Happy new year!

What better way to start off the new year than to share with you news of a special edition of our portfolios from the Superior Labor: Ochre, a beautiful warm, rich ochre yellow leather. It will be available in the A5 Portfolio and the Pen and Wallet Case.

Almost three years ago, we launched our first collaboration pieces with the Superior Labor, our A5 and A4 Portfolios. It was a very exciting moment for us as a small business, in our relationship with the Superior Labor, and for me personally, seeing this wisp of an idea materialize into something tangible in my hands. The next year we released a follow-up, the B6 Slim Pen and Wallet Case, which was also popular, and another piece that put us on the map a bit.

Shipments of these items from Japan so often sold out quickly that we started offering pre-orders, especially as the production timelines from a boutique company like Superior Labor means limited quantities. This was in response to customers who were more than willing to wait, but were worried about missing an extremely small timeframe to purchase something before the shipment sold out, and then having to wait another three months.

Now that we’ve had these items in our standard four colours (light brown, dark brown, natural and black) for a while, we thought it might be fun to release a special edition, and, now, for a limited time, we have the Ochre.

It’s a warm, deep sort of mustard, and while I’m always loathe to get that first scuff on new pieces of leather, I can’t wait to see how it will age with time. As always, the details on these pieces are so precise and clean, with a high quality brass zipper—the workmanship is simply gorgeous.

This has been a while in the works, and we had initially hoped it would arrive early December in time for the holidays. Things were delayed a bit, but of course, as with all things from the Superior Labor, it was worth the wait. In fact, I recently received my first in the wild compliment on this new A5 portfolio, at a cafe, and I was completely delighted.

We have a very limited quantity of these special edition A5 Portfolios and our Pen and Wallet Cases. This Ochre edition run is a one-time run, as Superior Labor specially ordered this leather for us. While we may eventually try and do another run if this one proves to be quite popular, and if the leather is still available, this is the only batch of this colour we’re planning on right now.

We’re never sure how special editions are going to go—some are always more popular than others, and we’re sometimes surprised by what catches people’s eye. We’re posting about this now, a few days before opening this up for sale, so people have a chance to think about it before pulling the trigger.

In an effort to be as fair as possible, we are going to be opening up sales online at 11 am EST on Sunday, January 5th. Even if you’re just interested, considering signing up for an automatic email notification on the product pages. If you really think you’d like one, also consider checking the website around 11 am, just in case the automatic email gets caught in your junk. Unfortunately, this will be our only shipment of this special edition, so once they’re gone, they’re gone. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email orders@wonderpens.ca.

Sign up for automatic email notifications here:

Pen and Wallet Case Special Edition Ochre

A5 Portfolio Special Edition Ochre

Inside the Pen and Wallet Case

We hope you like it! I mean, of course we hope you like it, but this item is particularly close to our hearts here at the shop, and we’re so honoured to have had the opportunity and experience to collaborate with the Superior Labor, and so proud to have these items on our shelves, while they’re here.

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In other news, we’re now in 2020 and we’re back into the swing of things.

I had a lovely reading year in 2019, and I’m looking forward to settling nicely into a few more good books in 2020, including re-reading a few that I may have read several years or more ago. While I’m always aghast at how many excellent and good and good books there are out there—and that keep coming out—that I will never get around to reading in my limited years on this earth, I’m also realizing more and more how a book you read a decade ago is not the same book to you now, with ten more years worth of life in you. Battle scarred, world-weary, maybe a little wiser, or maybe not, but sometimes what you see in a book is based on what you have in you.

In any case, I’m hoping to read more Asian authors this year, and I’m also looking forward to the serendipitous discoveries of new authors or titles from reading friends and the internet and of course, on the shelves at my library.

 

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Comments

wonderpens

wonderpens said:

It was a very special item indeed! We unfortunately had only a single run, so a limited quantity of each. We’re incredibly grateful to be a part of the Superior Labor family, and that the interest and following of such small batch leather items is still strong in Toronto and in the stationery community.

Chantal Lavoie

Chantal Lavoie said:

Awesome!

I’m not a retailer by the way, just a wonderpens fan who loves numbers ☺️ I hope you do more things like this, I think these special one-time products are just great! Thanks for your commitment to fountain pen users (myself being one of them).

Cheers!

Michael Kealy

Michael Kealy said:

It would be a lovely idea if you’d share your reading list from 2019. I know this is pen and stationary site, but it’s all within the same realm as far as I’m concerned. I’m sure many of your customers would love to look over your list for recommendations.

Chantal Lavoie

Chantal Lavoie said:

Super exciting! A very special item. Now that all are sold, I am curious: how many of each did you have? And what was the demand like?

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