London PA Magazine

The contemporary luxury pen industry offers both individuals and businesses a sophisticated way to make a snazzy statement. With prices that range from £1-£10,000, there is a pen for every occasion and an occasion for every pen.

Pens are customisable to your colour, design, engraving, and quality specifications, enabling you to make a precise statement about your business. With much higher usage-rates than t-shirts or caps, quality biros are an effective way to market your product or service. Luxury pens, however, appeal to a market that includes not only businessmen but also collectors, fine-writing enthusiasts, and connoisseurs of quality products. Today’s luxury writing instruments are the product of a long history of innovation. The most celebrated brands boast a century or more of quality craftsmanship and it is well worth the investment to find a pen that suits you.

The birth of the pen occurred around the end of the 18th century. Quills, long feathers with slits cut into the shaft, had previously been used for most writing. Quills, however, broke frequently and could not provide a steady flow of ink. The earliest pens were little more than inexpensive, mass-produced slit steel points fixed onto wooden handles. Both quills and pens needed to be dipped repeatedly into a pot of ink, and both were prone to run dry too quickly or blot unexpectedly. A long line of inventors came up with methods for containing ink inside the shaft of the pen and releasing ink smoothly and evenly onto the page. These inventors are still big names in the pen industry. Waterman, Parker, Wahl-Eversharp and Sheaffer are four big US firms historically known for their quality fountain pens. European firms, including Montblanc and Pelikan are two of several famous European firms to make innovative advances in pen technology. Laszlo Biro, a Hungarian inventor, created the first ballpoint pen in the 1930’s, and the term “biro” is still used in several English speaking countries to denote his innovative creation.

Yet the question remains, how could a pen be worth £10,000? Luxury pens are made to rigorous standards of only the highest quality materials. The most expensive are made of solid precious metals and beset with gemstones. Many are covered with intricate engravings. Most manufacturers release special themed limited-availability series. Take for example the Sheaffer “Stars of Egypt” collection. Engraved with beautiful images from Egyptian history, there are only 30 solid gold instruments (set with a .25ct diamond) and 499 solid sterling silver available in the entire world, making them valuable both as an investment and a collector’s item. The pens are valued at £1,500 – £10,000. Not all series, however, are this expensive. For instance, the Pelikan Cities of the World series offers a line of special edition pens which are designed to correspond to important cities across the globe and can be found for about £100-£2,000. This includes cities such as Madrid, New York, and Berlin to name a few. London is represented with a Piccadilly Circus pen, decorated with bright, waving streaks of pearl rose and blue.

The Conway Stewart brand holds a historic benchmark among British pen-makers. Winston Churchill used a Conway Stewart throughout World War II, and the brand continues to be the official supplier to No.10 Downing Street. Queen Elizabeth II, Russian President Putin, and the previous French President, Jacques Chirac, all own a Conway Stewart. Or perhaps you appreciate the same elegance and craftsmanship of a Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, or Bentley vehicle in your writing instrument? These famous car manufacturers also produce high-end luxury biros. For around £20, the Fisher Space Pen is an interesting choice for anyone interested in an historic biro that can even function underwater, in the absence of gravity, or in extreme hot or cold.

Your pen is your daily companion at work, and it is well worth the investment to find a unique pen that can become the perfect complement to your signature. Should you opt to purchase a pricey model, expensive pens are usually guaranteed for a few years, if not a lifetime. Visiting pen retailers and testing a variety of pens for style, grip, and writing quality will ensure that you find the perfect pen. After all, what better way to highlight your elegance and panache than an engraved, sterling silver, gem-crusted fountain pen?

Tags: Autumn 08

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 4:36 pm and is filed under PA essentials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.