Speaking of Presidents...

Honoring the 150^th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Krone is introducing the second edition of its Abraham Lincoln Tribute Series. The cap and barrel are "Union" navy blue resin, and the sterling silver cap band features Lincoln's signature. The sterling silver clip serves as a canvas for a bronzed portrait of Lincoln. The cap crown houses an authenticated piece of wood obtained from Lincoln's private office in the White House, where he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. A framed piece of parchment, with Lincoln's actual handwriting, accompanies each pen. Just 88 piston-filled fountain pens (nib sizes in fine, medium and broad) and 28 rollerballs are available. The former is priced at $3,900, and the latter at $3,800.

Fountain Pen Day

I'm not sure who designated the first Friday in November as Fountain Pen Day, but I'm always glad to have something to celebrate--especially when it involves pens. So here's my top ten list of reasons to buy a fountain pen...or any pen that strikes your fancy and encourages you to write more.

10.    You can find a good pen in any price range.

  9.    No need to worry about buying the right size (but pay attention to pen circumference and hand size).

  8.    A good pen works for both genders.

  7.    A good pen will last forever...or almost.

  6.    There's a fine pen for every taste--conservative or flashy, monochromatic or colorful.

  5.    Most good pens come in their own little box, ready for wrapping.

  4.    Pens are both luxurious and functional.

  3.    If purchased from a reputable retailer, a pen can be returned or exchanged with no hassle.

  2.    A pen is personal without being too intimate, perfect for a special someone or a business associate.

  1.    EVERYONE NEEDS AT LEAST ONE GREAT PEN!!

A friend in need

Stan Pfeiffer, pen collector, multi-year host of the LA Pen Show, attorney and friend passed away on July 27. This weekend, at the Washington DC Fountain Pen Supershow, raffles will be held to defray some of Stan's medical expenses from his lengthy illness and the damage to his house from a fire that nearly destroyed it. The drawings will be held at the end of the show on Sunday, August 12, and you need not be present to win. Raffle tickets are $5, and prizes include pens, ink, journals and hardbound copies of the Stylus Annual. Stop by the Shaw Pens table to purchase tickets throughout the weekend and to get more information.

The hot color for spring

Pilot, well known for its gorgeous maki-e pens as well as its amazing and right-priced Vanishing Point fountain pens, has a fabulous orange demonstrator in its Custom 74 line. And since orange is the hot new color for spring (and since demonstrator pens are some of my favorites), I thought I'd give it a mention. The Custom 74 comes in an array of colors, including Black Smoke, Blue Tint and Violet (as well as clear), but the orange really pops and makes me think of sunny days and spring flowers. It's priced at $200, which is really amazing for a fountain pen with a 14-karat gold rhodium-plated nib.

Ulysse Nardin teams up with Visconti

Swiss watch brand Ulysse Nardin has teamed up with Visconti of Italy to produce a fountain pen. Crafted from resin, with either 18-karat or sterling silver appointments, it features the famous Visconti power filling system, bayonet closure system and triple channel ink feed. It also features many of Ulysse Nardin's marine motifs, such as the stylized anchor visible on its watches. The gold pen is priced at $10,900, and the silver, $3,200. The pen comes with a traveling inkwell.  

MoonFighter from Romaine Jerome--the sky's the limit!

Romain Jerome has created the MoonFighter pen: a writing instrument that is part Back to the Future and part Space Invaders--with a splash of whimsy thrown in. The pen is entirely made in Switzerland, although it looks as if it has just emerged from a NASA lab or from the desk of Major Boothroyd, the iconoclastic inventor of the James Bond accessories. This tribute to "third millennium design" features moon dust encapsulated in the cockpit bubble and a carbon-finished docking station. MoonFighter is available in three versions, Heavy Metal, Black Metal and Vintage, and each is adorned with 48 hand-applied rivets. The pen comes with a leather pouch for transport in pocket or purse. Available as a fountain pen with titanium nib or a rollerball, this pen will surely take you away.... 

Collection Princesse Grace de Monaco (cont.)

