Introducing the Touchstone
It’s funny how big an impact it can make who you randomly sit next to.
We’ve been doing pen shows and in-store events for a couple of years now, and we’ve had the privilege of setting-up alongside a variety of awesome vendors and nib grinders and pen makers. But our placement next to Gravitas Pens at the 2022 DC Pen Super Show may have been one of the most important random occurrences to ever happen to Penquisition.
If you’ve been following us on social media in the last week, you know where this is going. If you’re just joining us now, though, we won’t bury the lede: we made a fountain pen!
More specifically, we’ve spent the last year working with Ben Walsh of Gravitas Pens on designing and manufacturing a fountain pen that will be released in two weeks at the 2023 DC Pen Super Show. To further the communal collaborative feel of the pen, we’ve had all of our nibs engraved with our logo by Jonathon Brooks of Carolina Pen Company, and we’ve also worked with Mark Dwight of Rickshaw Bagworks to produce special pen sleeves that come with each pen.
Those pen sleeves are important, because the Touchstone, as we’ve named it, is a pen designed to be carried in your pocket. Ben and I were sitting at our respective tables, chatting about different pens, and I told him that I wished I could change the compromises that so many pocket fountain pens choose to make. In recent years we’ve seen an increase in pocket pens with larger nibs, which is wonderful, but other limitations still persist, such as narrower grip sections and barrels too short for an ink converter. I told Ben what I really wanted wasn’t a traditional pocket pen, per se, but a compact pen that could be carried in the pocket, but still felt like a full sized pen experience. Later that day Ben hopped on his laptop, and when he showed me his initial designs, I realized that we had the opportunity here to stop wishing and start making something happen.
That’s what the Touchstone is to us, it’s a wish made real. That’s why we decided to launch the pen in fun vibrant colors as well, because these are the colors that we wanted the pen to be. There are already a ton of plain black and silver pens on the market, why not make our pen in our logo blue & red, or a fanciful purple & teal instead? And if people express their wishes for black or silver touchstones in the future, well, this isn’t the end. We’re launching the Touchstone at the DC Show in limited quantities (200 pens total, 75 Blue & Red, 75 Purple & Teal, 50 Orange & Green), but everything left over from the show will make its way to our webshop, and so long as all of you appreciate this pen design as much as we do, there will be additional batches to come in the future.
As I type right now, the pens are currently spread out geographically, with the caps and barrels in transit from Ireland, the nibs in Silver Spring, and the pen sleeves up by Baltimore, but please take a look at the gallery below which includes a mix of renders of the finished product and photos of the individual elements, and keep an eye on our social media for more pictures when we are able to share them.
photo renders with nib
actual pen
actual custom nib and pen sleeves
