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Picking a Fountain Pen for Each SHL Team: Atlantic Division
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ephensstaRegistered Senior Member
I am a collector of fountain pens. I have approximately 30, with around 10 of those inked at any time. No, I don’t do calligraphy, my handwriting is quite average. I use them on a near-daily basis for making shopping lists, journaling, and taking meeting notes. I thought it would be a fun exercise (and a quick cash grab) to pick a fountain pen for each SHL team.
As there are so many and I’m not trying to burn myself out on this project, I’ll go division by division. Since I’m going division by division, I’ll start with my own: The Atlantic Division. I don’t have any real rules for this, but I am going with some general guidelines for selection. The pen must be readily available to multiple people (no extremely limited runs, no hard to find vintage, etc.), must be available for purchase in the region the team is located (easier than ever thanks to the interwebs), must share some feature making it easy to connect to the team. Preference will be given to pens made by manufacturers in the region of the team or pens available at notable storefronts in that region. I am using GolemPens’ Independent Pen Makers map to aid in my search. Philadelphia Forge: The map identifies several pen makers in or near Philadelphia, but unfortunately most either seem to no longer be making pens or to not really make pens that I can easily connect to the team. Though there were some metal (forged) pens, the colors weren’t really close and that’s a bit of a dealbreaker. Expanding our search some, we find options in Pittsburgh, WIlliamsport, and a border town near the northernmost edge of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, we find the same issues here. With the list of local independent makers exhausted, we expand our search to more notable, international brands. I’m landing on the pilot vanishing point in red and with gold trim. Though the red on this pen is lighter in color than the red of Philadelphia’s highlights, the red and gold together remind me enough of their logo that I’m comfortable going this direction colorwise. I’m not sure how much writing people in a forge would do, but the vanishing point strikes me as a good option if you did want to use a fountain pen in such a place. The capless is unique in that it functions like a typical click pen, making it perfect for jotting a quick note before returning it to a pocket or clipping it to a shirt. It’s a practical choice that is close enough in color to the team logo that I’m happy with it. Part of the fun with fountain pens is you get to pick an ink to match or compliment your pen. Since we’re missing the black, a major color in the Forge logo, I think we’ll go with a black ink. Diamine Golden Sands I think works here. It’s a black base with gold flecks, which I think will both compliment the pen and pay some extra homage to the idea of forging metal goods with the shimmer vaguely resembling metal shavings. Beware of clogging, though…I’d recommend a broader nib option for this pen where possible, as they tend to handle the shimmer a bit better. Tampa Bay Barracuda: The Tampa Bay Barracuda colors are what fountain pen enthusiasts would call “unicorn barf” if it were turned into a pen. Fortunately, unicorn barf is a fairly popular colorway within the enthusiast community, so I expect we will find quite a few options. Not just any unicorn barf will do, though, we’re looking for splashes of pink on a background that reminds us of tropical waters. Unfortunately, we are once again disappointed by the local makers nearest to the city in question, so we expand our search to the broader world of fountain pen manufacturing. For this one, I’m going with the Edison Beaumont pen in Unicorn. It’s got pink swirls on a gorgeous blue background. I own an Edison Beaumont pen that shares similar colors and it’s absolutely beautiful. The colors, like the Barracuda logo, are vibrant and should catch the eye of anyone who pays attention to your writing utensil. Part of the fun with these swirling pens is that, though they will look similar, no two will be exactly the same. For the ink to go along with this one, I’d go with Pilot’s Iroshizuku shin-ryoku. The Iroshizuku line of inks are well behaved and lovely. Shin-ryoku is a nice teal that I think is reminiscent of the ocean. Honorable mention would be Pelikan’s Edelstein Jade, another lovely light green that could conceivably remind one of the lovely Florida ocean. Baltimore Platoon: There are no local manufacturers to Baltimore listed on the makers map, so we immediately expand our search. The Platoon’s colors are far more muted than the likes of Tampa Bay, so we’ll look for a pen that’s more reserved and less flashy. Something dignified. I think the Narwhal Schuylkill pen in Dragonet Sapphire fits the bill. The pen is a lovely swirl of blue and black, with small crimson highlights along the section and the cap. It comes from a trusted brand and is our first piston filler of the day. Piston fillers are unique in that the body of the pen itself holds the ink, allowing it to hold an impressive volume of ink relative to the cartridge or converter filling pens previously on the list. The engraving on the nib is another neat little touch. As another swirly pen, it comes with the extra fun bit of each pen looking slightly different to all its siblings. To match the ink, we’ll go with the Birmingham Pen Company’s Philander C. Knox Old Glory Blue. It’s a lovely blue-grey ink that I think will go well with the pen and the more muted, classic colors of the Platoon’s logo. Atlanta Inferno: The Atlanta metro area and surrounding smaller cities have some tremendous pen makers. Unfortunately, nearly all of them do custom or small scale projects, which isn’t quite ideal for getting a whole team a pen unless you want to wait a long time. As the creepy vintage toy guy says in Toy Story 2, “You can’t rush art.” We look to the Opus 88 Bela in red. The swirl of red and yellows on a black background certainly makes me think of an inferno. I tried to find something more directly related to a phoenix, but those often get you into the real luxury items, which are handcrafted by artisans and not really conducive to quick turnarounds. Opus 88 steps up wonderfully. Their pens are gorgeous and have a unique filling method. These pens are called Japanese eye-droppers. You take the section (the top part of the pen that holds the nib) off and use an eyedropper or blunt-nosed syringe to drop the ink into the body of the pen. This lets these pens hold even more ink than a piston filler and means you don’t have to dip the whole front end of the pen into your bottle of ink. It unfortunately means, however, that it requires a little more effort to ink, since you can’t just swap converters when you run out of ink. What makes Japanese eye-droppers unique even among other eye droppers is the shutoff valve. Fountain pens sometimes leak. There is, after all, a reason we’ve generally moved to ballpoints… Japanese eye droppers have a shutoff valve operated by a piston you can use to plug the pen and prevent these unfortunate leaks (ink-cidents as they are often called). For the matching ink, we once again turn to the Birmingham Pen Company. They have a lovely yellow-orange ink called Phoenix that both matches the pen, the logo, and the idea behind the team. It will look like your fiery pen is leaving a line of embers behind on the page as you write. Manhattan Rage: Last but not least (in my heart) are the Manhattan Rage. As we’ve already encountered, there aren’t really local manufacturers that feel adequate, so we expand our search. I already had one in mind for my home team, though, so this is quite easy. The Karas Custom Red Vertex fountain pen. It’s lovely red to go along with the red Rage, but it’s made of metal, meaning it’ll be a little tougher and more likely to endure said rage than a plastic, resin or celluloid pen like the others would be. There’s not really much else to say, these pens are red and very tough. As touching as I think an ink like Writer’s Blood would be here to match the ideas of rage, those colors are pretty far off. Instead, we’ll go with Diamine Poppy, a lovely, vibrant shade of red that I think matches the pen and ink rather well. In summary: Forge: Pilot Vanishing Point in red, inked with Diamine’s Shimmering Sands Barracuda: Edison Beaumont pen in Unicorn, inked with Pilot’s Iroshizuku shin-ryoku or Pelikan’s Edelstein Jade Platoon: Narwhal Schuylkill pen in Dragonet Sapphire, inked with Birmingham Pen Co’s Old Glory Blue. Inferno: Opus 88 Bela in red, inked with Birmingham Pen Co’s Phoenix. Rage: Karas Custom Vertex in red, inked with Diamine’s Poppy. |
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