Sharp Dressed Pen: the Otto Hutt Design 03
Happy Fountain Pen Day!
The below review is being published on Friday, November 5th, 2021, also known as the first Friday in November 2021. Since 2012, the first Friday in November has been designated as Fountain Pen Day and is celebrated by vendors and pen fans across the international fountain pen community. In honor of Fountain Pen Day this year we are reviewed a fountain pen from a brand that is new to us, and we encourage you to give a new pen a try as well.
Otto Hutt was one of those brands I kept hearing about over and over but I never seemed to be in a shop that had them for sale to actually pick one up and give them a try. Thankfully, the folks at Pen Heaven reached out, mentioned they noticed I had never reviewed anything from Otto Hutt, and offered to help fix that for me. So I picked out the Design 03 in Anthracite (might also be listed as Ruthenium or Darkgrey, depending on the website), because it looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
Every time I look at this pen, I’m transported back to November of 2019. That’s because November 2019 was the last time I had occasion to get dressed up in a suit, for my brother’s wedding. There’s something about this pen that puts me in mind of sleek, modern suit with slim lapels, maybe even a more casual tuxedo with the satin stripes down the pant legs. There’s the mixture of textures between matte and gloss, there’s the stripe down either side of the pen itself, and of course there are the color options of black, navy, various shades of grey, and white with rose gold accents. The Design 03 feels to me like it belongs inside of a suit jacket pocket at a formal occasion. It is definitely a bit too heavy to clip inside of a shirt pocket, weighing in around 57.5 grams capped and 38.3 grams uncapped.
The branding and inscriptions on the pen are appreciably minimal. One of the two barrel stripes is broken up by the initials “o|h”, and that is all you will really see unless you either look very closely, or unscrew the barrel and look at the converter. On either side of the clip band there is an engraving': “otto hutt GERMANY” on one side, and the pen’s serial number on the other. I love subtly numbered pens, so I got a real kick out of this, of course. And on the Schmidt K5 converter that ships with the pen there is the full Otto Hutt logo and name in large type, breaking the subtlety of the rest of the branding, but I actually appreciate this because even though these Schmidt converters are all interchangeable, I still like to know which pen they came with at a glance.
The #5 nib on the Design 03, which I believe is made by Bock to Otto Hutt’s specification, has a fun sort of 1920s feel to it’s design. This medium nib put down a nice medium line for me that wasn’t too dry or too wet, and had just a touch of feedback. Because I opted for the Ruthenium pen I had a black coated nib, but other colorways come with other options, including two tone silver and rose gold nibs for the white color of the Design 03, and an optional upgrade to a bicolor 18k gold nib for any colorway. Ultimately when trying a new brand a bad nib can really ruin the experience, so I was very pleased to discover just how well this nib performed. I was also impressed by how well this nib kept from drying out (capped, of course) when I would let it sit inked for a couple of weeks, despite the pen being a slip cap. Credit goes there to the nib and cap both. The Otto Hutt website lists all sizes of nib from Extra Fine to Broad as being available for this pen, but individual retailers generally seem to be limited to Fine and Medium.
Part of the “like nothing else” charm of the Design 03 is it’s proportions. It is long and slim in a way that is fairly uncommon in fountain pens these days. While the pen does not post, it is 140 mm long capped and 124 mm long uncapped. This is not such an extreme length by itself, but it is striking on a pen that is 11 mm thick at its absolute widest, and features a grip section that tapers from 9 mm down to 7.6 mm. Between it’s slim size and its weight this might be an awkward pen to sit down and write the next great American novel with by hand, but slipped into a jacket pocket it is supremely easy to pop off the slip cap and sign a check opr jot down a quick note before putting it back away. The bpen is too long for me to comfortably call it a pocket pen, but there is an argument to be made that instead of “Every Day Carry” this is “Formal Day Carry”. The proportions reminded me in some ways of a classic Bic ballpoint, and comparing it side by side with my Baux ballpoint, it is not too far off.
So, is the Otto Hutt Design 03 worth it? Well, do you have any weddings to attend coming up? The pen’s price falls just south of $200 normally, with different colors currently going for different prices at Pen Heaven (the Navy being only $161 at time of writing seems like a particularly good deal.) Ultimately, this pen falls into a couple of particular niches, which isn’t a bad thing, especially if you’ve been in need of something to fills those niches. If you have particularly small hands but still like a heavy pen, then the Design 03 is what you have been waiting for. If you want to have a fancy pen to flash out of your suit jacket for a quick note, this pen is for you. Maybe that makes it a bit like jewelry, but in that case the price really isn’t bad at all. As for Otto Hutt on a brand level, even if this won’t be my everyday writer I’m still impressed by both the finish and the performance of the pen, and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for something of theirs in a larger size in the future,
Thank you to Pen Heaven for providing me with this pen in exchange for an honest review.
