The Universe of Writing Culture
30th
Anniversary 1987-2017
Armando’s legacy, Manu’s passion:
Armando Simoni Club go Norse!
Graf von Faber-Castell Pen of the Year: Vikings a delicious pairing:
Ryan Krusac Studios and Modern Chocolatier plus: Montegrappa plays the Game of Thrones APRIL 2017 $6.95US $7.95CAN
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EACH MASTERPIECE A BESPOKE JEWEL
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VOLUME 30, NUMBER 3 ON OUR COVER: Armando Simoni Club’s new ARCO Brown fountain pen.
54 membership has its privileges
Vintage Omas celluloid is reimagined as a new brand, ASC: the Armando Simoni Club.
27 mind your p’s and q’s
Pen shows are getting more cross-generational, but that’s no reason we can’t all just get along.
30 pens and chocolate
Ryan Krusac and Brandon Lee sell sweets—and sweet writing instruments—in a unique partnership.
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Cartier: a love affair Julian Kreeger’s personal passion for Cartier is palpable.
46 Paperworld, meet Pen World
Our correspondent reports on the best from the largest stationery trade show in the world.
50 enter the Dragon
Graf von Faber-Castell Pen of the Year 2017 honors the Vikings and their legendary Dragon Boats.
62 there’s gold in them thar pens Vintage gold cap Parker 51s are worth their weight.
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departments 06 view 08 mail
becoming a Nielsen family
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34 doodles
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35 strokes 38 history 42 shop 58 origins 66 network
Skyler Chubak
Cartier Pens
Fountain Pen Hospital
the mysterious Indus Valley script
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classiďŹ ed advertising
68 source 70 contributors 72 imho
brand contact information
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Technology? Bah!
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Winner, Best Fine Art Pen PEN WORLD Readers’ Choice Awards
view
2014 Tropical Fishes • 2013 Storks
Penevision BY NICKY PESSAROFF
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The Horses One-of-a-kind Magnum Emperor
Modern Madonna—Nostalgia One-of-a-kind Magnum Emperor Not only perfect writing instruments, but also your own museum that is always with you. One-of-a-kind & limited edition pens. Custom ordered pens and desk sets. www.artuspen.ru • artuspen@inbox.ru TEL: +7-4932-478-111
’ve had a number of honors in my life, but recently, I found out I’m eligible for the greatest honor yet: My household will soon be a Nielsen TV Research Home. Some of you younger folk may be wondering what this is all about. The Nielsen Corporation invites individuals to become part of their “family” and then measures the amount and type of television a family watches. Being a Nielsen family was a big deal back in the day, akin to being a Kardashian today, but without the money and millions of Instagram followers. The landscape of television has changed drastically since my youth. My son has cable in his room, but instead, he watches Youtube and streaming video services. A brave new world. Meantime, my wife and I are holdovers, with television-watching habits we picked up in the ’80s and ’90s. That’s why I worry that we may not be the best Nielsen family. I cannot tell you what the Nielsen questionnaire looks like, as they’ve promised to guard our privacy if we guard theirs, but I can tell you that they’re very interested in what we watch. Thing is, we just don’t watch that much new stuff. The last movie we saw in the theater was Pixar’s Up. We didn’t try Breaking Bad until the show’s run was over (and when you live in New Mexico, it’s a citizenship requirement to be a Breaking Bad fan); same goes for House, M.D. I still watch Roseanne, and I still love Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The new Game of Thrones pen collection from Montegrappa you’ll find on p. 24? Gorgeous pens, but the cultural referent is lost on me. The problem with Nielsen, as I see it, is that they only want to know what you watch, not why you watch it. What do I watch? Shows that are familiar to me. Why do I watch them? Natural human suspicion of anything new. If Nielsen really wants to know what gets me watching, it’s writing instruments. I know it’s the same for you, Gentle Reader, as I’ve spoken with you and seen your emails, and I’ll bet you have the same questions I do. Like, why do news anchors and talk show hosts use such cruddy pens on television? Here they are, in these dapper suits and classy work dresses, erudite and confident, with a fifty-cent Bic in one hand. If you want the real reason there’s a crisis in confidence over journalism these days, there it is. When you start asking questions like this, you can’t stop. For example, do all the doctors on House use Monblanc pens? Was there an appearance contract between the show and the company? Do those loveable lugs on Pawn Stars have a collection of vintage fountain pens? Or have you seen the new History of Comedy on CNN? Did you notice how the intro motif starts with a fountain pen nib? Doesn’t it make you burn to know who made those graphics? A new show, Feud: Bette and Joan explores the relationship between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as they made the classic film, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? The show is full of stars and stellar acting, period cars and Hollywood manses, but the scene that made me hit pause is one that shows Joan Crawford’s letterhead and her loopy signature. Yes yes, Bette and Joan hated each other, and that’s all well and good, but what does Joan Crawford’s signature say about her personality? That’s the question that I’m still turning over in my mind. In a classic Roseanne episode, the family is invited to become a Nielsen household. Fearing judgment, Roseanne insists her family watch PBS and NOVA specials. Then in secret, she watches reruns of classic 1950s and 1960s sitcoms—the shows that resonate with her life experience. I highly doubt the Nielsen Corporation cares about my personal peccadillo for fountain pen-centric television. But unlike Roseanne Connor, I refuse to feel embarrassed for my family’s viewing choices. Some people watch shows and notice what cars the characters drive, or what brands they wear. What’s the shame in watching to see how people write?
