Nahavlur (Narwhal) Does Nashville
I’ve never been to Nashville, TN, although it’s definitely on my list of places I’d like to see. I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest general country music fan, but so many of the individual artists that I admire, such as John Prine, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Miley Cyrus, Jack White, etc., either came from Nashville or found their place there. There’s a clear reason why it is widely known as “Music City.”
The Nahvalur Voyage* Nashville was made as a part of their Hatch by Endless Pens program, where Endless Pens works with various creators to develop ideas for pens and then takes on the business side of the endeavor, freeing up the creator to focus on the creative side of the endeavor. It’s a great idea, allowing creatives to focus on design and concept, rather than minimum order quantities and business discussions. The Nashville Nahvalur, specifically, was a collaboration with musician & artist Sarah Popejoy.
Alongside the release of Nahvalur’s Nashville pen, Endless Pens also released the Robert Oster Singbird Ink through the Hatch program, with the collaborator on this orange ink being Sarah’s wife, Kim Jackson.
*Much of the marketing materials around this pen refer to it as the “Nautilus” model, however the pen packaging itself calls it the “Voyage” model. Based on my understanding, these two models are very similar, with the main noticeable difference being a series or round porthole-styled ink windows in a ring around the Nautilus, and a more traditional solid ink window on the Voyage. For this reason, I will be referring to this model as a Voyage.
The material for this pen is a custom DiamondCast pour from McKenzie Penworks. Like the other DiamondCast materials I’ve handled previously, the material has a great depth and sparkle. To my eye, the colors each feature differign levels of both opacity and pearlescence, with diamond sparkles throughout. The pen is offered with both gold-tone and silver-tone trim, and I think that either tone works well with this material, but I am personally more inclined to have the cooler silver tone aligning with the blue tones and balancing out some of the warmer colors on the pen.
Speaking of colors, this is what Sarah Popejoy had to say about the colors that she chose for the pen:
The colors for the Nahvalur Nautilus Nashville Fountain Pen portray the signature sounds that make up Nashville.Sky blue represents the songwriters in-the-round, where hit songs are born. Red brick is the color of the church of country music made famous by A.M. radio. Orchid violet is the signature color of the bars on Broadway where stars would sneak in the back-alley to get a drink between performances. Canary yellow depicts Nashville’s home of bluegrass, roots, and americana music found in the Gulch. 🍭 The swirls of the pen mimic sound wave images captured during the recording process.
Looking at the colors of this pen I’m reminded of yet another musician with ties to Nashville: Little Richard. It’s a bit silly, but this pen looks to me just like the flavor of jelly bean that the Jelly Belly company calls “Tutti Frutti”, which shares a name with one of Little Richard’s most famous songs.
This pen is my fourth Nahvalur/Narwhal, and my second Voyage, so there were no surprises for me personally in terms of the function of the pen. There are choices that Nahvalur makes with this design that show an attention to how the pen is used, not just fitting a certain look, such as the ink window being visable even when the pen is capped, or the double set of o-rings on the nib unit to provide extra security against ink leakage. That’s not to say that the design doesn’t pay attention to aesthetics, though, with it’s eye catching straigh sides and capsule finals. The pen does not post, which is matter left purely up to personal taste, but it is thankfully comfortably long that it doesn’t need to post to fit into larger hands. The pen is filled through a piston mechanism, that works as expected by turnign the rear end of the barrel. Nahvalur has made a design choice here to have the piston plunger stop prior to the ink window, which helps to prevent issues of the plunger and nib unit colliding, but also means that when cleaning the pen it might take a few extra pumps to fully clear it out. Since the nib unit unscrews very easily, though, that’s not such a big deal.
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is the wonderfully collaborative nature of the pen world. The way that stationery businesses come together with makers, artisans, and creatives in the community to bring out some great collaborations that you just wouldn’t see if everyone was focused on controlling the entire chain themselves. I have benefited greatly from this myself, both in terms of collaborative projects I’ve worked on, and even just in terms of having others members of the community willing to lend me their time. Talking me through their processes of design and production and content creation, to help me hone my own skills. I think Endless Pens’ Hatch program sounds like a wonderful idea, allowing people to just be creative and not worry about the business side of producing their vision. And judging from the number of Hatch products that have sold out in the past, it appears to be a success. I hope to see Endless Pens continue on with the program, and encourage more people to try their hand at conceiving of and designing more products for the stationery world. It is liable to provide us all with unique concepts and colorways that we would never have seen otherwise, if each of the contributors was constrained to have to front all the costs and do all the negotiations themselves.
Thank you to Endless Pens for providing me with this pen in exchange for an honest review. Please note that the above post contains affiliate links.
