Tag: Retro51

Retro 51 Dog Rescue 3 Review

I bought three new Retro 51 pens once I heard that they were retiring: Dog Rescue 3, Cat Rescue 3, and the Smithsonian Dino Fossil. I was planning on giving them a try as part of my Retro 51 Challenge, and if it turned out that I didn’t enjoy them, gifting them (or at worst, reselling them).

The Dog Rescue 3 arrived a few days ago, inside one of the cutest tubes that Retro 51 has designed.

5% of proceeds from this pen goes to Operation Kindness, which is nice, but probably won’t move the needle much. I donate yearly to a local animal shelter, and if you’re buying stuff just to donate, it’s better to not buy the stuff and just donate. This is a great looking pen though, so if you like it, by all means buy it, feel a little good about the donation, and then go and donate to Operation Kindness or a local shelter directly.

The operation kindness on the finial/top disc is a great touch.

The red on the finial is echoed in the dog illustrations on the body, which works really well. The illustrations/cartoons themselves are the best part of the this pen. You can totally see different dog personalities here, not just different breeds:

There’s even an eye-patch dog – can you spot him?

The hardware on this pen is shiny silver, and though it works, it isn’t one of the highlights of this pen. I suspect that the Dino Fossil’s one will be more interesting.

I replaced the standard Retro 51 refill with an Ohto FlashDry 0.5 one and it’s a joy to write with now.

The Retro 51 Dog Rescue 3 is a delightful pen that brings a smile on my face every time I pick it up. It would make for a great gift for a dog lover or a Retro 51 aficionado.

Retro 51 Cat Rescue 2

An utterly non-Instagram ready journal entry about this pen, including my terrible handwriting. 

In November 2017 I went to a business convention in Washington DC, and while there I stumbled upon a tiny stationery store that had some Retro 51’s for sale. I liked the red colour of this pen, and some (not all) of the cat illustrations on it, and so I bought it. It was an utterly unreasonable impulse buy, because at the time I already knew that the Schmidt refill rendered my Retros virtually unusable for me, and I was years from finding a suitable replacement refill. The pen gathered dust in a pen cup on my desk for the past two years, until this week.

The finial/top disc is one of Retro 51’s best designs.

As part of my decision to use my Retro 51s more, I replaced the (dried out) Schmidt refill in this pen with an Ohto FlashDry gel ink one, and I’ve been using it pretty regularly for the past few days. It’s a bright and cheerful pen that writes like a dream now, even though in a quiet room you can definitely hear the tip rattle a bit as you write.

There’s no texture to this pen, the rescue cats are just printing on it, and I wish Lucy Kinsley had drawn them. So I’m not yet sure if this pen stays with me or I’m going to gift it to a cat loving friend, but for now I’m enjoying giving it a spin.

Retro 51 Vintage Metalsmith Jefferson

I bought this pen in November 2014 from Jetpens after eyeing it for a while. I thought it looked so cool, and I still do. There’s just something about the finish that makes it a little unpleasant for me to hold.

The Moleskine gel refill was great. It’s a shame that they’ve stopped producing it.

The Retro51 Challenge

There are quite a few personal, moving Retro51 pieces coming out lately, ever since the company announced that it would close down at the end of the year. Hearing Brad and Myke talk about the company, and reading a few farewell blog posts has made me feel a little guilty about my Retro51 pens.

I have a few.

I hardly use them.

My favourite part about Retro51s has always been their twist and finial/top-disc design. My least favourite part has been the Schmidt refill they come with. It’s the cool designs that have driven me to buy around a dozen Retro51 Tornados, and the Schmidt refill that has driven me to not use them. It doesn’t work with my writing style or the paper I prefer.

So I set out on a quest to find a Retro51 refill that I’ll enjoy using, and I eventually landed on the excellent Ohto FlashDry gel refill. The problem was that buying and shipping the refills from JetPens ended up being expensive, and I had trouble sourcing them from a different supplier. Only now have I found an eBay seller that sells them for a reasonable enough price for me.

So, with those refills on the way, I’ve decided to pick up my Retros again. From now until the end of the upcoming Pen Addict Kickstarter I’m limiting myself to Retro51’s, pencils, and my Homo Sapiens fountain pen. I’m trying to see if I can justify paying what I guess will be a high sum for the final Pen Addict Retro51, because I’ve decided that I don’t want to just have pens for the sake of having them anymore.

If I end up enjoying my Retros, that’s great. If not, I’ll pass them along to other people who will.

#Inktober 23: Muddy

A quick and cute one. Retro 51 Tornado on a Field Notes Signature sketchbook.