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FPUK 2021 awards and year in review

As I head towards the end of another crazy year in the world of fountain pens, it’s time for reflection and to heap a little praise where praise is due. So here is my attempt to sort chaos into order and bring some highlights to the fore.

1. Colour comes to life

2021 was the year when colour became more than just an aesthetic choice, but a defining characteristic for brands, their identities and their growth strategies.

We saw more and more named resin-maker partnerships from companies like Esterbrook, Leonardo and Stipula.

Maiora and Leonardo evoked the Delta Dolce Vitas of the past with their flashes of orange — and now of course we have the news that Delta is back. More independent makers pushed into hybrid wood/resin pens. Esterbrook jumped on summer with the JR Paradise and even autumn with the Pumpkin Spice.

ST Dupont tried to bring its staid reputation back into the modern age with zingy gemlike guilloche. Gravitas turned “skittles” into a trend all by itself. Visconti even turned black lava into an opportunity for colours.

And yep, over there is Sailor kicking out more colour combos than I can keep track of, as usual.

It’s not just colour, but the materials and finishes too. I’ve already mentioned Gravitas skittles in this list, and Kaweco’s flamed Fireblue finish (also used by Diplomat) is not new. But in 2021 I saw more makers use Cerakote, from Karas to Gravitas and Tactile Turn. Matthew Martin brought out some beautifully colourful finishes on his OG range. Visconti pushed the Homo Sapiens into carbon fiber. And there were more urushi choices than ever before, from Dovidu, Tamenuri Studio, Penteo and the usual Japanese studios.

The downside of all this choice is, well, colour fatigue and the limited edition FOMO effect. But it’s nice to have more choice, of course.

But for me the brand that brightened up my day most with colour this year was Benu. I reviewed a couple of Talismans and another Euphoria in 2021, and like all the Benus I tried before, they are fierce and bold with their use of colour, intrinsic to the pen, not as a surface.

2. Storage at last gets the attention it deserves

In 2021 I saw at-home pen storage come into the spotlight for the first time. Rather than paying big bucks for custom cabinets or rolling our own with tray liner and Muji makeup boxes, at last it seems we have some proper purpose-built options for storing and displaying pens.

Galen Leather brought out its stacking trays, which immediately sold out. Bluestarcraft MX innovated new portable formats with a similar aesthetic. There’s a beautiful new storage bureau with pen drawers by Tools to Liveby. And so on.

For me Toyooka Craft were the stars of the trend, which culminated in a sellout performance at the October London Pen Show.

3. Superplastics for everyone!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that Schon DSGN has a full-size pen in Ultem, black Ultem, and now PEEK. Karas offers the Vertex in Ultem. Various solo makers are using it too. These pricey, high-performance superplastics are suddenly everywhere.

But Kasama got there first. It was the pioneer of plastics, and my stone-embedded PEEK Una Panahon arrived in 2021 and became a firm favourite.

It looks like they have a new collab coming out too…

4. Ink jumps the shark

Let me rant a bit here: At the end of 2021, I am simultaneously super jazzed up and… so burned out on ink.

Why am I burned out? Montblancgate was one reason why. It’s a brazen and cynical thing to recycle and relabel one ink bottle, say James Dean Rebel Red, and sell it as something else, say Doyle Scarlet Red.

But I realised, well, isn’t that effectively what the whole industry is doing all the time, with us as willing participants?

There are literally thousands of different inks already out there, with hundreds coming to market each year. They may not be literally from the same bubbling cauldron, But how many of them are genuinely new, different or better than what is already there?

When we buy that next cute bottle or evocatively named LE with ornate backstory, could we honestly tell it apart from all the other shades we already own? Can we identify all these new shades in a blind test?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that we have more choice than Parker Quink, Sheaffer Skrip and Private Reserve. Want almost-unreadable pale colours? We’ve got ya. Smeary super-sheeners? Go crazy. Unloved shades like mustard and murky greens? We have em! Shimmer? Oh yes.

But in 2021 the degree of choice available went from being a good thing to a bad thing.