The Omas founder’s celluloid is reintroduced as a new brand: the Armando Simoni Club.
Armando’s Rebirth: ASC Pens BY NICKY PESSAROFF
Armando Simoni and Emmanuel Caltagirone: although separated by decades of time, these two men are responsible for the new ARCO Brown fountain pen.
“What happened to Omas?” t’s a refrain one hears everywhere—at pen shows, in direct conversation, in online conversation boards. The legendary Italian company produced technical and artistic innovations for decades. The company has played an important part in the history of Pen World, as well. As early as Volume 1, No. 4, this magazine profiled the unique beauty of this Bologna-based brand. Then in the new millennium, a rollback and, finally, silence. Pen enthusiasts scratched their heads as they waited for news. Was the Omas brand over, a victim of global consolidation and market contractions? Was it in the hands of foreign investors? Was it simply hibernating? It turns out that Omas was actually metamorphosing. Now, the legendary Omas celluloid takes on a new form with a new branding concept: the Armando Simoni Club. Emmanuel “Manu” Caltagirone, a dominant figure in the world of penmaking already, heads the new company and now owns the entire collection of Omas vintage celluloid as well as a huge quantity of new-old stock Omas writing instruments from the last two decades. “Simoni was the guy who did fabulous Italian celluloids,” Caltagirone says. “The problem is this fantastic
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celluloid can no longer be produced.” The production of celluloid risks both toxic poisoning and flammability, and Simoni’s original manufacturing process is no longer legal. But Omas produced so much that, as Caltagirone explains, “I’m sitting on 4,000 rods of celluloid.” Simoni started his company in 1925 to wild success, but he died young at the age of 58. Two more generations of Simonis ran Omas successfully through the second half of the 20th century before selling the company to luxury conglomerate LVMH in 2000. The partnership did not work. “Omas was a family company; it had nothing to do with a big conglomerate. So it was rather a disaster,” Caltagirone says. Two separate Chinese companies then tried their hands at an Omas relaunch, and both failed. The company entered liquidation in 2016.
Arlecchino 2 comes in a mosaic-like patterns of vintage Omas celluloid in warm earth tones. Below—cross section and 3D rendering of the ASC filling system.
Omas had long been on Caltagirone’s radar. Born in Paris in 1962, Caltagirone has spent his life in pens. His father worked for Waterman for 20 years, much of that time as head of the Cartier Development division. In 1978, Caltagirone’s father began his own pen company, Sermec. In 1998, Caltagirone took over the company from his father, but several years later Waterman made an offer to purchase the company that he couldn’t refuse. Instead, he went on to partner with pen collector Syd Saperstein to launch the WahlEversharp brand. Together, Saperstein and Caltagirone have revitalized Wahl-Eversharp into one of the hottest companies in the pen market today (see Wahl-Eversharp’s Gatsby writing instrument in this issue’s “Now,” p. 20). But Omas was never far from Caltagirone’s mind. In fact, he made an offer to purchase the company’s assets from one of the Chinese conglomerates, but he claims they more-or-less scoffed at his offer. “But then months passed, and they had more bills, and the lawyer in charge of Omas liquidation assets needed to be paid,” Caltagirone says. “It happened one day that they decided, ‘What about that stupid offer from that French guy?’ And the lawyer contacted me, and they sold me the entire pen and rod stock inventory in July of 2016.”
Caltagirone found himself in a unique position. He had 4,000 rods of unique celluloid that could never be reproduced. He had a brand name that had lost its relevance through management mishandling but whose reputation among pen collectors remained solid, even legendary. He and Saperstein had already produced technical marvels under the Wahl-Eversharp brand. So the question became how to put it all together as a new brand.
COUPE A-A
160,8
17,5
Nb.Pièces
Spécifications
Repère
ASC
STYLO PLUME
Indice
Date
Nom
Zone
Modifications
Matière
Modèle Echelle
ENSEMBLE STYLO JUMBO Creative SALAMANDER
Dessiné
Observations 21.02.2017
JLR
Controlé
1,500 Vu
O00-11000
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ASC pens are vintage celluloid with modern technical aspects. Etching on the 14 karat No. 8 gold nib allows for maximum flexibility, and the Magic Flex nib has a cut in the ebonite feed that prevents skipping. The pneumatic filling system holds an unusually large amount of ink.
