Acme Crayon
I just love Acme, because the pens are so much fun. This ballpoint twists from the cap. There's a pencil version, too.
My collection of fountain and ballpoint pens - click on each photo to see it all!
I just love Acme, because the pens are so much fun. This ballpoint twists from the cap. There's a pencil version, too.
I like Aurora, which are made in Italy. This ballpoint and fountain pen set was on sale and so I scooped it up. I like the soft feel of the rubber on the barrel.
This sweet little Aurora Fuoco Aurea Minima is a pencil on a necklace. I wear it quite often. It twists to reveal the lead.
This Cross Autocross, in "Tobacco", is my favorite ballpoint pen. It's just four inches long, but it's the perfect shape for the hand. It writes beautifully, and the knurled end glints like a diamond in the light. I've learned not to let other people write with it, because it's a huge fight to get it back.
I've wanted a Caran d'Ache for years, and bought this on a trip to Las Vegas. It's the Ecridor, in Retro trim, with a lovely crosshatch pattern. It's very slim and writes very smoothly.
This Crescent Filler is engraved with Mark Twain's signature; he wrote a letter to the company saying that he liked the pens because the crescent kept it from rolling off the desk. To fill it, you turn the ring under the crescent until there's a slot. Then you dip the nib in ink, and press the crescent to fill the pen. By turning the ring again, it prevents the crescent from being accidently pressed and forcing the ink out.
This is a Conklin Glider, made by a U.S. company, and it's the longest fountain pen I own -- six and a half inches when posted. That said, it's a very frustrating pen. When it writes, it's just delightful -- smooth and wet and just perfect. But if you put it down for a minute, even with the cap on, it dries up. I'll ink it if I have a long letter to write, but it's too aggravating to have to constantly coax it to start flowing.
This Cross fountain pen is only four inches long when it's closed, but it opens up to five inches when you remove the cap and post it. It writes really nicely, too, but removing the cap always loosens the two sections of the pen, so I'm always tightening it. I buy these pocket pens regularly, and yet never seem to carry anything in my pocket other than a Fisher Space Pen.
I bought a Cross gel refill that I thought would fit another pen. It didn't. Naturally, I went back to the store and bought the pen it did.
The first higher-end pen I bought, when Day Timers offered them by mail order. I think I bought it some 20-plus years ago. It was a special offer and they somehow engraved my signature into the cap.
The Space Pen on a chain! It's actually so thin that it's tough to write with it, but it's a neat necklace.
The old reliable, always in my pocket. I think I've lost it a dozen times, but it always turns up. The story, undoubtedly a myth but very cute, is that NASA spent millions of dollars designing these pens so they would write upside down and in a pressurized space capsule. The Russians just used a pencil.
Here's one I guarantee you won't find in any other pen collector's stash. This is my right arm. The artist worked off a photo of a Delta Dolcevita. One day I'll have to buy the real one to complete the set.
I have a quill pen in my collection -- on my shoulder blade. This was done at a tattoo shop in New Orleans. I had to supply a picture to the young artist, who'd never heard of such a writing instrument.
This Krone is a plastic barrel, with blue paint designs on it, so you can see the interior of it. It's a nice fat pen and good for writing.
Everyone should have a Lamy Safari! They're inexpensive, they write well, they come in great colors, and they're fun.
I saw this in a catalogue and had to order it, because it was just too wild. It's a ballpoint, and you push that saddle-shaped end to reveal the point. You can't really write with it, because it's just too unbalanced. But it's fun to display on the shelf.
These are beautiful pens, with designs that shimmer and move in the light. I bought the ballpoint from my favorite paper shop in New Orleans, sadly a victim of Hurricane Katrina. They're both small enough to slip into a pocket.
I just love this big, chunky pen, made by Michael's in the U.S. This model is called the Comet. I keep it filled with a Parker red refill, which is becoming increasingly harder to find. The last time I bought some, I ordered the store's whole stock.
The Anniversary Edition has an unusual system, which is why I wanted it. When you uncap it, the nib is hidden. You have to push down on the barrel, which snaps down to reveal the gold nib. The threads are placed so that you can't cap it with the nib out, which protects it. It writes really smoothly, too.
Normally I'm not a huge fan of Montblanc, but I love the old-fashioned look of the 2006 Anniversary Edition, which features the original logo. I came close to buying this pen in Vancouver, didn't, and then took the plunge while checking out a Montblanc store in an airport in Germany.
Normally I'm not a huge fan of Montblanc, but I love this little Boheme ballpoint. It fits perfectly into a pocket, and the company's ballpoints do write beautifully. Unlike most ballpoints, they just glide across the paper instead of digging in.