I was drained by the sheer volume of new inks: familiar brands like Robert Oster, Colorverse, KWZ, Birmingham, Diamine and Ferris Wheel Press continued churning out new shades by the dozen, but they were joined by more colours and much wider distribution for less well-known brands from Asia and Eastern Europe like Lennon Tool Bar, Taccia, Tono and Lims, Van Diemens, Dominant Industry and Pennonia.

Some of these makers offer limited ‘seasons’ of inks as their normal business model, driving FOMO and hoarding. Pen stores from Cult to Yoseka commissioned exclusive shades. Every pen show has its own ink from KWZ or Papier Plume.

And penmakers, such as Esterbrook and Venvstas, continue to try to jump on the ink gravy train too with their own branded ranges.

I used to have my arms around all the ink brands readily available in the UK, stuff like Sailor and Iroshizuku, Lamy and Kaweco and the like. I can’t begin to contemplate the notion of even attempting to keep up now.

My response has been generally to stick with a few brands that I know, like Montblanc, while taking occasional forays out into discovering new brands, like Dominant Industry.

In 2021 I really welcomed a new brand into my inner circle: Vinta. Vinta does everything right: decent bottles, affordable prices, some interesting colours, memorable names, and good performance. Inks like Sirena and Ulap are now in regular rotation for me.

5. Big nibs go big

In previous years, if you wanted a nib bigger than a #6, you had a few options, mostly expensive. From Japan there was the Emperor and King of Pen, and then the Custom Urushi. In the west, Montblanc’s 149, Pelikan’s M1000, Conid and Oldwin. Did I miss anything?

But in 2021, big nibs are suddently everywhere. Newton’s Prospector is mainstream. Onoto offers #8s on most of its pens as an option. Schon offers #8 sections for his full-size pen. Santini has developed its own in-house #8.

More and more custom makers are offering Bock’s 380 unit as an option, with John Garnham’s JG8 being one notable example. And over in Japan, Tohma is pushing the very limits of how big a nib can be.

I’d put money on it: this is a trend.

For me in 2021, my big-nib discovery has been the Santini Giant, but a very close second is the medium King of Pen nib.

6. Pocket pens continue to evolve

Gone are the days when your choices in the pocket pen space were Kaweco and… Kaweco. In 2021 we saw the Kickstarters for the Namisu N1 and Ensso Piuma Pocket, and the release of Elbwood’s high-end Pocketmaster, more Schons included coloured facets, the Gravitas Pocket, and probably several others I’m forgetting.

My personal pocket pen highlight of the year was the Montegrappa Gnomo. More than just its insanely compact design, I was blown away by the nib and finishing. It sets a very high bar for a luxury pocket pen.

7. QC resentment gathers pace

I felt the community bubble up this year about QC.

Visconti has gotten worse since its move to in-house 18k… and that’s not just my opinion; I polled nibmeisters who have to deal with it every day.

Formerly trusted JoWo suffered a massive, massive PR problem from its cracked housings scandal. Kaweco apparaently tried to solve the problem of its nib reputation by introducing a paid-for upgrade to a premium steel nib (and even that has seen some community reports of failures).

The backlash against all of these topics whenever I bring them up… well, it indicates a general frustration in the community. And even brands that I generally respect and rate highly for QC are not immune. In 2021 I experienced my first not-quite perfect Sailor nib. Friends have reported bad Montblanc nibs. I experienced a bad Scribo nib too.

It’s the likes of Benu and Esterbrook that have performed most consistently, but the real award winners here are the nib technicians who clean up the brands’ sloppy work.

8. Pens still have the capacity to surprise, delight, and move

This last one is a bit broad and even personal, but in 2021 after reviewing and owning literally hundreds of pens, I still regularly found myself grinning like a lunatic or gazing in wonder at a pen totally different to any I’d used before.

The Visconti Divina, with its perfect spirals catching the light. The jewellery-like Montegrappa Gnomo with its tiny details. The moving story behind the Onoto Flanders. The batshit crazy Drillog looking like a tiny lightsaber. The Benu Mistletoe glowing in the dark on my desk.

But the one that, perhaps unexpectedly, captured my heart the most was the impossibly pretty Pilot Capless Wish, evoking the dawn sky.

There’s so much more to say, but I’ve rambled long enough. What do you see when you look back on your year?

