Kaweco Iridescent Sport

 

The new Kaweco Iridescent Sport has come back in. We had one pretty big shipment in several weeks (months?) ago, the first and supposedly only shipment, and they all sold out. We weren’t sure if we were going to be able to get another shipment in, but here they are. They have sailed across the seas in their cosy little trays. The reality is probably significantly less romantic, some sort of large, rusty cargo container, but what’s a little romance these days.

 

It’s a beauty! I had such a hard time taking photos of it. Every once in a while I moan about how we need to hire a real photographer and that my point and shoot is no good. It’s usually after we get feedback about how we need to get a light box or hire a real photographer, but also whenever we have turquoise pens or some of these unusual finishes. Also sometimes boxy items.

 

These two photos are all I have. The iridescence is stunning and pearly. It sort of glows and catches all sorts of pearly rainbows in various lights, but in most of my photos it sort of washes out into a white, and it’s not even clear if it’s translucent.

 

It would be perfect for inks like Sailor’s Haha or Nekoyanagi, or Sailor’s Studio 223. Or whatever ink you like! Who am I to be in charge of ink matching in this tumultuous world.

 

 

 

As with many things stationery related, stock is unpredictable and sometimes hard to come by. You ask for numbers and they give you a portion of it and you go back and you try and negotiate and they say fine because you’re such lovely people I will give you two more and you say but I have hundreds of people here who like this beautiful pen and they say well okay four. For some products or brands or releases, you have to order things six months or more in advance, and that’s always a crazy game. Jon sometimes has very involved conversations on the phone with distributors who try to explain about how stock is prioritized for Japan or various markets among which the Canadian market is but a speck of maple-flavoured dust.

 

In any case, that’s all to say we feel extremely lucky to have been able to get in this additional shipment of these pens, and we weren’t sure if it was going to happen or not. Iridescent miracles.

 

***

 

The days continue to move along, and I am trying to take nothing for granted, slowly sipping up each day of sunlight we are given, life with two cats who are both getting as many treats as they want, and possibly also the unhinged human getting their own human treats as an unhealthy coping mechanism. I am completely unphlegmatic, though trying my best to appear otherwise.

 

We are all coping, avoiding unpleasant tasks, occasionally getting our act together enough to put the beef back ribs into the oven early enough in the day for them to be edible by dinner, and early enough in the week for them to not have gone off in the fridge.

 

I am enjoying my notebooks and journals these days, seeing their familiar warm leather covers, their pockets holding letters to be responded to, pencils slowly being worn down to nubs. I happen to be coming to the end of my journal, and I am taking immense satisfaction in the slow burgeoning of its swell, from things glued or taped into it, some pages slightly crinkly with the writing on them, Naomi’s drawings littered throughout.

 

I typically take a while to warm up to new things to my supplies, even new or special edition fountain pens that I’ve been looking forward to for a while, which can stay uninked for some time before I work myself up to picking the right ink, before that very first fill that will then—gasp—make the pen unreturnable to my own stationery shop. They are joining the family, and any new addition seems to shake things up, changes that I am not emotionally prepared for. But these days I am welcoming the occasional new pen or ink or notebook to try, and I am leaving it to my trusty favourites, my reliable Sailors and Pilots and my notebooks worn in by years and the sun, to explain how it all works to them. These new delights are a tiny spark of inspiration, a little treasure of something fresh.