October 2016 iPenbox Unboxing

I'm always super happy to receive my iPenbox and this month's box could not come any faster.  When I got a sneak peek at the theme for this month, I knew I was in for a "treat"!  Actually, I wasn't sure if the theme was vampires, bats or Halloween but what I did know was that I'd be happy with any of these themes.  And, as always, I was right.

 iPenbox is a monthly subscription box for pen, paper and ink lovers.  The subscription costs 30$ for US subscribers and 40$ for Canadians and International; shipping is included.  They promise 5-10 items geared to spark your intrigue on new, unusual, creative, innovative writing tools.  Every box will include a fountain pen, some paper, 1-2 ink samples, and other tools like rollerball pens, pencils, gel pens, etc. all based on a chosen monthly theme.  As hinted above, the theme for the month of October is Trick or Treat.

 As always, I'll follow the order of the items as listed on the info card.  I always appreciate when one of these is included in a subscription box as it helps me find out more about the products received.  I also want to remind you that I will be posting a writing sample for each writing tool at the end of the post. But before I go through the list, here are a couple of extra goodies.

We have a beautiful Country Road post card.  I love the autumnal colors; Fall is definitely my favorite season, hands down.

And, I also got this small bag of Mike and Ike's Mummy Mix.  These are one of my favorite candies so I'm quite pleased to have these.  In fact, I'm nibbling on them as I write my review.

The first item listed on the card is a Schneider Easy Fountain Pen in Bats (RV 7.97$).  This features a medium nib and a beautiful royal blue ink.  I love the bat designs on the pen and enjoy the fact that it is sparkly.

Next is a Paper Mate InkJoy Pen (RV 0.50$). Subscribers all received a random color; I received a blue pen.  I've written with this kind of pen before, it's a fairly ordinary pen.  I wish I had received any other color...maybe something more funky.  But I guess I can't go wrong with another blue pen at work, especially when signing official documents.

Now this item intrigued me the most; this is a Pentel Arts Brush Pen (RV 8.39$). Black ink is included and the tip is a brush.  While I did my writing sample, I noticed how difficult it is to maneuver with this; I will likely only use this for art.  It is very neat though.

 This is a Fabriano Bouquet Notebook (RV 5.46$). Subscribers received a random color; I received an Orange notebook.  The picture looks a lot more yellow than it really is...I promise, this is more of a bright orange color.  There are 40 pages per notebook  and each page is blank.  The dimension of this little guy is 4" X 5.5".  I'm not exactly sure what "pergamenata" means; I tried googling it without results.

Next item is Caran d'Ache Graphite Pencil in 9B (RV 3.50$?) which promises the blackest of blacks.  I had a hard time finding it on the website so I am basing myself on other pencils of this brand.  Suggested use of this is art. 

This item is an Autopoint Twin Point Pencil (RV 12.95$).  Now this is a neat item; I've never seen a mechanical pencil with two points and I can already see how useful this will be!  This is definitely the star of the box, which surprises me, as I always thought it would be the fountain pen.  This mechanical pencil has black tip on one side and red on the other.  Leads are 0.7mm graphite lead.

The ink sample for this month is Pelikan Dark Green (Dunkelgrun) - 2ml (RV 0.71$).  This is a beautiful emerald green color.  I'm really looking forward to transferring this to one of my pens; since they are all quite full, I guess I'll have to wait a bit.

We also got this Coin Trick from Oriental Trading Company (RV 0.33$).  I'm giving this to Alex since it seems he wants to play tricks on people ;)  This is a cute addition.

And here are my writing samples.  As you can see, it was very hard to control the Brush pen, but at least it is still readable.  The red lead of the Autopoint Twin Point Pencil is quite light in color...maybe I didn't press hard enough?  They all write quite well and I definitely love the ink sample this month (so gorgeous!!)

This concludes this month's box.  It's a tad lower in value compared the previous months (39.81$ without counting post card and candies) but I'll enjoy every item nonetheless.  The sneak peak for next month is this picture (Japan? Red?).  What are your thoughts?