Richard’s Pen Collection : Other Pens

Writing instruments on this page are part of my personal collection and are not for sale. Click the magnifying-glass symbol () next to any pen to view a zoomed image for more detail.

What pens am I carrying today?

Caran d’Ache, la Maison de Haute Écriture, hails from Switzerland. Founded in 1924 to make mechanical pencils, the company later expanded its line to include fountain pens and more. Introduced in 1947 and still in production today, the Caran d’Ache Ecridor line features a slender hexagonal profile in silver, engraved with one of several attractive patterns. My Ecridor pen and pencil came to me as a surprise gift from a Swiss client who found them, so the accompanying letter ran, in a local Brockenhaus (an emporium for all sorts of secondhand goods). The pencil (4¹³/₁₆") is a vintage piece, the pen (5¹³/₃₂" capped, 6²¹/₃₂" posted) is more modern. The pattern on these pieces is called Rétro, and it really is evocative of something you might have seen at the height of the Art Deco era. Yes, I’m a sucker for Art Deco — but I like these two instruments for their own sake.

No. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Nice idea, though.

Among the pens I think least collectible are Limited Editions. (Among other things, I don't like the idea of writing instruments that are manufactured just to be collected instead of used, and I really don’t expect the vast majority of LEs to appreciate anyway.) The foregoing understood, I became the owner of the pen shown here, a Montblanc Dostoevsky, through an extraordinary circumstance, and — surprise — it’s an attractive pen (strongly reminiscent of the Montblancs of the 1920s), of a nice size 5³/₄" capped and 6⁷/₁₆" posted, and remarkably good in the hand with a silky smooth fine nib. For the Montblanc haters out there, give it up. They may have changed their marketing focus to become a luxury goods company, but they still know how to make some pretty doggone good pens. You may not like them all — I certainly don’t — but some of them…

Hakase is one of the lesser known Japanese pen companies. It produces a broad line of pens at many price levels; but the best come from the hands of Harumi Tanaka, the company’s elder-statesman artisan. Tanaka-san builds one pen a day. This Tanaka pen, Hakase’s catalog number 24005, features “rippled red” celluloid ends (whcih look almost as if they were made of woodgrain hard rubber) and a barrel body of buffalo horn. No gimmicks: no urushi, no maki-e, no raw ebonite, just a functional — and beautiful — pen. The nib is a needlepoint. At 5¹⁷/₃₂" capped and 6³/₁₆" posted, this is a very nice-sized pen for my hand. And, although I don’t usually favor needlepoints, this one has a lot going for it.

I know very little about Wality, an Indian brand, but what I do know is that this Model 69 “demonstrator” ED is a decent pen for the piddling price. (It goes in the U.S.A. for about $20.00; in India, it’s the equivalent of $1.00.) An Indian friend bought a box of these pens on a 2008 visit, and when he got back to the U.S. he gave me this one. It’s a large pen, 5¹⁵/₁₆" capped and 6³¹/₃₂" posted, but for all that it writes surprisingly well since I tweaked it a little. And its huge ink capacity makes it the sort of pen you can load on Sunday and fire all week, as Confederate soldiers said about “that damned Yankee rifle,” the Henry.

At 5³/₈" capped and 5²⁵/₃₂" posted, the Waterman Kultur is a “standard” size in the way people 50 years ago thought of it. Today many people consider it too small, but that’s their problem. It’s an excellent pen, and it would be a real bargain — if Waterman would deign to sell it to us in the U.S.A., that is. As things are, we don’t get it here, so we have to resort to spending a ridiculously small amount of money to get our Kulturs on eBay. The Kultur is mechanically the same as the Philéas, which we do get, except that there’s no extra brass weight shoved into the barrel of the Kultur to make it feel more “expensive.” And of course the Kultur lacks all those extra bits of fancy stuff that Waterman must think Americans like to see on their cars and on their pens. With a smooth fine nib, this is a keeper.

On the other hand, there’s something to be said for the upscale appearance of the Philéas. I’ve owned several, and sold them all. All but this black one, which looks so doggoned dignified — and writes so nicely — that I just can’t part with it.

And for you penspotters out there, in episode 302 of Warehouse 13, shown July 18, 2011, the head Regent used a black Philéas just like mine to make a note in Myka’s folder after telling her that her trial period is over.