Two nice modern French ballpoints

[amk]

I didn't find any wonderful fountain pens this weekend. But I found two modern French ball pens with a certain style. Here they are.


The first, in a rather nice wooden box, is an Oberthur pen. Oberthur makes stationery products and also has a business printing commercial calendars; their pens seem to retail around 20-30 euros, a step up from the Lamy Safari or cheaper Watermans. I don't know whether the firm makes its own pens or outsources them. The body is wood, with what look like anodised aluminium ends, and I'm intrigued by the fact that the design takes two scoops of the the grip area, almost like a Lamy Safari. The clip is obviously intended as a design accent, though I find the metal just a bit thin and I'm not sure I'd really want to use it to clip into a shirt. (Is there a design influence here from the Faber Castell e-motion, I wonder?)

The second pen, with the squiggly clip, is much more upmarket. It's a Jean Pierre Lepine. JPL is a small business which makes these pens in the Jura, a French region which is otherwise known as clock, watch and knife making territory. (JPL also makes knives. I never seem to see those at car boot sales though.) Apparently these pens sell for 62 euros, so I reckon I made a considerable saving having handed over two bits of change in return for it!

It also goes nicely with a JPL fountain pen that I already have.

The body is black acrylic, and the accents are all nickel plated. It's a quite self-consciously funky design, as are quite a lot of JPL's (there's a really hideous steampunk style pen that looks impossible to write with, though fun). I rather like it, particularly the way the ball on the clip end repeats the detail of the knock, and the bulgy rings at both ends. It's satisfyingly heavy in the hand without quite getting into Jinhao-pearl-windows territory. (My only criticism of it would be that the refill doesn't protrude quite enough, so you have to write at a 90 degree angle with it, but that might be sorted out by getting a different refill.)

[Anne]

Very Nice! My favorite is the squiggly clipped pen. Does the fountain pen have the same squiggly clip or is it a completely different design?

[amk]

The fountain pen clip is quite similar, though the FP is smaller - almost a pocket pen - in a fetching purple streaky acrylic.

[Anne]

Sounds pretty. I am glad you have paired them - Use them in Good Health.