Watches, Pens, and the Craft of Analog Living
Ellen Ashford · September 1, 2026
Best Everyday Pens for People Who Lose Pens: My Rotation I write about fountain pens that cost more than some watches. I also lose pens — in coat pockets, in the car, in other people’s houses, at a hardware store counter in 2023 where I definitely left a pen I still think about. For a … Read more
Ellen Ashford · September 1, 2026
Premium Rollerballs That Write Better Than Most Fountain Pens This is an awkward thing to write on a site with this much fountain pen content, so let me be direct: for a lot of everyday writing, a good rollerball is the better tool. Not the more interesting one. The better one. A rollerball starts instantly … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 26, 2026
Right now, on the desk in front of me, sits a Parker 51 I handed over $340 for at an estate sale — the seller’s word was “bargain,” my husband’s word for it was considerably less flattering. Uncap it, ink it, and set the hooded nib against a sheet of Rhodia, and you’ll feel exactly … 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
Ellen Ashford · July 14, 2026
Four-tenths of a millimeter — that’s the entire gap between the lead size that wrecked my handwriting for three straight months and the one that fixed it overnight. Five years back, I picked up a mechanical pencil sized 0.9mm, assuming it was the ordinary kind, and spent a whole season producing lines that looked like … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 11, 2026
Nowhere on a pen brand’s spec sheet will you find a warning about ink pooling in your cap after a warm afternoon, or a note explaining that a converter’s plunger sometimes stalls out well short of full capacity. Fountain pen converter vs cartridge gets treated like a footnote decision — pick one, fill it, move … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 3, 2026
Spec sheets will hand you beats-per-hour figures, accuracy tolerances down to the decimal, and battery-life estimates measured in years — but none of that paperwork tells you what it’s actually like to live with the thing strapped to your wrist. I got a real education in that gap at a cramped repair bench in Kyoto, … Read more
Ellen Ashford · June 30, 2026
Don’t get leather wet. That’s the blunt version of a lesson that cost me an entire strap and a fair amount of pride. I had a gorgeous cognac leather band strapped to a dive watch, wore it kayaking on the Chesapeake, and by the time I dragged the boat back onto the sand the leather … Read more
Ellen Ashford · June 23, 2026
Ask ten notebook manufacturers what their ruling actually does to your handwriting, and you’ll get a blank stare — that information simply isn’t printed on the cover or the packaging. I found this out somewhere past journal number forty, once I finally stopped reaching for whatever was closest on the shelf and started genuinely interrogating … Read more
Ellen Ashford · June 22, 2026
7S26 — that’s the caliber stamped into a Seiko 5 I picked up at an estate sale for $40, and hunting down that reference number is actually what got a notebook into my pocket in the first place. I needed somewhere to scribble the serial, the caseback markings, whatever the seller could remember about its … Read more