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Pens and Pencils | Reviews and Data

The Best Parker-style Gel Refills For Your Pen

02/22/21 Unsharpen Team

A popular change to make to a pen is to swap out the included ballpoint refill for a smooth-flowing gel one. Gel refills are quite popular these days because they write well, the ink looks great, and they are fun to use. Ballpoints have these uses of course, but if you are predominantly writing paper and don’t need the versatility of a ballpoint, gel can be the way to go.

So what are the best gel refills in the Parker-style G2 shape?

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What’s The Deal With Ranga Pens?

02/21/21 Unsharpen Team

Ranga fountain pens might have been relatively unknown in the United States a few years ago, but this pen brand has been increasingly popular and these, popping up on Reddit and pen review sites with surprisingly regularity.

So who are Ranga Pens, what do they make, and that’s the deal with this company?

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Pens and Pencils of Note – February 2021

02/21/21 Unsharpen Team

Unsharpen.com has a vast trove of pen and pencil data, which gives the site a unique overview of trending writing instruments. While the archive is non-exhaustive and its reach is limited by the site’s own popularity, there are always some good takeaways from any look into our data.

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Pen Refills Guide

02/15/21 Unsharpen Team

Pen refills come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Some of these are standards, shared across pen brands and decades of pen designs, while other are propriety and limited to just a few brands or even a few models. This means that replacing the ink in a pen, especially an older one, may end up being a more difficult task than you’d expect.

The goal of this article is to make buying a new ink refill for your pen as easy as possible. A secondary goal to this guide will be maximizing the number of refill options available for each pen. This is only possible once you have a good understanding of refill shapes and which are interchangeable.

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The Best Stationery Shops in New York City

02/14/21 Unsharpen Team

New York City is a dream for shoppers of all kinds, but it really isn’t a stationery town. Compared to the cities of Europe or even some smaller college towns New York City’s stationery shops are few and far between, and dedicated pen shops are even rarer. What’s worse is that many of the longstanding places, like Pearl Paint’s iconic Canal Street location, have been closing.

Things aren’t all bad though, NYC still has some of the nation’s top stationery destinations.

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On The Sharpie S-Gel’s Popularity

02/13/21 Unsharpen Team

Sharpie S-Gel Sleek Metal Body

The Sharpie S-Gel is a relatively new gel pen that was first released in early 2020. Sharpie, being known for its permanent markers, has produced pens for some time, but those have mostly been fiber-tipped, marker-like pens. These pens, which are essentially just thin Sharpie markers, developed a solid following, they were simply an extension of the Sharpie marker’s popularity.

And then came the S-Gel.

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How To Make Your Own Pen Flush For Cleaning Fountain Pens

02/07/21 Unsharpen Team

Cleaning a fountain pen is best done with warm water and a few extremely affordable tools, but stubborn inks and vintage pens with dried ink can require a tougher cleaner. In this case you might be tempted to buy a pen flush, like the popular Monteverde Fountain Pen Flush. I’ve certainly bought my share of pen flush liquids, but it’s worth knowing that you can make your own as well.

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What’s The Best Way To Store Pens? Up, Down, Or On Their Side?

02/07/21 Unsharpen Team

Owning many pens means storing many pens, which comes with choices about how and where to put them. The best pen storage furniture comes in a wide range of design though it’s up to you to design if you prefer your pens to rest right side up, upside down, or on their side.

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What Is the Transparent Material At The End Of A Gel Pen Refill?

01/30/21 Unsharpen Team

Premec Gel Refill

One of the more popular questions in the pen world concerns that weird stuff at the and of a gel pen refill. What is it? It’s clearly not ink — it has no color — so why is it there?

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Schmidt Pen Refill Buying Guide

01/17/21 Unsharpen Team

The German company Schmidt makes some of the world’s best pen refills. Unfortunately it can be difficult to understand which one you need. This guide will help you work through your Schmidt pen refill problems.

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Gel Pen vs. Rollerball Pen: What’s The Difference?

01/09/21 Unsharpen Team

Gel pens and rollerball pens can seem like the same thing and they are, in fact, often confused. What’s the difference between the two?

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The Best Mini Pens of 2021

12/30/20 Unsharpen Team

If you are in the market for a short pen, there are many options. You can opt for a short fountain pen, a ballpoint, hybrid or gel… they are all available in small, stow-able sizes. And many of these pens will be quite usable thanks to some way to expand the pen is in use, so you can have comfort and convenience.

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The Best Rollerball Pens of 2021

12/26/20 Unsharpen Team

Lamy Visa Rollerball

If you are in search of a great rollerball you have a lot of work ahead of you. There are many brands of rollerball pens and many styles of rollerball inks, as well as many sizes and colors.

We’ve done the testing and done the research to fine the best rollerball pens and rollerball refills available today.

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The Best Pocket Pens of 2021

12/20/20 Unsharpen Team

As the saying goes, the best pen is the one you have with you when you need it. In keeping with at that, this is our guide to pocket pens — small, portable pens that you’ll never leave home without.

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The Most Expensive, Most Collectible Vintage Mechanical Pencils

09/14/20 Unsharpen Team

Pentel Kerry Sharp Pencil

You might not have guessed it, but vintage mechanical pens are incredibly collectible and can get incredibly expensive… much more so than most pens!

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