Celebrating 1929, the year when Grace Patricia Kelly was born in Philadelphia, this edition from Montblanc is limited to just 29 pieces. A fitting tribute to a Princess, the fountain pen is richly decorated with precious stones and the finest detailing. Princess Grace's monogram is engraved on the cap and barrel, which is varnished with a rose colored lacquer. The solid gold fittings in an elegant champagne tone are decorated with white diamonds (~0.55 ct.), and the clip of the fountain pen is set with a drop-cut pink sapphire (~0.45 ct.), another reference to the Grace de Monaco pink rose. The 18-karat gold nib displays a heart-shape breather hole. The pen is priced at $37,300.

Collection Princesse Grace de Monaco

A collection of writing instruments honoring Princess Grace was launched by Montblanc on September 8 at a gala event in Monaco. There are three versions, the first of which is the Special Edition Writing Instrument, available as a fountain pen ($950), rollerball ($795) or ballpoint ($690). Embodying Princess Grace's style, this edition is crafted from a deep purple precious resin, creating a contrast with the champagne-toned gold fittings. The pen features a feminine neckline design and a lavish addition of a drop-cut pink topaz on the clip. Both the gold-plated cap and barrel rings are intricately engraved with a rhombus pattern, inspired by the Principality of Monaco's coat of arms. The fountain pen's 18-karat gold nib is decorated with a heart-shaped breather hole. Princess Grace's monogram can be found on the cap top. More to come...

Dinner with Smokin' Joe

Do you own a Montegrappa Thrilla in Manila sterling or gold limited edition fountain pen? Montegrappa has just announced the possibility of a private dinner with Smokin' Joe Frazier in either New York or Philadelphia for owners of this fabulous pen. Dinner will run about $2,000--but, hey, that probably includes dessert. No transportation is included. If you are interested, respond here--and soon, since numbers will be limited. Incidentally, I met Joe at the Philadelphia Pen Show earlier this year, and he was an enthusiastic and interesting conversationalist, though I was a bit tongue tied in such a sport icon's presence. Should be a fun time. Oh, and Happy Birthday to me.

Great curves

Always one to buck tradition with amazing new shapes and materials, Jean-Pierre Lépine elevates penmaking into a realm much closer to sculpture than anything else on the market today. His recently introduced Sunday Afternoon ballpoint pen, while not yet available in the US, is a gentle curve of a pen that required, according to Lépine, special tools and mechanisms that he produced himself. Lépine's manufactory is in the Jura region of France, a picturesque place I visited many years ago. Its pastoral setting and long winters have been conducive to watchmaking and, at the hand of Lépine, pens. The Sunday Afternoon is aluminum and will be available in various lacquer finishes.

Dunhill does it again

Looking back to the brand’s heritage of outfitting grand tours, dunhill presents the second Sentryman Explorer pen. Three interchangeable nibs, each with a bayonet closure, provide the owner with the choice of an18-karat gold fountain nib, pencil or ballpoint depending on mood or demand. However, the true magic of this particular writing instrument is the fact that it is also a torch.  Simply remove the tip of the barrel, and let there be light! This design is a clear reference to the “bag light” that Alfred Dunhill created and patented in the early 1900s. In an attempt to assist his wife to find her lipstick during the ballet, he created a device whereby when the bag was opened a light would automatically come on. (Wow...just like my refrigerator!) The pen is made from a patent pending gunmetal grey PVD-coated carbon fiber. Limited to 150 pieces, each dunhill Sentryman Explorer II is numbered and presented in a black lacquered Alfred Dunhill box with a limited edition certificate. It is priced at $3,400.

Bexley Corona Collection--you decide!

The Bexley Corona collection comprises four new colors:  Lemon Meringue, Blueberry Cream, Summer Storm, or Summer Sunset. All models come with black grip sections, and black accents at the top of the cap and bottom of the barrel. You may choose either gold-plated or rhodium-plated trim--and, you get to choose your filling system, too: a piston-filled system or a cartridge- or converter-filled system. But wait...the choices don't end here. Would you like a gold-plated two-tone stainless steel nib in fine, medium or broad size, or an 18-karat gold nib in fine, medium, broad or broad stub size? A rollerball version in any of the colors and trim choices is also available. The fountain pen with a steel nib is priced at $185 and the rollerball, $169.

