Watches, Pens, and the Craft of Analog Living
Ellen Ashford · July 24, 2026
There’s a moment that arrives for every serious pen enthusiast. You’ve filled a few notebooks with your my under-$50 picks. You understand how a decent nib feels. You know the difference between a ballpoint and a real fountain pen. And suddenly, none of those pens feel like enough anymore. That’s when the question shifts from … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 24, 2026
You’ve just unwrapped a Lamy 2000, or perhaps a Pelikan M400 graduation gift—or you’re about to give one. The fountain pen is gorgeous. Metal-barrel, perfectly weighted, the kind of pen that makes writing feel intentional. Then you reach for a pencil to sketch a quick note beside it, and out comes a plastic throwaway from … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 24, 2026
The best Parker 51 antique shop find I ever made cost me eight dollars and smelled faintly of old rubber and dust. It was sitting loose in a flat wooden drawer at a shop in Mineral Point, Wisconsin — the kind of place where a display case of arrowheads shares a wall with 1970s Reader’s … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 23, 2026
After a decade testing everything from $8 pens to $400 watches, I’ve learned something that surprises most people: a good mechanical pencil often outperforms a pen for everyday writing. You can erase. The lead doesn’t dry out or bleed through cheap paper. You never replace the entire tool—just the refill. And unlike fountain pens, mechanical … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 22, 2026
Here’s something I got badly wrong early in my collecting life: I assumed any fountain pen ink would turn waterproof if I just let it dry long enough. I was wrong — spectacularly, expensively wrong. I’d written a full page of tasting notes at a watch auction preview using what I thought was a “durable” … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 21, 2026
I ruined a full month of journal entries because I trusted the wrong notebook. My then-favorite wet-noodle flex nib was loaded with Diamine Registrar’s ink — a particularly saturated, slow-drying formula — and every single page bled straight through to the back. The fountain pen notebook bleed ghost test I should have run before committing … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 20, 2026
Let me tell you something that used to get me strange looks at watch meetups: I collect Casio digital watches alongside my vintage Omegas. For a long time, being a Casio digital watch collector felt like a guilty secret in circles where anything under a Swiss movement got politely ignored. People would admire my Seamaster … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 19, 2026
A few years into collecting fountain pens, I made a mistake that still stings a little. I bought a full 50ml bottle of a highly recommended ink based entirely on a swatch card photo. Gorgeous deep teal in the image. On my paper, with my nib, it bled through like watercolor on a paper towel … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 19, 2026
Most people assume that if a watch doesn’t carry a century-old Swiss name on the dial, it isn’t worth a second look. I spent the first few years of my collecting life believing exactly that — realizing too late that the prestige name on the dial had nothing to do with whether the watch actually … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 18, 2026
The first time I packed a watch for a work trip, I wrapped it in a sock and called it good. I was twenty-six, overconfident, and completely ignorant of what a rolling suitcase could do to an unprotected case back. I arrived in Portland to find a hairline scratch across the crystal of my first … Read more