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The Rainforest Retro51 ($59) is an exclusive Retro51 design from Luxury Brands of America. Limited to just 500 units, the pen is a partnership with the Rainforest Trust, a leading rainforest and endangered species conservation organization. With each purchase of the Rainforest Retro51, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Rainforest Trust to help protect and maintain the animals and habitat for the future.
The design is a multicolor screenprint in lush greens on a black background with animals hidden in the greenery including showy parrots, sloths, monkeys and wild cats (my animal identification might be incorrect so if you know more accurate descriptions, please leave them in the comments).
My favorite part is the frog end cap. He’s such a cute little guy who peers at you every time you open your pen case or sticks out of your pen cup.
The classic Retro51 Tornado design with its Schmidt rollerball refill is always a go-to at the Desk for on-the-go writing and especially for gateway gifts for loved ones. If you have a friend or family member who loves the tropics and rainforest conservation, grab one of these before they are gone.
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Luxury Brands of America for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
The post Mini-Review: Retro51 Rainforest Trust appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
Yesterday, I reviewed a poor writing Lamy Rollerball, and today, I’m giving away one that writes well. The Lamy AL-Star Lilac Rollerball uses the far superior Lamy M63 refill, and I have one of these limited edition pens to give away this week. Read the rules below and enter away!
Lamy AL-Star Lilac Rollerball Pen Giveaway
The proof of concept period is complete, which means it is time for Lamy to finish the transformation of the Balloon Rollerball into the Vista Fountain Pen.
I first reviewed the Balloon over a decade ago, and the tale of two pens that was present in that design - great barrel, poor refill - unfortunately continues on in their latest version of this colorful pen. That’s what gets me the most about the Balloon: it’s a stunner! At least to look at. Writing? Not so much.
The Lamy T11 rollerball refill is the single worst proprietary refill they make, in a sea of other good to great proprietary refills. That was my primary complaint with the previous model. Given the usage of the same refill, I had hoped to see some performance improvements over the years, but my hope was misplaced.
The medium blue refill is inconsistent. That’s the long and short of it. A good rollerball line should be consistent and smooth, laying down a saturated ink color. The line from the Lamy T11 is so inconsistent, repeatedly going from thin line to thick, that I would almost say it is skipping. That’s a word I’ve never used in relation to a rollerball refill. It’s a bad writing experience, to be kind.
Odds were that this would be the expected result of the writing experience, but that’s not why I bought this pen to review. I bought it for the barrel.
Even though the Balloon uses the same terrible refill it always has, Lamy made some changes to the barrel design. Primarily focusing on the cap, they changed the clip to the famed Lamy wire clip, including the addition of a separate finial cap to slot the clip into.
Kind of looks like a Lamy Vista, doesn’t it?
Lamy Vista.
My dream for Lamy has long been to upgrade the Vista fountain pen lineup to include transparent color barrels. Fun colors, as seen in the Balloon for years. Currently, Blue, Lime, and Pink are part of the rotation. Imagine Purple, or Orange? The technology to manufacture this type of barrel is obviously available, and now parts to match have been added to the lineup. So I have to ask: when, Lamy?
Soon, I hope.
Until then, I would avoid the Lamy Balloon, despite the cool looks, and the reasonable $18 price tag. The writing experience isn’t worth it.
(Pen Chalet provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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Pocket pens often come with quite cool and sophisticated logics of how to be portable while being able to extend to a full length pen.
Some examples include the Kaweco Sport, Kaweco Lilliput, Traveler’s Fountain Pen, Kaweco Special S, the SCHON DESGN pen, or the No 1 pencil.
There are many more – one of them being the Lamy Pico, which is an expandable ballpoint pen with a push mechanism, in a cool and minimalist design.
Before we hop into the review, I would like to take the opportunity to thank Fontoplumo for supporting the review of this stationery item. You can also buy the Lamy Pico (ballpoint pen) in their webshop (no affiliate – just a friendly pointer).
Check out the video-review below, which is as always preceded by some quick facts. Again, I hope the review is helpful and that you enjoy watching it!
Click on the photos to enlarge.
The post Video-Review: Lamy Pico – Ballpoint Pen appeared first on Scrively - note taking & writing.
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