Dromgoole's defines hospitality...

And another great pen event at Dromgoole's last night... David Oscarson was in Houston to formally introduce his new Harlequin collection, and Larry Dromgoole hosted an enjoyable evening at his store to showcase the pens. Larry is the quintessential host, visiting with his many guests with attention and warmth. And David is the perfect face of his brand, since each of his products is an expression of his design sense and ethos. The David Oscarson Harlequin collection is a natural, following the Pierrot and Pierrette collection of several years ago. You may remember that Pierrot, of Commedia del Arte fame, was left heartbroken after Harlequin stole the heart of his love Columbine. The collection is available as a fountain pen or rollerball in sapphire, onyx, pearl, emerald and ruby (pictured). Dromgoole's has been a pen mainstay in the Houston area for many years, and the store carries all the major pen brands. It also carries William Henry knives (and pens) and a broad collection of stationery and agendas. The staff exemplifies southern hospitality at its finest. And the pizza was good, too.

Stipula's latest...priced at $1,400

He's going to hear from me...

My daughter and son-in-law had a son a few months ago, and I’ve already started writing him letters. I started writing when he was just a month or so old, and I sent him a thank-you note a few weeks ago for a lovely gift “he” sent me. I used printed block letters rather than script, but I’m really not sure why. I think the impetus for all the writing (besides the fact that I love to do it) was a box of letters I recently found from my mother to our daughter. They span many years, starting with short notes to her when she was just a wee one, to cards and letters to her while in college—and everything in between. There were congratulatory notes for good grades and other accomplishments, birthday letters, and even a note referencing a few dollars enclosed for a lost baby tooth, money long gone but the sentiment still very much intact. What really touched me was the familiarity of my mother’s hand and how it changed over the years according to our daughter’s age, from printing to measured script to Mom’s usual hurried scrawl signifying that our daughter was indeed old enough to decipher it. My Mother has always had too much living to do to worry about perfectly formed letters. The whole of them form a loving written chronicle of their relationship for a couple of decades, and they are priceless.

            I tried to immortalize other notes a few years ago. When my husband and I were planning our daughter’s wedding, we exchanged literally hundreds of emails with her since we live so far from one another. Some were hilarious. Some were quite serious. Each was so poignant in its own way.  I thought I’d print them and bind them as a first anniversary gift, but I never did. Email addresses changed, inboxes got overburdened, and they ultimately and easily found their way to that cyberspace graveyard via the delete button. So whatever your feelings about technology, pens and writing, there’s a timelessness and gravity in the written word that conjures the past and offers up the future like nothing else. And it defies deletion. 

The Conklin Glider Chase Design Collection

The latest addition to the Conklin pen collection is the Glider Chase Design. The process of chasing is used to create a decorative design and texture that is embedded into the surface of the pen’s material. In the 1900s, most pens were made of hard black rubber, and chasing (also known as guilloche) became a popular process to add creative and intricate design to the otherwise common look of a simple black pen. This complicated hand engraving, or chasing, afforded talented artists the opportunity to display their unique abilities. Since the chasing process required excellent skills and was very time consuming, it added value to the pen. Today, most pens are made from resins instead of hard rubber.  However, Conklin is offering a vintage Chase Design on black, coral and ivory resin.The Conklin Mark Twain Crescent pens are available in both a twist-action ballpoint ($125) and a cartridge- or convertor-filled fountain pen ($195) with a fine, medium or broad nib.

Visconti's Unita d'Italia

This year, Italy celebrates 150 years of the Unity of Italy, officially proclaimed on March 17, 1861, when Vittorio Emanuele II was appointed King of Italy. In honor of this sesquicentennial anniversary, Visconti has designed this special resin pen featuring the national colors and the important dates 1861-2011. Using the faceted shape of the new Michelangelo, the Unita d'Italia features the same magnetic closure with an engraved and enameled band. The decorative motif on the band features the colors of the Italian flag: red, white and green. The trim is palladium, and the nib on the fountain pen, which is filled by cartridge or converter, is 18-karat gold available in fine, medium and broad sizes. It is also available in an eco-roller, rollerball and ballpoint.  Prices range from $147.50 to $247.50.