Pens

My favorite pen of all time was the Royal Blue Berol Boldliner. It was a beautiful pen. A felt tip of exquisite character; it wrote in a bold style that you dared not ignore. I discovered the Boldliner while interning on Capitol Hill during college. The Congressman signed all his letters with the Boldliner (in truth, the signing machine did the work with the Boldliner as I fed it stacks of replies in the dark closet down the hall from his office). I tucked a few of the pens away and was soon buying them by the boxes. Sadly, they were redesigned and then discontinued or I might still be using them.

Cultural Offering has a great post on pens; no minor subject for those of us who love them.

I like Cross and Parker. [Had a nice Waterman that some weasel stole from my lectern during a break when I was teaching a workshop.] The ultra-inexpensive Papermate Profiles are excellent for quick note taking. As for fountain pens, they are the royalty and deservedly so. [Check out this video on how fountain pens are made.]