Hot on the celebrity gossip columns today is a story involving a very, very expensive pen. When Twilight co-stars and boyfriend/girlfriend Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart exchange gifts, they don't simply pick up a Hallmark card and chocolates from the local drug store. No, they take out the Black AmEx to spend the equivalent of what most would consider to be a down payment on a house. Pattinson reportedly spent $40,000 on a Tibaldi Bentley Crewe 18k white gold fountain pen.
That is certainly some pen. I would have loved to be the salesperson getting the commission for that sale! I think that would have deserved a vacation!
Of course you know TMZ is not going to hold back when it comes to their celebrity commentary. In this video below, they lay into Sylvester Stallone and his taste in pen design.
In their "revenge" themed section of their current issue, Wired features 5 "perfect" pens. Not that these pens will help you seek vengeance. Actually, they are doing so already on the voodoo doll in the photograph (courtesy of Wired Magazine). I like the choices because they work for all tastes and budgets. They even seem to take the sentiment that I often express about the Lamy Safari.
LAMY’s indestructible Safari is a dangerous gateway fountain pen—cheap, fun, low hassle. So be warned: A taste of this rig and you could end up trading your mom’s TV for just one more cartridge of blue-black ink. Perfect for: The fountain-pen curious.
No doubt - the Safari fountain pen has earned spots on our lists for best beginner fountain pens and pens for young writers. The Safari outsells probably any other fountain pen on Amazon.com and continues to get scores of new writers to love the fountain pen.
The only item I could disagree with is the mention about the Souveran 800 and using the words "pretentious," "verbose" and dandy." I think its a cheap shot. Sure, it's easy to make fun of people who spend that much money on a pen that will last decades whereas you can't do the same thing for someone who buys the newest techie gizmo that will be out-of-date in the next two years. Then again, this is Wired magazine we're talking about. How are we not supposed to look down at the "old-fashioned?"
As you may have read in our previous post about the new Montegrappa Icon Frank Sinatra. Here is the whole press release from Montegrappa regarding their show debut at Baselworld in Switzerland.
For both the show attendees and for Montegrappa, BASELWORLD 2011 will go down in history as a spectacular highlight. The World Watch and Jewellery Show closed its doors after eight highly successful days in the end of March, with 103,200 visitors up 2.5% over 2010. Marked by outstanding sales and optimism, fueled by innovations and fascinating new trends, BASELWORLD’s position as the leading show for the watch and jewellery industry was the perfect venue for Montegrappa to launch its new line of NeroUno watches.
Visitors were able to see, alongside Montegrappa’s most impressive display yet of limited edition pens, the new NeroUno quartz and mechanical wristwatches. Along with the new watches, display cases overflowed with exceptional and exciting new pens for 2011, including the Sylvester Stallone-designed Chaos, the Frank Sinatra and Bruce Lee Dragon "Icons" pens, Montegrappa's colourful homage to Italy's 150th Anniversary, the Thrilla in Manila pen sets commemorating the historic Ali-Frazier boxing epic, the revived Cosmopolitan range, the limited edition dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first flight to space, and the new Privilege Gioiello and Parola lines.
Montegrappa’s stand was busy throughout the week, with 30 to 50 appointments per day, resulting in 30 new accounts and the potential opening of five new territories.
Since 1912, Montegrappa has been manufacturing high-quality writing instruments in the same historic building in Bassano del Grappa, North East Italy.
Here is a link to the Montegrappa image gallery showing off their booth at the show. Although the images are not very large and detailed (you have to double click on each one to get a larger view, but really still can't see the pens), you get an idea of how sharp their presentation was. Hopefully, we'll have more information on release dates and prices fairly soon.
Little blurbs sure have a huge impact if they happen in the right places.
Much like the Oprah-fuled Lightwedge craze that we experienced a few times in the last year, this week our store experienced a big spike in Caran d'Ache orders for the metal collection pens. Much unlike the Lightwedge, which was only a strong seller whenever the Oprah episode was re-run, the CDA Metal collection is always a solid seller. Starting the 8th, we started getting orders for 6 or 7 pens at a time in all different colors.
I had a very pleasant customer call us on Tuesday and I just had to ask her where she saw these pens after she placed her large order of CDA Metal pens. She said there was an article in the New York Times that featured the Metal Collection. My interest was certainly piqued, but alas, after doing a site search on the Times' website, I could only find Caran d'Ache articles from back in the 19th century. I dug a little deeper. If there was anyone who would know if an ad or article was written about their product, it would be our distributor. Karen over at Creative Art Materials was extremely helpful in pointing me in the correct direction.
In a NY Times Style article titled "Southern Comforts," the fluorescent colored Caran d'Ache pens are featured as the "likes" of Sid Mashburn. I'm no fashionista, but it looks like he runs a gentlemen's specialty clothing store in Atlanta. He says the pens are "so covetable your friends will probably steal them." Indeed. Besides being vibrant and colorful, these pens feature the Caran d'Ache Goliath ballpoint cartridge. These cartridges are said to have an extremely long life and flow more easily than most ballpoints. The convenient size and click-top mechanism makes this pen an easy pick for a daily tag-a-long jotter.
Have you seen any pens in the news or in other media? I love "pen-spotting" and I will certainly make it a point to write posts whenever I find pens crossing over into mainstream media. Please feel free to share any finds through our twitter profile @goldspotpens.