The answer was to create a new branding concept. The name of the company is not the Armando Simoni Pen Co., it’s the Armando Simoni Club, and that last word is the one on which to focus. Caltagirone wanted the aesthetics of the new brand to be based on the aesthetics and values of Simoni, himself. “Other pens brands call the pen collector market a niche; me, I call it my base,” says Caltagirone. Elizabeth Ayoub, vice president of marketing for the new ASC Pens, is charged with giving Caltagirone’s concepts shape in both the real and virtual worlds. She explains, “It’s a cult of personality, an attraction to the history and genealogy of the product. Armando Simoni believed that when you write, you should write with a very fine instrument that expresses who you are as a person. So we wanted to use this brand to allow people who love the act of picking up a pen and writing with it to experience that. Armando Simoni was a brand by himself, and Emmanuel sees 56
himself as the custodian of that heritage.” Caltagirone started with the technical prowess upon which his reputation is based. ASC pens take a pneumatic filling system that holds two and a half times as much ink as a standard converter. The Magic Flex nib is a huge No. 8 14 karat gold beauty in which even the magnificent engraving allows for greater nib flexibility. The ebonite feeder system has a horizontal cut that allows the ink to flow consistently and freely. Caltagirone explains, “When you write with the pen, the pen goes up, the nib goes up, but so does the filler, so there’s no break in ink flow.” ASC pens are large and made in Caltagirone’s Italian factory. The short clips, rings, and bands are polished brass or steel, finished in yellow or rose gold, and the cap ring and grip are etched in a stylized Art Deco motif. Given that the supply of celluloid is finite, each pen is a limited number by nature. The new Arlecchino 2 is an homage to a 2002 Omas limited edition pen. The resin is literally legendary: it’s said that Armando
The first of ASC Pens' Art Deco-inspired writing instruments, ARCO Brown, will be available in August. Right—More future celluloids: London Smoke Grey, Red Scarlet, Blue La Royale, Soft Green, ARCO Brown, ARCO Green, and Blue Saffron.
Simoni ran a collection of doughy celluloid colors through a pasta maker and formed 12 pens with the result, the nicest of which he gifted to his wife. Arlecchino 2 is a mosaic of colors, each one containing variations on the color scheme. Limited to 100 pens, it has already experienced wild success: the 34 pens that Caltagirone brought to the Los Angeles International Pen Show sold out in a single day, no small feat considering that the price is $975. He has even higher hopes for this issue’s cover pen, the ARCO Brown, to premiere in August at the Washington D.C. Fountain Pen Supershow. The 160 mm-length pen is even larger than a Montblanc 149 and features swirls of brown resin that look like finely treated wood. Six other distinct colors, each a limited edition of 100, will join the ASC line: London Smoke Grey, Red Scarlet, Blue La Royale, Soft Green, ARCO Green, and Blue Saffron. ASC pens will be available at pen shows and through select retailers with extremely low inventories, but it’s the club aspect of the venture that will provide the brand’s backbone. Interested members will be able to sign up at the new ascpens.com, and like any club, membership will have its privileges. Caltagirone says, “They’ll hear about the new pens before anybody does. They’ll have access to preview sales. You can even choose the edition number. If you were born in 1974, you can choose ‘74’ as your number. The other people, they buy whatever number is left.” Ayoub adds, “It’s another way of fostering dedication to the
brand, exclusivity, and community.” Ayoub stresses that, in spite of price points, this club is intended for members of all ages. “You need to create the new pen collectors of tomorrow, and the way you do that is by creating different avenues for people to come into this world. There’s this retro-progressive movement where people are going back to the fundamentals of arts and crafts, going back to things that people can touch.” Ayoub continues, “With Armando Simoni, [Millennials] may not necessarily buy that $1,000 pen, but their parents may. So if you market to their parents, then they will eventually inherit that pen or get it as a graduation or birthday gift. We’re thinking long term.” Included in that long term plan is a relaunch of the legendary Omas Ogiva and the faceted Paragon. Caltagirone is uniquely poised to reintroduce Armando Simoni’s principles of aesthetic and technical ingenuity. He, too, is larger than life, a dynamic personality that demands respect both for his passion and acumen, and he is an active member of the pen community: “I’m a collector myself, and I started at my family’s company at 22, so I’m not some chairman disconnected from the people. This is my passion. This is what I do.” Sometimes, history repeats itself. The new company website, ascpens.com, is scheduled to go live in May. However, customers can currently contact the company with questions through the website. 57
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The picture of the product on this page shows its original size.
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