6 Comments

  1. Xelomon

    First of all, thank you for writing it down instead of making a video on it. I often come back to your articles, plus they appear in google search, whereas Youtube videos are so easy to forget and it’s more difficult to find info about a brand or a specific item in a video of 1hour…

    Second, it impresses me that someone with your pen experience and spectacular tray of pens can still have a fresh view on … whatever comes 🙂

    Third, the ink madness and so much special pen releases was indeed tiring – for me as a beginner, it got overwhelming. I’d like to try Vinta, but it’s difficult to obtain; i love Robert Oster, but the inks have a tiny degree of colour one from another, which is great in a way, but i don’t wanna collect 90 inks for the sake of collecting…

    Thank you for being a sort of a watchdog on brands and QC. I’ve learnt a lot since discovering yoir blog, especially that it’s not necessary to have same colour in 5 bottles. But this also increased my fear of not getting any more duplicates, which is difficult, since internet photos can be deceiving, and the pen+ink+paper combinations differs, oh so much…
    Getting back to your post, i appreciate your time and dedication, this hobby world also needs some critique and hawk eye sometimes.

  2. Martin

    Good article Ant, I agree on a lot of the points, especially Ink. I have a shoebox full and don’t need any more, what I realised this year is that I love Iroshizuku inks, they just write so well and are lovely wet, vivid colours. I got a batch of samples in the summer so I’ve now tried all standard inks except the two pinks. They’re just missing a dark red for me, hopefully one comes with the three new inks they’re bringing out.

    I didn’t buy a pen this year, got a Scribo Tropea last December (which is great but slightly sharp) and was holding off all year for the Santini Giant. Almost got an M200 Petrol and a Graf Classic in the summer then held off. I’ve hit saturation point where I’m enjoying what I have, especially now that I’ve finally established a habit of journalling in 2021.

    Once again I’ve enjoyed reading your thoughts on the blog throughout the year. All the best.

  3. Philip Akin

    You also introduced me to Gioia and Piedimonte pens. Both of which ended up in my pen case.

    Thank you

  4. Paul Herman

    Well said.
    I have been a fountain pen user for decades, and things are certainly different. From most open nibbed pens using a nib size very close to a modern number 5, in the past, to the explosion of some frankly ridiculously oversized ones, the massive amount of ink colours, shades, and properties currently available (I remember it being hard to find fountain pen ink), the pen companies that basically just are churning out limited edition colours and such, not to try to improve anything except for people craving the next pretty colour or shape. And the QC issues, especially with nibs.
    I have several vintage pens with the old equivalent of a Jowo used in so many pens, the old “Warranted” ones. Kind of how you can get a Jinhao to write like a Peneider, in my opinion. Same nib type, virtually identical writing experience. “Oh, but they get tuned in the expensive ones.” Any more than ones I can get from Goulet Pens?
    Even those who are either still making their own, or starting to make their own are either slipping, or haven’t gotten “the knack” yet.
    I’ve heard that the issue is that it’s more of a niche market now. Why the use of frankly generic nibs. I do understand that many fountain pen users are more capable of performing their own work than the past. But even when it was the heyday of fountain pen use, how many people would have been willing to pay as much as some cost today (even adjusting for the inflation) if their $150 USD in today’s money Parker 51 was as poor quality as some today. Even the wildly mass produced ones had a standard they lived up to…

  5. devonico

    Thank you for your insights.
    I agree with you that the ink market is saturated with near indistinguishable products. At the end of the day, there is a limited palette of possibilities and it is unusual to find an empty space. The collecting habit is expanding into inks from a more practical approach.
    I am not averse to color and certainly love my Deltas in vibrant acrylics and celluloid a but I am not really into this explosion of gimmicks like the Skittles effect or the Benu lume. But I am happy for others to enjoy that.
    Definitely there is a quality control issue, even if I only had a really problematic pen this year , and one on the midrange of price. I think it is important for the community to have champions like you who have published repeatedly how deficient most brands are in regards to pen tuning.
    In any case we probably live in a golden age of options ( papers, inks, nibs, sizes, filling mechanisms) to enjoy this hobby like never before!

  6. Leonid

    Thinking of #8 nibs available before 2021 I recall… TWSBI VAC. Which is, of course, steel, but a good one nonetheless.

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