2011 National Stationery Show Highlights

I know I promised part two of the Magna Tank pen review today, however I forgot that I’d be returning from the 2011 National Stationery Show with some pictures of new stuff to share with you, so I’ll get the second part of that review up on Wednesday of this week.

Moleskine Star Wars Journals and Poster

So first up, I stopped by the Moleskine booth and got to have an up close look at the highly anticipated Limited Edition Star Wars Moleskine notebooks.  According to the very helpful Mildred at the Moleskine booth, these are going to be produced in higher quantity than the previous Pac Man and Peanuts limited editions, however they will still be a one time only thing, so I highly recommend pre-ordering at Amazon, so that when they are released in July, you dont have to worry about missing out.   The photo here shows 3 of the 4 different versions, and as you can see they come in two sizes, one with a gold-ish copper design on the front, and the other with a silver design.  The ruled versions are the one with the silver design on the front with the “Star Wars” text and blurred stars, with a Darth Vadar paper wrapper over the front.  The plain page version has the copper color design on the front with the iconic scrolling text that disappears into the background.  The really cool thing is that the poster that you see on the left which is a reproduction of the original movie poster comes folded up inside the back inside pocket of each of these notebooks.  In the smaller pocket size journals you will get a 6″ x 8 3/4″ version of the poster, and in the large size notebook you will get a 9 1/2″ x 13 1/2″ version.

Whitelines Slim Coil Bound

Next up was the Whitelines booth where Doug and Michael showed me their new Coil Bound Slim Notebooks, which are available in both black and white covers and ruled and squared formats.  These are basically the length of an A4 notebook (11.6″) but only 5.9″ wide, which is a great width to put next to your keyboard or phone for notes and messages.  You can also use the squared version quite nicely if you want to position it with the long side horizontally and flip the pages and cover up as you write, but you would most likely only want to do this with the squared version.

New Styles for the Ecosystem Journals

Next up was a stop at the booth of one of my favorite environmentally favorite brands, to look at some new cover designs of the popular Ecosystem Journals.  As you can see, instead of their standard bright solid color covers, they are expanding to some high contrast geometric shapes to spruce up their lineup.  These new designs are not available yet, however if you have not read my review of the Ecosystem Journals, check it out for a much more in-depth look at the quality of these earth friendly journals.

Visconti Michelangelo Display

One of my last stops (where I took pictures) was at the Visconti booth.  This was a mixed stop, I was telling myself that I stopped there to check out what was new for the blog, but in the back of my head I knew that I was really there to check out the new Michealangelo fountain pens that I’ve been eying since their release.  This is a poor photograph on my part, but these were awesome looking pens.  I had the chance to do a little bit of writing with the extra fine version and I was impressed at the super smooth and incredibly fine line that this pen lays down.  When Visconti says “Extra Fine” on these nibs, they really mean it.  Previously I had leaned towards my Pelikan over my Lamy pens when I wanted a truly fine line, but the nib on this Visconti Michelangelo was enough to make me think that I need to get in touch with Tom from Goldspot ASAP to order up one of these.

I did also stop to see my friends at the Exaclair booth to check out their new “R” by Rhodia notebooks which are not out yet, but they are really awesome.  They look like the regular Rhodia Bloc Notepads, but have 90g paper and a really smooth “soft touch” cover which is hard to explain.  The best I can do to describe the cover is to say that it feels like someone took a sheet of silicon and dusted it with baby powder.  They also have a really nice looking “Unlimited” notebook coming out that uses that same cover material, but with 80g paper and in the convenient pocket size of 3 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ and with a really nice contrasting elastic strap to hold it shut.  When I say contrasting elastic strap, I mean that the strap on the cover is black with a thin Rhodia Orange strip that runs through it, and it looks really cool.  I’m kicking myself for not having taken a picture.  Definitely keep you eye out for these, it is probably worth dropping a few bucks for these when they come out just so you can feel the cover.

I did stop at quite a few other booths at the 2011 National Stationery Show, and as in previous years of my visits to the National Stationery Show, I spoke with some vendors about getting some review samples of their products.  Hopefully I’ll be able to arrange to receive those samples shortly so I can get the reviews up to share with you.  Lastly, but probably most important I just wanted to say a big thanks to everyone at  Moleskine, Whitelines, Ecosystem, Visconti, Exaclair, and all of the other booths.  Everyone at the show was incredibly generous with their time and I’m looking forward to seeing them all again at the 2010 National Stationery Show.