Gadgets
Fountain Pen Sales Are Surging, Despite Flat Luxury Global Sales
Here are the forces in play, the best brands to know, and the last true pen shop in the U.S.
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A wide variety of communities have focused on Donald Trump’s recent Oval Office signing ceremonies, but only one among them has turned close attention to the tool with which the new U.S. president affixes his jagged signature to executive orders. I refer, of course, to members of the internet forum fpgeeks.com—a nonpartisan commission of Fountain Pen Geeks.
Studying video clips with the attention of forensic experts (“looks … as if the ink was flowing all around the tip from where the barrel ends all the way to the paper surface”) and trusting a comrade who claimed insider knowledge, the group surmised that the world’s most powerful Sharpie fan has recently been wielding a Cross Century II black lacquer rollerball converted into a felt-tip.