I had been itching to try one of Birmingham Pen Company’s custom fountain pens — their Model-A series designs. They release a small batch of a particular color material every few weeks or months. For some reason, I was taken by the Crystalline Liquid Hot Magma ($119) acrylic color, aptly named after the Austin Powers reference.…
There have been a lot of better-quality, Chinese pens introduced into the market recently and the Kaco brand, like Pen BBS and the Moonman line, is one to put on your radar. While the Kaco Retro (approx. $11.49) is not the most innovative pen in terms of design from Kaco (more to come about their…
By Jessica Coles A few months ago I heard that the Esterbrook trademark had been purchased by Kenro Industries and the manufacturing of Esterbrook pens was going to restart. I had many thoughts about this, not many of them comforting. Esterbrook closed their doors for good in 1972. There was a brief attempt to revive…
Review by Jessica Coles Monteverde has recently come out with several new nibs for their Monza line. The Monteverde flex nib ($16.00 at Pen Chalet) is one of these. The Monza flex comes in a light green plastic box — somewhat like a small pencil box where the pen, two cartridges, and the included converter are packed in a…
Review by Jessica Coles Imagine this: Exhausted from 8 hours of travel and flight delays, plus the pleasure of being jammed in a big metal tube with strangers and offered snacks that consist of exactly three pretzels. Then my wonderful and beautiful friend, Kimberly (aka allthehobbies. NOT Kim) drives up and helps me to load…
Review by Laura Cameron When I was working at the Vanness table at the Chicago Pen Show, I noticed that the Pilot Metropolitans ($18.50) had an additional nib option that I hadn’t seen before, the calligraphy nib. I resolved to order one to try and write up for the desk, since I do love my…
Review by Jessica Coles The Platinum 5000-A Balance caught my eye a couple weeks ago when I noticed it had a gold nib. That’s not actually a remarkable thing in itself; Platinum makes many excellent gold nibbed pens. However, I was looking at pens sorted by price. There was no way I had scrolled down far enough…
