How much will the Field Notes Butcher Blue sell for?

If you are a Field Notes nut like me - and many others - you are aware of how rare the second ever COLORS edition is. Butcher Blue singles are tough to come by and three-packs are nearly impossible. Well, the nearly impossible is now up for sale on eBay and collectors mouths are frothing. 36 hours into the auction it has eclipsed the $250 mark, and with five days to go I am interested to see where it ends up.

I have no interest in spending this kind of money on a notebook, but I figured lets have some fun with it:

Leave a comment and tell me what you think the final price will be for this auction. The closest without going over (aka The Price is Right rule) will win a three-pack of the Field Notes Night Sky edition.

Everyone is eligible and I will announce the winner as soon as the auction is over. Please have your guess in by Midnight Eastern Wednesday night.

Go!

Field Notes Night Sky Edition Giveaway

There hasn't been a more popular Field Notes release in recent memory so the least I could do is give away a couple of sets, right? The Night Sky Edition sold out extremely quickly from Field Notes but retailers like JetPens have started to get them in stock in case you missed the first go-round. Don't sleep on these either - they aren't going to last forever!

I have two 3-packs of the Night Sky Edition to give away, and for a change, I am going to open this giveaway up internationally as well. Here is how to enter:

1. Leave one comment on this post anytime between now, and Saturday night at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. You are limited to one entry. This contest is open to US and International readers.

2. For this contest, I will pick two winners at random from the comments section of this post. The comments will be numbered in the order they are received, i.e. the first comment is #1, the second #2, and so on. The Random Integer Generator at random.org will be used to pick the numbers of the winner.

3. The contest winners will be posted on Sunday, July 7th. The winners will have one week to email me via the Contact link at the top of the page to claim their prize.

Thanks and good luck!

Field Notes and Doane Paper Fountain Pen Ink Testing

I finally got around to doing a little testing with my fountain pens in Field Notes and Doane Paper notebooks like I've been swearing to do for months. I can't say there were any real surprises, but here are a few takeaways:

Field Notes America The Beautiful Edition

The Spring 2013 COLORS subscription release from Field Notes is what got me interested in doing this test due to the thicker 70# Finch “Soft White” paper. As expected, it handled the sampling of inks I threw at it very well. There was little feathering, and virtually no bleed through the back of the page. This is a nice upgrade to the standard Field Notes paper.

Field Notes Red Blooded

Speaking of the standard Field Notes paper, the stock Red Blooded Edition uses Finch Paper Opaque Smooth 50# Bright White. I have good luck with my ultra fine nibs on this paper, but as the nib gets wider the feathering becomes more noticeable. There is also more bleed through to the back of the page, rendering it useless if you like to write on both sides. Others report using wide nibs with success but I'm not seeing the same results.

Doane Paper Utilty Journal

Being the genius that I am, I cleaned some of the fountain pens I had inked before testing them in the Doane Paper Utility Journal. I think the 80# Text Stock 100% recycled pages handled my pens wonderfully. Writing felt smooth and clean with no feathering and only slight bleed through to the back.

Conclusion

With the rare exception, notebook manufacturers don't put fountain pen friendly paper high on their spec list for pocket sized notebooks. Which is the best notebook for fountain pens? This test is far from exhaustive, but from these three popular models I prefer the Doane Utility Journal. I thought it had the cleanest overall writing performance. America The Beautiful is right there performance-wise if you prefer lines over grid + lines, with the Red Blooded (and other stock Field Notes) further down the list.

As manufacturers keep making them, I'll keep testing them. Stay tuned!