This pocket pen folds up like a lipstick, with the nib disappearing inside. You then cover it all up with the cap. Like all Monteverde pens, it writes very nicely.
For the money, I think Monteverde makes the best pens in the world. Most of them are less than $100. This Regatta is a beautiful weight, writes big and wet, never skips, and writes on almost any angle. I always find myself going back to this one.
A little pocket pen from Germany's Online. It's four inches long when closed and quite thin, but it writes nicely.
The evil hardware store knew I was coming, and put these out for $1 each by the cash register. It was too funny to leave behind.
This Parker Duofold is a recreation of the 1920s pen that really made the company popular. It's a beautiful pen, but like most Parkers, it writes a little too dry for my liking.
I love the design on this pen, which the company calls "Cisele" -- it's etched in and the pen has great texture. That said, like most Parkers, it writes a bit too dry for my liking. Better for looking than for using.
I bought this pen years ago, solely because Pelikan offered to fix my mother-in-law's version under warranty. "It's 50 years old," I said. "We stand behind every pen we've ever made," they said. Thus began my long and satisfying relationship with this German pen company. I don't think anyone makes a better pen for this price.
This Pelikan M800 demonstrator lets you see all the workings of its piston fill. I got the version with the names written on the barrel. I would have preferred them in German, but it was either English or plain.
I bought this pen in Germany in the summer of 2008. It's a limited-edition "Niagara", one of a series the company has of the world's natural wonders. Like all Pelikans, it's an incredible pen for writing, although I could only get a medium nib (I prefer fine). It's piston-fill; you draw ink up out of a bottle.
I don't even remember where I got this, but it's a fun little scribbler. It takes cartridges, and you can see the ink level through the holes in the barrel. I have a similar one with a more interesting black and white design.
An inexpensive Pelikan that I bought in Germany. When you put a cartridge in it, the barrel screws back on with a final click that perfectly matches up the white line. It's little things like that that make a fine pen.
These nifty fountain pens click in and out like a ballpoint pen, and write very nicely. The orange version with the matching leather box is a limited edition.
This gorgeous Japanese pen looks like fish scales under a light, and has a wonderful ultra-thin nib. It uses a very unusual cartridge with a tiny ball bearing in it, which pushes down on the ink. This means it always starts right away, and never skips. However, I did find out the hard way that such pressurized pens should never be taken on pressurized airplanes. I'm very thankful fountain pen ink is water-based!
Retro 51 makes some very cool ballpoint designs. This one is covered with real stamps that are then sealed in plastic, so no two are the same. Since I love sending and getting mail, it was a natural for me.
I bought this $20 pen at the Japanese Paper Place in Toronto on a whim. It's turned out to be one of the better-writing pens I own -- doesn't skip, writes nicely, and the soft rubber barrel is very easy to grip.
This funky pen was the start of my long and pocket-lightening relationship with Fountain Pen Hospital in New York. That ridiculous big cap is rubber. I had a young airport security guard pull apart my bag to find this after he spotted it on the X-ray. An older guard had to tell him it was fine to let it pass after he opened it. He'd never seen a fountain pen before and couldn't figure on what on earth it was.
This pen is amazing in person. The barrel changes color when you move it around in the light, with dark and light blue stripes, and gold highlights. The cap screws off and the steel nib writes nicely.
This pretty pen is a Rotring, with a purple body, snap-off cap and steel nib. I like the hefty clip and the red ring that holds it in place.
This Rotring Initial uses a system called APC, or Air Pressure Compensation, which is supposed to make it leak-proof and smooth-writing when you're on an airplane. I haven't tried it yet. This is a very heavy, all-metal pen.
This is the jewel of my collection, an S.T. Dupont Orpheo Palladium Diamond Head. Writes like cream, weighs a ton, sparkles in the light like a diamond, and is the one pen I always keep filled and ready.
I loved my Sailor Demonstrator so much, I bought a silver version. The 1911 refers to the year the company was founded.
It's said that Japan's Sailor makes the best nibs in the world, and I have no reason to argue that. This "demonstrator" lets you see all the internal workings. It's an extra-fine gold nib and I just love the way it writes.
Who doesn't love Sharpie? Better yet, who doesn't love a stainless steel Sharpie? This new model takes a fine-tip refill.
I estimated this Canadian-made Sheaffer to be from about the 1960s, since it uses cartridges. I bought it and another pen for $10 at a flea market. The other one turned out to have a broken nib and didn't work, but this one works quite well, considering its age and the fact that it was a cheap pen when new.
This is my first fountain pen, a Sheaffer given to me by my older brother when I was a child. It has a small crack in the grip, but it still writes. I think everybody got one of these "back in the day." You can still buy them, too.
