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Tesori Venezia: fresh and vibrant

Tesori is a small maker based in Italy, recently rebranded from Hello Tello. The Tesori rebrand was more than just a new name and logo: it included new models and a stronger social mission. The company gives 25% of sales to organisations that help victims of sex trafficking and exploitation, a huge commitment to a worthwhile cause. And this is more than just a financial arrangement — Tesori’s pens come with suit-fabric pen kimonos made by the very people these organisations help.

I love seeing a brand really stand up as a member of its community, and Tesori does that in more than just its charitable contributions. Its converters feature distinctive Italian Murano glass inserts in their knobs, which is not only beautiful and creative, but distinctively Italian.

Tesori uses sustainable paper packaging, which is clearly not just a cost-cutting measure, since you get the lovely pen sleeve too.

Anyway, what about the pen? Tesori offers a range of quite conventional models, but the one that leapt out at me, looking like a supercar in a line of family hatchbacks, was the Venezia.

This is a very unconventional and highly engineered pen.

It has a tapering clipless silhouette with conical ends, and is made of multiple materials: mine is black with orange accents. It’s really eye-catching.

The accent colour is not simply for aesthetics: one orange ring is actually a usable ink window.

The other is the grip section, and helps you orient the pen. That’s important, because the Venezia’s party trick is this:

Its cap is tiny, it doesn’t overlap the section at all. That’s a nearly unique delight — off the top of my head, only Eboya’s new flute has a similar approach.

When the cap is so tiny, there’s real potential for confusion with the captive-converter’s blind cap, without the orange to guide you.

The tiny cap is a marvellous design decision with several implications. For a start, it makes for a very compact pen that’s spacious when uncapped. See here how it looks against a Lamy 2000 and Onoto Magna, capped and uncapped.

Because there’s no section to speak of, you’re holding the barrel to write with. It’s very wide, and totally seamless for the full length of the pen. It’s like nothing else in the hand that I’ve used before.

The cap is also very well executed. Despite having no overlap with a section to ensure alignment, the threads are easy to engage (no cross-threads) and run smooth and fast. The seal is good, and the nib hasn’t dried out on me yet.

In fact, the rest of the pen is very well executed, too. The polish is mirror smooth. The different materials are perfectly flush.

At the business end you’ll find a steel Bock 250 nib. I opted for a broad and it’s smooth and wet. I’m not normally a Bock fan but I couldn’t find anything to complain about here.

To fill, unscrew the blind cap and you’ll find the orange converter knob with its Venetian glass insert, which slides like a sleeve over the usual converter knob.

The converter is screw-fit, so you can remove it for cleaning — although there’s not a lot to grab hold of.

Aside from that the Venezia is all one part, nothing unscrews or separates from nib to knob, so serviceability is perhaps not as good as you’d normally expect for a converter-filler. But that’s a very minor quibble.

The Venezia is a breath of fresh air in a sea of conventional designs. It is sleek, comfortable, and shows exquisite attention to detail in its aesthetic touches. At €250, the Venezia is certainly priced a little higher than some of the other turned resin Bock or JoWo pens out there, but I think the design — and the ethics — easily justify the premium.

Tesori sent me this pen for review. The Venezia’s standard editions are currently out of stock, but a gorgeous green limited edition is currently available for €270. You can get yours here.

5 Comments

  1. Yvan

    Thanks for another great review Anthony. Always a pleasure to discover new pens thanks to you, and this one has definitely something special about it.

    Having said, Tesori and Ebola are actually not the only ones to propose this distinctive capping design. It is also available from another Japanese pen maker, Tuduriya, with their Moonlit Night range.

    • Anthony

      Woah, I had never heard of that brand — thanks for the introduction!

  2. tomalaerts

    You demon! You made me order the green limited edition one!

  3. Greer

    I ordered one in early December after reading this review (I think I got the last one in stock!) — a lovely purple (my favorite color as luck would have it) and black. It shipped super fast and I had it within a couple of days. All I can say is thank you for reviewing this pen and turning me on to it! Not only is it well made, but it’s a bit quirky looking (in a good way), and it’s a fantastic writer. Smooth, good and consistent ink flow, and a joy to handle and hold. The sweet little flower on the end of the converter is really an elegant touch. I would say it’s worth the wait to order one (wait list is up to February 2021 at the moment).

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