ll never fill it up enough for it to work well.” And, it’s true. Right now, the cards just dangle like limp fish and won’t rotate when I turn the knobs.
I thought about sending the thing back, but then I realized how much ink I have. I spent several hours swabbing most of my bottled ink. But I haven’t even touched all the samples I’ve accumulated over the years. Maybe my Texas-sized Rolodex isn’t too big after all.
Obviously, you can find older, ordinary Rolodex systems on eBay or in your mom’s garage. I know I had my mom’s old Rolodex, but I think I threw it away when I cleaned my home office a while back. Now, of course, I’m upset that I didn’t keep it.
You can purchase the Col-o-dex Rotary Cards from Vanness Pen Shop for $15.00. The pack comes with 100 cards. I suggest also purchasing the Tab Accessory Pack ($5.00 for 20) so you can organize your swatches. The Tab Accessory Packs come in three colors: kraft brown, blue raspberry, and limeade green.
(Vanness Pens provided the Col-o-dex Rotary Cards and an Accessory Tab Pack to Pen Addict for review at no cost.)
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Col-o-ring Ink Testing Book: A Review
(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)
Once upon a time there was the Maruman Mnemosyne Word Book with lovely textured, cream-colored cards that many pen afficionados used for ink sampling. And then, suddenly, they were gone. No longer produced. No longer stocked. And, lo, pen addicts across the world knew not what to do—go back to gasp index cards?
Captured from JetPens.com
No! For along came a fountain pen Queen with pink hair to save the ink-testing world. Ana Reinert of The Well-Appointed Desk kindly created the Col-o-ring Ink Testing Book. And all was well again.
The Col-o-ring Ink Testing Book is a single-ring-bound book of 100 cards made of 100lb/160gsm acid-free white paper. Each book has a thick brown cardboard cover and back.
When you put a Mnemosyne card next to a card from the Col-o-ring notebook, you’ll notice several differences. First, the Col-o-ring cards are slightly smaller (2 inches by 4 inches vs. Mnemosyne’s 2.1 x 4.1). Second, the Col-o-ring paper is white whereas Mnemosyne is a yellowish-cream color. Third, the Col-o-ring cards are smooth whereas the Mnemosyne cards have significant texture.
Col-o-ring on left; Mnemosyne on right
I much prefer the Col-o-ring cards to the Mnemosyne. Although I love Mnemosyne’s texture for swabbing, it isn’t so great for nibs, especially flexible nibs which sometimes catch on textured paper. The Col-o-ring paper won’t catch your nibs. I also prefer Col-o-ring’s white paper to Mnemosyne’s cream. Inks look different on cream paper than true white paper, and when I’m testing ink, I want to see the actual color, not a slightly yellowed version.
I received a new batch of ink samples from Vanness Pens, mostly Kobe and Kyoto inks, so I used my Col-o-ring book to do initial swabs, splats, and swirls. I am so impressed with this paper. It is thick, smooth, and offers plenty of space for ink testing.
I like to do my swabs at the bottom so I can see the colors quickly when I fan out the cards.
The paper takes swabs well, though it does curl up slightly when it dries. Like Tomoe River Paper, it displays sheen beautifully:
Col-o-ring books are a steal at $10.00 a piece. The only problem is getting them! Queen Ana is hurriedly trying to meet demand, so be patient. She has pen shows to attend, pink hair to maintain, and other queenly duties. You can sign up here to be notified when the books are back in stock.
All hail Queen Ana!
(The Well-Appointed Desk provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
