Site Update: Donations and Online Store

July 24, 2018 in Miscellaneous

At the request of a few people (after I suggested the possibility) I’ve made a small change and will be making a more major change down the road (but have begun work on it). I appreciate everyone’s feedback and especially the support following the 2 year anniversary of this site. Thank you!

Donations

First up is the minor change. I’ve added a PayPal donate button for the blog. As of now I've hidden the button on the About section and my reasoning for doing so that it isn’t too pushy and that the yellow PayPal button is a little ugly and eye-catching/distracting. I’ll eventually make a custom button image for button and I might move the donation button to a more prominent position (but not in a way that detracts from the site’s look or is too explicit). I, of course, don’t expect anything but if you do donate anything you have my sincere gratitude!

I'm still considering patreon but I don't expect to do anything with this in the short to medium term.

Shop

You can see up in the navigation menu that there is a new item “Store (soon)” (currently password protected). On this store I am going to start selling limited bundles of ink samples from inks I review. This bundle will include the reviewed ink, three inks that were compared to it in the review, and a mystery ink from my collection. Five samples in total at 2ml each. I’m still looking at pricing but the pricing will likely be dependent on which inks are in the bundle. I think this will be interesting because there are some inks (such as Sailor Store Exclusives in Japan) that people can't easily get samples of otherwise. For right now there are no plans to sell anything else than the bundles but who knows, that might change. If I sell pens I might put them up there as well.

Next month is still going to have some reviews in it but as I am traveling to Japan for a couple of weeks I’m going to be writing about my experiences there, relative to Fountain Pens and stationary. I’m pretty excited!

What this means

For me this is not a money grabbing exercise. I wouldn't mind it if the blog was able to pay for it's own hosting (that'd be amazing!) but the main reason for this is to solidify the future and reiterate commitment to this site for the long term. For readers and for myself. There's more of an incentive and a motivation to continue, not just in terms of any money that I might receive but because if people have donated then I now owe it to them to continue. It also frames the blog, for me personally, as something I'm serious about and reinforces my commitment (regardless of if I receive any donations!). I don't want to burn out (which I'm very aware of as a risk) so I don't think I'll increase the output but I will keep it consistent at 2-3 publications a month.

This will be the last meta post for a while. You don't read this blog for this sort of stuff!

Thank you again to everyone! Not just readers but also to those in the community that promote the works of smaller blogs. You're work is definitely appreciated!

Pen Review: Montblanc Heritage 1912 with Masuyama grind

July 20, 2018 in Pen Review

Montblanc released the Heritage 1912 in 2013 as a homage to their safety pens of the early 20th century. The 1912 is a piston filler with a retractable nib and a small profile (when capped) but a normal well weighted pen when uncapped. This is a bit of a different review as the pen isn't a stock pen from the manufacturer; the nib has been modified by Mike Masuyama.

Two Years of Macchiato Man

July 15, 2018 in Miscellaneous

Five years ago, October 2013, I bought my first fountain pen; two years later I helped Jonathan Deans with co-founding Fountain Pens Australia; and two years ago today, July 15th 2016, I started this blog, Macchiato Man. I started with fountain pens fairly slowly, and somehow avoided jumping head-first down the rabbit hole. By October 2014 - one year after my first pen - I had 6 pen (but three of these were hand-me-downs) and 4 inks (one ink came with my first pen). Unfortunately the slow start was just the beginning of exponential growth: 6 months laterI had 9 bottles of ink; another 3 months, 32 bottles, and fast forward another 11 months to July 2016 and I had around 300. Boom.

Ink Review: Robert Oster Orange Rumble

July 06, 2018 in Ink Review

Orange Rumble is a relatively new addition to the Robert Oster lineup. It looked nice when I first saw photos of the ink from Rob, but upon seeing it in person I was very impressed! Rob describes the ink as a 1970's inspired ink. I can see where this is coming from; browns, burnt oranges, yellow-greens are certainly some popular 70s colours schemes!

Pen Review: OMAS Paragon Arte Italiana Brown Arco Celluloid with Silver Trim

June 18, 2018 in Pen Review

OMAS, sadly, went into voluntary liquidation in January 2016. Fortunately, Emmanuel Caltagirone bought the defunct OMAS assets and created Armando Simoni Club which uses the same Arco Celluloid that OMAS is famous for. I lay-byed this newer model OMAS Paragon shortly after the end of OMAS from a local shop in my home town. Late that year it was finally mine. I've had this pen until recently when I traded it for another OMAS that I, personally, find more comfortable.

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