Review: Patio Galaxy 0.5 mm

I bet that you have never seen this pen and I am not surprised. I've seen and bought it only once and I'm totally not regretting it. 

Patio is a Polish brand (the site is in Polish), but I haven't found this pen in their catalog. Upon closer examination, you can see that many of their products look a great deal like world-famous pens (Pilot G2, Pilot Frixion, Stabilo Bionic Worker). Looks like this is not the case. Or can you remember some similar looking pen?

Maybe it's some older stock (ex. from year 2013 or even older)? Maybe it was some kind of co-operation between Patio manufacturer and Tesco vendor? Eh, mystery, fortunately not to be solved by us. 

But let's see how it writes!

It's a rollerball, so the showthrough and bleedthrough is quite significant on cheaper office paper. It doesn't bug me since I have lots of one-side prints to write on, but it would be a bit of a problem if used in cheaper notebooks or school exercise books (I came across 55 gsm exercise books here, that's pretty thin).

Pros:
+ smooth writing
+ crisp, clean line
+ really black
+ easy disassembling
+ washable ink

Cons:
- difficult (or impossible) to buy
- cap tends to fall off
- tends to bleedthrough and showthrough
- occasional scratchy ball

The three pens cost me 30 CZK (about 1 € or 1,2 USD) and seriously, they are worth much more. Shame I can't find them anywhere any more. It's so great pen!

Maped Freewiter Ball Point Pen 1.0

Shoot, have I really written "Frewriter"? Excuse me, this year's summer camp was really exhausting.

I found only one place that sold the refills and they are stating that those refills are discontinued now. So it's refillable as long as you can locate the refills - which seems to be quite a brain-teaser. Or maybe you can find a compatible refill. But it's a fairly good pen and can withstand really tough camp conditions. I was not expecting much from a 1.0 mm point, but I was pleasantly surprised. No skipping, no globs or blobs, comfortable grip and cool design. I prefer my fountain pens, but the summer camp conditions are not as great for fountain pens and inks, so this was a pleasant experience. 

Officially crazy

After long months of not blogging about pens, I stopped by Tesco to buy something to eat. Big mistake. Not only I left without a snack, but I also bought a pen! A Schneider Breeze. And now I have something to blog about! Yes, I am officially crazy, but I am proud of it.
These pens along with Stabilo S-move and Pilot Frixion are now used by 1st years in schools to learn to write, once the young pupils master the complex curves of Czech cursive (the printed-looking Comenia Script is used by some schools too) with a pencil.
I have a bunch of pens waiting for reviews sitting on my desk and I hope they are going to get the chance.

Invisible Ink Quick and Easy

Yesterday I wanted to note something down, took out my Pilot Frixion, started to write - and nothing happened. As I haven't used it for a long time, I thought that the ball is dry and that I have to prime it. So I started to scribble on a piece of paper - nothing. I unscrewed the refill part - the refill is half full. So I scribbled a bit and luckily tilted my head to discover that there is a bit of wet trail behind the pen.

Oh yes!

I have heard about people filling some paperwork with Pilot Frixion and then accidentaly leaving it in the hot car, but I've never heard of anybody who has overheated the whole pen. (I must admit that I was curious if the pen starts to write in invisible ink if it's hot, but didn't plan this experiment)

I remember having the pen on my summer camp and because it was in August, the days were still pleasantly warm. It looks like I have placed my pencase with my clothes and other things to let it dry in the sunshine.

So I put the paper in the freezer just to see if the doodles turn up - and yes, they did.

The pen was not used for really long time (maybe half a year), so it's obvious that it took some scratching to start it. I placed the pen in the freezer overnight... and it writes again. The colour is a bit lighter than it used to be, but I don't mind, I'm happy that it writes.

Review: PaperMate InkJoy 500 RT

I wasn't too thrilled to find that this pen has a 1.0 mm ball, because I tend to prefer needle-tips and often find broad ballpoints skippy or too broad for my small handwriting, but this experience was not so bad. The pen is light in the hand and does not feel like it's going to cause you hand fatigue or cramps when writing extensively. The grip is rubberized and does not slip between your fingers. 

Let's see how it writes: (excuse my grammar mistakes)

Is my handwriting legible for you? (I'll try to figure out how to set the picture to read it comfortably. Just give me some time.)

Here you can see the colour-changing ink in action:
On the first picture the ink is really black. I mean a nice black. Not a greyish one. Also the globbing is not as bad.

And this is how the pen wrote after about an hour on the second page. The ink changed to something grey and also the globbing is much more visible.

I like the packaging. Maybe it's not really environmentally-friendly, but I like the blue-orange combination. 

I bought this pen on clearance, the black one for 25 CZK (1,25 USD or 1 EUR) and the blue one for 15 CZK (0,75 USD or 0,6 EUR). For such a little amount of money it is not a bad pen. Certainly it's one of the better ballpoints with broader tips. I wasn't really excited about the globs and colour changes but it writes smoothly and doesn't skip, which would bother me more. My notebooks won't be displayed publicly like Leonardo da Vinci's, but I still need them to be legible and this is better achieved with a colour-changing pen than a skippy pen.

Plus:
+ smooth writing
+ doesn't smear (even the globs don't smear much)

Minus
- colour changing
- globbing

Other reviews:
PenAddict
Stationery Review - all types of PaperMate InkJoy pens

Just found out...

Wow! I happen to like two pens. One of them is a ballpoint and one of them is a gel pen. And I just discovered that both of them are made in China (which is not suprising, actually most of the common pens sold here are manufactured in China) and both of them are made by the same company - Techjob. I will post a review of the gel pen later and I am sure I will also write something about the needle-point ballpoint, because I simply fell in love with them. It takes me almost three years to finish the ballpoint refill (actually I am partly convinced that it's the neverending one like the salt container depicted by Czech TV fairy-tale There Once Was A King). Made in China does not stand for low-quality product here. Or was I only lucky?

The difference between this and other stationery blogs is that Zebra, Uni-ball and other well-known products sold in UK and US are either over-expensive here and/or almost or totally unavailable, so the review material must be different. I've seen some products labelled Zebra in Tesco in nearby city of Ostrava, but I am almost convinced that it's not the same Zebra that makes Sarassa and Surari. I'll investigate on this matter later when Back to school sales start.

And I also bought a pack of 18 PaperMate by Reynolds strawberry scented rose ink catridges with an ink eraser and rewriter (you know - the thing that erases with one end and you can rewrite the erased part with the other end). And also a 4-pack of PaperMate InkJoy 300 RT's. I've read quite bad reviews so I am excited to give it a try. Both these packs cost me 25 CZK (about 1 € or 0,8 GBP). Yes, I love sales and clearances!

Let's start!

Being a crazy stationery addict from Czech Republic and reading many other pen and paper blogs in English, I often thought about starting a stationery blog myself. The range of products is so different here! I've never seen Moleskine or Rhodia pad in my entire life (they are waaay over my budget), but I've seen many pens and paper goodies that other stationery bloggers probably haven't seen in their life :-)
The final words of encouragement came from Heather at Penchant for Paper when she was reviewing the Centropen Liner 2811 - yes, a pen made in the Czech Republic!
Czech Stationery Addict. Check Stationery Addict. Stationery that won't break your wallet :-) I will concentrate on pens, pencils and other goodies that are cheaper and affordable even for students, sometimes no-name, sometimes branded, sometimes made here, sometimes not. I also make my own planner pages so expect some post about it.