Watches, Pens, and the Craft of Analog Living
Ellen Ashford Ellen Ashford · August 25, 2026
It comes up on every pen forum eventually: someone has a scratchy nib, someone else suggests a dab of Brasso, and the thread splits into people who have done it happily and people who are horrified. Since the advice keeps circulating, it is worth answering properly rather than just recoiling. The short answer No — … Read more
Ellen Ashford · August 25, 2026
A refinished dial — a redial — is a dial that has been stripped and reprinted at some point in its life, usually during a service decades ago when it was considered a straightforward tidy-up rather than an act of vandalism. It was normal practice. It also, today, removes most of the value from a … Read more
Ellen Ashford · August 25, 2026
I have written before about the five-minute inspection I run at any watch table — the crystal, the crown, the shake, the sniff test. That post is about how to check a watch. This one is about what to be looking for in the first place, because a triage routine is not much use until … Read more
Ellen Ashford · August 10, 2026
I have rewritten the same letter three times. Not because the words were wrong — the words were fine — but because a smudge ate the third paragraph, my lines drifted into a slope that made me look careless, and the envelope sealed itself shut before I had even folded the paper. Three attempts, three … Read more
Ellen Ashford · August 9, 2026
I’ve done my estate sale watch inspection routine so many times that it runs on autopilot now — five minutes, same sequence, every table, every time. It didn’t start that way. It started with a $200 mistake on a Saturday morning in a stranger’s garage, a watch that looked perfect and turned out to be … Read more
Ellen Ashford · August 8, 2026
The Notebook That Split at Six Months I pulled my daily carry journal from my coat pocket last February and heard a soft, papery crack. The spine had split — not catastrophically, not in two pieces on the floor, but enough that a pale gap yawned along the back cover and three signatures of pages … Read more
Ellen Ashford · August 7, 2026
The first time I tried opening a watch caseback, I did it wrong — and I have the scratched brass to prove it. The watch was a Seiko 5, a beat-up automatic I’d paid six dollars for at a church rummage sale in 2014, already knowing it ran but not caring much either way. I … Read more
Ellen Ashford · August 6, 2026
You’re in a meeting. Someone asks you to jot down an action item, sketch a quick timeline, or note a decision. Your notebook needs to handle all three—fast. This is the moment when choosing the best notebook for office use matters more than you might think. The notebook question looks simple until you’re actually working … Read more
Ellen Ashford · August 6, 2026
You’ve read my first pen refill compatibility guide, and you know the basics: Parker-style refills, G2-style refills, Schmidt upgrades, Zebra F-series. You’re armed with the knowledge that a Jotter refill fits a Lamy Safari ballpoint, and that most Japanese gel pens swap with each other. But you’re standing in your desk right now holding a … Read more
Ellen Ashford · August 6, 2026
The Pen That Skipped at the Worst Possible Moment I was signing a watch purchase agreement in a dealer’s back room in 2017 — a Tudor Black Bay I’d been chasing for eight months — and the ballpoint handed to me skipped clean across my signature, leaving a ghostly scratch instead of ink. I scribbled … Read more