Happy New Year everyone! Also: time for a new diary.

After having recovered from the New Year's Eve celebrations now is the time to prepare for going back to work and starting a new year. It's also the time to retire last year's diary (discard or keep - what's your approach?) and start the new one.

For me it's going to be my second Bomo Art diary as I've been really happy with the one I used in 2014. 

For the cover I chose the balloon motif again but with a dark green leather spine instead of the dark red I had last year.

The daily diary is A5 sized with a thick whiteish book block and ribbon bookmark. Like last year's specimen it feels like solid and durable work and indeed my old one has held up to daily use very well.

On the inside, besides one page for every day of the year there are all sorts of useful additions like international holidays, a register section for contacts and even a world map. For a closer look check my post about it from 2013.

 Like all Bomo products it has the "BomoArt Classic" embossing on the back cover.

 Seen here with my currently favorite writer, a Danitrio Mikado! The balloons really don't get old for me. I've had them on last year's and this year's diary, a notebook and my kindle cover, all with different colored leather spines which seem to enhance different aspects of the design.

 The paper is still very thin, my guess would be 60-70 g/m2 but amazingly ink friendly. For the smoke test I wrote a few lines with my Delta Dolce Vita medium with 1.1 steel italic nib which gushes like crazy since I've given the feed a good clean with dishwashing liquid (guess I didn't rinse it well enough) so even with dryish Rohrer & Klingner Salix there is a LOT of ink flow.

The picture was taken a few seconds after writing the words but as you can see the ink is still glistening. No feathering though.

 Also no bleedthrough on the back side. Quite impressive! At work I mostly use pencils to jot down notes and appointments - quick and convenient - but also my fountain pens if I have time. No problems with the paper anyway!

 That's the pen by the way! It came with a very dry 18 k fine nib which I didn't enjoy too much so I exchanged it for a Monteverde 1.1 steel italic and it's getting a lot more use now. The exchange was easy as the nib and feed pull out with very little force needed.
The original nib was full rhodium plated so I like to think pen and nib still look nice together though a closer look will of course reveal that there's some frankenpen-ness going on here!

Which daily diary will you be using this year? Do you have an all time favorite you buy every year or do you like to experiment? Do you have a specific pen to use it with?

Another Italic Nib: Reground Montegrappa Extra

Some pens are just great all over. They are exactly the right size, girth and weight and they look beautiful too. But there's something, a small yet important detail, that makes you grab another pen instead. Time after time.

Sometimes this detail is the nib, as was the case with this beautiful Montegrappa Extra 1930 in dark green Bamboo celluloid. I'm absolutely fine with stubbish factory broad nibs as done by Montblanc but that one was not only round tipped but also somewhat finicky. It was a hard starter if I didn't use the wettest of inks and also would dry out quickly.

So when I heard that a fountain pen friend, Volker from "Pen Paradise", had started offering nib grinding service I decided this was the pen I would send to him. I've had quite a few nibs ground to italics or stubs in the past, most of them done by John Sorowka, and while I am still totally happy with his work it's a long journey to the UK for those pens every time. 

The beautiful Montegrappa arrived back with me quickly and even more beautiful than it went. Here's a view at the tip from a few angles. Also note the delicious sponge like ebonite feed, soaked with the fetching blue-green Rohrer & Klingner Verdigris. 

So how does it write?

It's lovely! The color starts out a litte dark because I wrote these words right after taking the nib shots so the pen had been uncapped for quite a while.
The nib still feels as soft and smooth as it did before but minus the baby bottom issues. No reason why this one shouldn't get a lot more use from now on! Thanks, Volker.

Besides its great looks the Extra 1930 also is of beautiful size (about 15 cms) and weight with 39g capped and 29g uncapped.