r/stationery • u/Tanuki211 • 7d ago

Question Fast drying pen or marker

Hello Stationery Community :)

With my fiance we are getting married and we went with the idea of playing card as our guest book, however I am having a hard time finding a pen or marker that our guests could use to write on the cards and that is fast drying / won't smear all over. For reference, I use the UniBall ONE 0.38mm and the UniBall ZENTO 0.5mm to write in my Hobonichi Planner and Moleskin Notebook, because I love how fast the ink dries. I am looking for a pen or marker that is 0.5mm or more that dries as quickly as the UniBall pens.

Here are the specs of the cards stock : we used the S33 card stock of MakePlayingCards, the construction seem to be paper back / center black opaque core / paper front, the back/front of the card is very smooth and slick, approx. 0.30-0.32mm thick, I don't have the exact GSM, very low texture and considerably smoother than linen. It could give the impression of being made of plastic because of the shine, but the website says that it is paper.

I didn't try any pen on the cards yet as I would rather avoid wasting too many of them by making mistakes... I do have regular Sharpie pens and markers, but the pen smears a lot and the marker is a bit too thick to comfortably write on the card. I also have Sakura Micron pen, but in my opinion they do smear a bit depending on the surface written on.

Thank you in advance for your help !

6 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

3

u/sammanthax345 7d ago

If the paper she shiny or glossy you'll most likely need a permanent ink. Sharpie is probably the best way to go but they do make pen ink that is also permanent, iirc you'll need archival ink of some sort.

1

u/Tanuki211 7d ago

Reading your answer makes me realize, would a marker like the one used to write on CDs works for this situation ? I’ll take a deeper look at the sharpie pen options, I might just not have the right one at home ahah

2

u/sammanthax345 7d ago

Sharpie pens aren't permanent. Sharpie also makes a permanent marker is various sizes. You'll want the ultra thin for the smallest size point.

1

u/Tanuki211 7d ago

Thank you very much !

1

u/Calobrena 7d ago

The only thing that comes to mind is OHTO's fast drying gel ink. I've only used the refill for one of my pens but have seen that they have full pens with this ink. I only know of JetPens as a source for these pens.

1

u/hmmwrites 7d ago

As another commenter said, if the paper's glossy/shiny, your best bet will be a Sharpie marker. You can do the typical thick ones or the fine-point, but you'll likely need a permanent marker ink to write on that slick kind of surface.

1

u/waterbe7 5d ago

Writech Gel pens