Endless Stationery

I was very excited to recently get a large package of goodies from Endless Stationery. Their package included mostly leather goods (a selection of pen and notebook cases) some notebooks featuring “Regalia Paper” (which appears to be their in-house brand), and my first retractable fountain pen.

Endless Stationery is based in India, and their packages contain a cute phrase pair like the one popularlized by Apple: “Designed in Madras. Made in India.” Fortunately this pair is actually in the same country, unlike the world’s most valuable company, though it’s strange that they use the old colonial name, rather than Chennai.

I’ll start out with the pen cases, the Companion. As most of Endless Stationery’s non-paper items are leather goods, these show some good demonstrations of the quality and craftsmanship they’re working with. In comparison with the only other real leather case I have, from Galen Leather, these are significantly more affordable, but lack some of the specific qualities (thinner leather and fabrics, lighter-weight zippers).

They also feature a draw-string elastic band, which allows them to accommodate a larger range of pen sizes, including some of the slimmer ones that make up a large part of my collection.

There is also a single non-adjustable loop in the centre, which their product photos show holding a spare cartridge. It’s thus tight enough to hold slim pens, but it was also elastic enough to fit a TWSBI Eco, one of my chunkier ones.

The larger case is intended to hold the pocket-size (3.5" x 5.9") Storyboard notebook, and the smaller one has card holders and could likely accommodate an A7 notebook or a slim notepad.

Endless appears to have developed their products primarily for the US market, since their notebook sizes (and consequently their pen case and notebook cover sizes) are 3.5” x 5.9” (“Pocket”) and 5.1” x 7.5” (“Large”). The measurements on their website are displayed in these imperial measures, rather than metric, and neither size conforms closely with European and Japanese A-sizes.

This brings us to the item I was quite eager to see: their leather notebook holder, the Explorer. I loved the dark green soft-touch leather of this journal holder, and its flexible ability to hold several of their stitch-bound Storyboard Large notebooks, using elastic bands in the familiar traveler’s style. The Explorer also comes with one of the Cactus Pen Loops.

I also got the Cotton Wallet insert for this, allowing it to hold some cards, pens and miscellaneous stationery. But as they use a proprietary size notebook, I was very eager to check the quality and fountain-pen compatibility of their notebook paper.

This was the first mild disappointment. I tested it with my 8 currently-inked pens, featuring fairly common inks from Diamine, Private Reserve and Pilot-Iroshizuku. Only one (Diamine “Burnt Sienna”) showed a bit of bleed-through, but all showed through to some extent. Not nearly what I usually expect from the papers I’ve been using recently like Clairefontaine ClairAlfa and Cosmic Air Snow. This also made me a bit less excited about the Explorer, as my notebooks from other companies with quality-tested fountain pen paper all come in standard A5, and the proprietary size of the Explorer would not allow me to insert the notebooks I trust the most.

So I moved on to the last but most novel item in the box: the Creator retractable fountain pen. The industry standard and most well-known innovator in these, the Pilot Vanishing Point, retails for about 3 or 4 times the price of the Creator, which at $50 USD is still not cheap. It doesn’t feel especially luxurious, being rather light and with very obvious signs of mass injection-mould production.

The mechanism fully covers the nib when retracted, and accommodates both a standard international cartridge and an included piston converter. I’m not sure I would want to submerge this retractable nib into an inkwell and deal with the subsequent mess, so I did not test this use case, and instead plugged in the included blue cartridge.

The pen required a few shakes to prime, and when testing it spit out a few drips during the first few swatches. When I got a clean swatch I was quite disappointed that this included ink showed significantly more bleed-through than my own 8 tested inks on the Storyboard paper.

But more than the feel and function of the pen, I was very disappointed in the design. I should preface this by noting that the design of this pen matches the Pilot Vanishing Point in having the clip (a feature of limited actual utility on most fountain pens in both my and my stationery-acquaintances’ experience) seated inside the grip section. As I’ve previously written, my “square” grip places my index finger directly behind the top of the nib - in this case directly on the base of the clip. This made the Creator an incredibly uncomfortable pen for even the limited testing I used it for.

In summary, Endless Stationery seems to have a decent set of products for casual stationery users in the US, which appears their target market and demographic. But the paper used in their notebooks is not appropriate for even the pen and ink they sell, and without a better quality refill easily accessible due to their proprietary case sizes, pairing their own pen and paper isn’t functional. Their leather goods feel nice and well-designed, and their pen cases are very accommodating to my specific needs. I would highly recommend their pen cases for those who are looking for “everyday carry” cases with a lower capacity. They need to improve their paper offerings to match the needs of fountain pen users, especially if they wish to eventually offer a wider array of house-made pens. Finally, their current pen on offer is not built well for my grip, but designed similar to other retractible fountain pens on the market, and a reason I have never previously acquired such a pen.

These items were provided to me for review by Endless Stationery but this review is entirely based on my personal stationery use cases and needs. Your mileage may vary.