Quality Writing Utensils

Anyone who dares to care about what pen they write with has already rocketed into the upper eschelon of snobbery. I am not sure why, other than my standard guesses about the average American fascination with watered down domestic beer, and mediocre pizza.

So knowing that having a nice pen will be a rub, there seem like two obvious personal strategies that quickly emerge.

1. Own it and buy crazy expensive pens
2. Downplay it and go for a cut above - but dont get crazy

I have personally opted for the later. Largely because I was unsrue if I was physically capable of posessing the same pen for a 1 year plus time frame.

So I have collected a few pens over time. I have convinced myself that I do not need to collect pens that I really like writing and thus the pen is just a means to my end. The goal is to have I pen that I think is really great - irrespective of its accompanying monetary value.

Pens I own:

• CountyComm Brass Embassy Pen
• Namiki Falcon
• Waterman Hemisphere
• a Couple Fisher Space Pens

¶Brass Embassy Pen

Nothing screams macho like a very substatial brass pen. Made in the good Ol US of A. This brass pen is easily the heaviest thing I have ever written. The length, and width are great.

There is an expensive copper version - at about $300 and it weighs over 4oz. (1/4 of a pound!)

Cap will not post - and I found this very annoying at first use. It uses a fisher space pen cartridge. Which is actually how I got into the official Bullet Fisher Space Pen.

I am a big fan of the Kensa Brass Pen

¶Namiki Falcom

Is easily my fanciest pen. It my a classic look of black body with gold trim. It is a very nice flex tip pen. Which makes it great for caligraphy (I don’t do often) and great for sketching (I do on occasion) since you can get a varried line width dpending on how much pressure is applied.

To see what I mean check this out - fast foward to maybe 0:40s to see what I mean.

¶Waterman Hemisphere

This is my splash nostaligia and heritage. A family friend who got my Dad into sailing, was a PhD in Engineering and he had an affinity for nice stuff. He had Bang & Olufsen speakers and wrote exclusively with Waterman fountain pens. And lo - I have a giant soft spot for waterman pens.

¶Ink

A fun part of getting into fountain pens is that you also get to (have to ?) get into ink types, bottles etc. There are plenty to pick from.