Fountain Pen Network Limited Edition Pen
From Penpedia
The Fountain Pen Network Limited Edition Pen was a short run, custom Bexley Simplicity released in 2007 to members of the Fountain Pen Network forums. The pen was the third in a line of custom products from FPN and sold out its first run of 114 pens.
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[edit] Planning Stages
Prior to the launch of the pen, FPN had created and sold out of both branded notepads and a custom brown ink known as Galileo Brown. So being that two of the triumvirate of writing had been created, a pen was seen as the next natural thing to do. Creating a pen would be an involved process, and covered four separate polls to determine things like the size, filler, price. Because of the traditional color scheme used at FPN, the color was predetermined that it would be blue.
So, following the initial polling phase, the admin group for FPN looked around at several manufacturers. The discussion revolved around which one was going to be able to produce a pen with most of the requirements for the price. The price ended up being the major point driving the creation of the pen, as it was determined that it shouldn't be some special LE that only a few people could buy, but rather something that most members here could afford.
Out of the possible manufacturers considered, Bexley was asked whether they could produce a pen of the requirements from the polls. They responded back saying that everything besides the filler could be done. With that, they were accepted to produce the pen.
[edit] Design of the Pen
Fountain Pen Network user Titivillus volunteered to do the first mock ups of the pen. This was initially done by browsing through the Bexley website, taking pieces of various pens and playing with them. These became the very first example, showing a different combination of gray cracked ice with a derby cap and the old style Bexley clip.
After discussions on the site, that first mock up was sent to Howard Levy of Bexley, and several emails were spent trying to iron out further details. This series of communications ended up with Titivillus standing in his company's parking lot trying to get a cell phone signal and talking through the final details. What came from the phone call was combined with help from FPN user Ruaidhri and became the second mock up.
Originally, the pen was planned with a gray cracked ice look, but Howard said he had some special blue cracked ice that would complement the end caps well. That is also why there was not an open ended production, there just wasn't an infinite amount of the materials.
[edit] Preparing for Sale
FPN was also thinking about the daunting task of collecting money and distributing these pens. James Partridge of The Pear Tree Pen Company, stepped in and offered to handle distribution as well as payments since he was set up to do that. They also worked with individual purchasers who desired custom-ground specialty nibs. Due to the cost to set up the machinery for one pen being prohibitive, there were only digital 'pictures' of the pen available prior to sale.
At the same time, they found out that Bexley was coming out with a brand new line and that it would be possible to get in to their manufacturing schedule before the end of the week, which meant the pens could be done by mid May. Several emails flew around and it was decided to try for that Friday and see what happened. There was initial concern over whether all of them would be sold, forcing the admins to personally buy the difference or just refund everyone's money.
The price point suggested a steel nib be used, which is what they went with, hoping that they could get an interchangeable gold nib if people wanted it. Unfortunately, the shape of the section for the Simplicity would not allow a simple nib exchange, so after some additional discussion a minimum number (25) of pens pens were required to allow retooling and different sections to be made.
All of the 100 pens that were planned for sold out quickly, and thanks to conservative building, another 14 were available.
[edit] Pen Details
[edit] Specs
- Schmidt steel nib in fine, medium, or broad standard (89 pens)
- Bock 18K gold nib was also available in a very wide 1.3mm stub (25 pens)
- Tassie is engraved with "FPN"
- Cartridge/Converter filled
- Solid blue blind cap, section and tassie
[edit] Original Price
- $95.00 USD for the standard model
- $190.00 USD with 18K nib
[edit] Known Issues
- In August of 2007, for two weeks FPN began taking orders to replace caps showing yellow discoloring in the cap.
- Many owners reported that the FPN engraving on the top of the cap was not centered.
- It is believed that because of these issues that the Administrators decided to distance themselves by banning the member who spearheaded the project.
