Watches, Pens, and the Craft of Analog Living
Ellen Ashford · July 24, 2026
So you’ve got a Lamy 2000 sitting on the desk, or maybe a Pelikan M400 someone gave as a graduation present — and the question nagging at you is what pencil could possibly sit next to it without looking wrong. The fountain pen itself isn’t the problem. Metal barrel, weighted just right, the sort of … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 24, 2026
Years back, cataloging a different pen entirely, I wrote in my journal that a “clean” Parker 51 nib meant no hard starts and left it at that — no mention of feed condition, no note on the section threading, nothing about the cap lip. I look at that entry now and wince a little, because … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 23, 2026
Search collector forums long enough and you’ll run into two pieces of directly opposed advice: one camp swears a decent pen will always beat a pencil for daily writing, and the other insists any cheap disposable pencil does the job just as well as a good one. That second camp is wrong. After a decade … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 22, 2026
Every January, when I sit down to break in a fresh notebook, I’m reminded of a mistake that cost me an entire page of research notes: I once assumed that any fountain pen ink would simply become waterproof if given enough drying time. That assumption turned out to be badly, expensively wrong. I’d filled a … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 21, 2026
No spec sheet lists “will eat an entire month of journal entries” as a possible outcome, but that’s exactly what happened when I trusted the wrong notebook with my then-favorite wet-noodle flex nib. It was loaded with Diamine Registrar’s — a heavily saturated, slow-drying formula — and page after page soaked straight through to the … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 20, 2026
Turn one of my F-91Ws over in your hand and you’ll notice something odd: the case back is stamped with the same quiet confidence as the caseback on my 1960s Omega — module number, production code, no apology. I collect Casio digital watches right alongside my vintage Omegas, and for years that combination earned me … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 19, 2026
Here’s the myth I want to dismantle right away: that a swatch photo tells you anything reliable about how an ink will actually behave in your hand. It doesn’t. A few years into this hobby, I dropped money on a full 50ml bottle of a heavily praised ink purely because the online swatch showed a … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 19, 2026
Zero — that’s how many of the five watches I’m about to recommend carry a Swiss name with a hundred-year pedigree stamped on the dial, and I used to think that alone would have disqualified every one of them. For the first several years of collecting, I operated on the unspoken rule that a dial … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 18, 2026
Never wrap a watch in a sock and call it packed — that’s the short version of a $60 lesson I learned the hard way. At twenty-six, cocky and completely clueless about what a rolling suitcase does to an exposed case back, I flew into Portland only to find a hairline scratch cut across the … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 17, 2026
Is that watch on the flea market table a legitimate bargain or a felony waiting to be worn on your wrist? Nine times out of ten, when someone shows me a photo and asks that exact question, the answer is neither exciting nor complicated — it’s a fake, full stop. A buddy of mine once … Read more