Avenue

Tools of the Trade

When you put pen to paper, do it in style with the finest in luxury writing tools

By Eugene Stickland
Photography by Angel Man

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It was love at first sight. It was improbable; impossible, really. But the heart has its own wisdom and sometimes we feel ourselves helplessly pulled along in the wake of the heart’s desire.

I knew I could arrange to see her at the old Birks store in downtown Regina. I was only 16 years old, and clearly out of my league. Yet I could not deny the pull, so many a  Saturday morning I would put on my best clothes and walk down to Birks for our rendezvous.

The clerks tolerated me. What wasI to them? A lovestruck schoolboy. A kid with big dreams.

She was a Montblanc Meisterstück 149, the queen of fountain pens. Yes, I was in love with a pen. I admit it. A strange infatuation, given I was brought up in a sterile world of cheap ballpoints. No accounting for it; it was irrational. Yet it was powerful and it lives to this day.

I’ve been interviewed on radio and television about this obsession of mine, and I could be quoted as saying something along the lines of, “The ballpoint pen has killed more writers than anything else. There is no joy to a ballpoint. The sensual act of writing is destroyed. But to hold a fine pen in your hand, and experience the sensation of a great nib on paper is enough to keep even the most reluctant writer hard at it, deep into the night.”

The Montblanc nib, for example, is made of the 18 karat gold with platinum inlay. As they tell you rather elegantly in the owner’s guide, “each one bears the number 4810, recalling the height of [western] Europe’s highest mountain, from which all Montblanc products take their name.” Given the amount of gold in the nib, when I was younger and infatuated but without the means to buy it, the price of the pen would fluctuate with the price of gold.  How I prayed the bottom would fall out of the gold market and I would be able to afford it!

For some 30 years, this unrequited love affair continued. As a writer of plays and poems, and the father of a child, I never felt I could afford to indulge in my great love and passion. Until one day, back in 2000, some charitable work I did for a local company paid a big dividend and, as a bonus, the powers that be told me to go down to Reid’s Stationers on 17th Avenue in Calgary and order my favourite pen.

I think I was sweating, and my hands were shaking, the day I went into my favourite store and ordered up a 149 with an extra broad nib. The day it actually arrived, I was probably orgasmic. I remember walking down 17th Avenue clutching the beautiful box the pen comes in worrying that I was going to get mugged. I mean, if I had this obsession, didn’t it stand to reason everyone else did? Even criminals?

When you’re a fountain pen aficionado, you discover there’s a private and very exclusive club that you can only access if you own at least one significant pen. The Mountblanc got me into the club and afforded me the opportunity to meet some very interesting people.

But, like a true addict, once you get started, there’s no turning back. You find yourself descending deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of dark obsession. It’s not about status, exactly, and it’s not about wealth or image.

At its most basic, it’s about the beauty of an object married to its function. Beyond the esthetics of a pen, first and foremost, it has to work well. It’s a pretty basic premise: ink from a reservoir in the pen’s barrel must flow to the nib in such a consistent way so that the holder of the pen always feels in control.

The writer is in charge, not the pen.  

We writers tend to be neurotic and insecure, so this one little bit of control is critical and can make the difference between a good day and a wretched one. I swear, if I had to write a piece of this length with a ballpoint pen I would have given up after the first few words.  Yet with a good fountain pen, the writing of every letter and every word is an artistic act.  I could write all night, held in check only by the number of words my editor has allotted me.

Beyond the ink delivery mechanism and the shape and composition of the nib, the true character of the pen is in the barrel and cap. For example, another pen I own and love — a Graf von Faber-Castell — has a cap and end made of what they call precious silver. The barrel is inlaid with ebony. The dark wood against the silver makes a beautiful textural and colour contrast. The clip is stylized, almost art deco-like, giving the pen an aura of sophistication and romance. One can almost see F. Scott Fitzgerald pulling such a pen from his pocket.

For some people, it’s cars. For others, it’s watches. For yet others, it’s dogs. I really don’t care much about what I drive as long as it starts in the morning. I don’t care what I have on my wrist as long as it tells me what time it is. I prefer mutts to designer dogs.

But when it comes to fountain pens, I have to admit to being a total snob. For sentimental reasons, my favourite pen will always be the Montblanc 149. If you’re wondering what this magical wand will cost you, it’s more than $700. People who steal stick pens from restaurants will not be able to fathom this, even though they will pay thousands of dollars for a computer (just another writing tool) that will be obsolete in matter of months, whereas a good pen will last forever.

The silver and ebony Graf is a little less expensive, coming in around $580. It’s the most elegant pen I have ever owned and the ink delivery is magnificent. My Visconti Van Gogh crystal —a stunning pen from Italy with a transparent body and a white gold nib — costs less at $380. (Since you can see through the barrel, the pen takes on the colour of the ink you are using.)

These days I am running bright purple ink, which looks fabulous. Ink is a whole other obsession, but space doesn’t allow me the opportunity to do it justice. The same can be said for paper.

Being a man of the Avenue — 17th Avenue, that is — you can well imagine I spend a good deal of time among the display cases at the back of Reid’s Stationers. But I do travel and search the world over for the ideal pen. Last year, on a trip to New York, I had a chance to visit the holy of holy fountain pen establishments, the Fountain Pen Hospital near the World Trade Centre site.

I think I was actually swooning when I entered that sacred place, and yet I came away disappointed. Not that it wasn’t great. It was. It’s just that they didn’t really have anything that Reid’s back here in Calgary doesn’t carry.

These days, if you drop into Reid’s, you’ll see a display case holding this year’s pen of the year. It’s an upscale version of the Graf von Faber-Castell. The barrel of the pen is inlaid with tiny pieces of parquet, like an exquisite miniature hardwood floor. The metal is precious and expensive. The engineering is a marvel of technology.

Like I say, it’s an exclusive club. This pen of the year will run you about $3,700.

Would I buy it if I could? In a heartbeat.