Your Cart is Empty
$399
Mirror-polished zirconium, flame-anodized to obsidian black. 34.6 grams.
Live Friday · 12:00 Noon Central
—
We ship in the order the orders come in. It may take a few days.
On the lathe, zirconium behaves like titanium's heavier, slightly softer sibling — close enough that straight off the machine you could be convinced it is titanium.
The finishing bench is where it stops being similar. We polish it to a mirror, bring it up to cherry red with a torch, and the surface converts to a deep, almost obsidian black. Nothing is plated. Nothing is coated. The black layer is the metal's own oxide, and it wears harder than the raw zirconium underneath it.
Get it wrong and there is no fixing it. The part goes in the scrap bin.
The material. This is the first fountain pen we've made in zirconium. There aren't many zirconium fountain pens anywhere — a handful exist. Now there's this one.
The clip. Same 301 stainless spring steel, same 360° adjustable friction fit as the rest of the line — finished in matte black oxide, the first black-oxide part we've made. Matte against the gloss of the body is the whole point of it.
The mark. Every metal we've released before this one was laser-marked. This one is cut on the machine, turned into the inside face of the finial while the part was still in the spindle. You only see it with the finial off.
Zirconium costs a great deal more than the metals in the rest of the line. It is difficult to machine. It is genuinely hazardous in the shop — zirconium chips are a fire risk, and that risk is carried by the equipment and the people running it.
Every pen is polished, cleaned, flamed, and assembled by hand, and the process rejects a far larger share of parts than any other metal we run.
The price is those things. It is not a markup for the word "limited."
There are 78 DLC-coated stainless pen trays in the shop that were never released, because the surface finish didn't come out the way it needed to for a release. They are still very good. Each one weighs about a pound.
There is no box for them, so yours ships wrapped in bubble wrap and nothing else. It's a $99 tray. It's free with a pen this weekend — added to your cart automatically at $0.00, no code. If you don't like yours, send it back.
78 OF 78 REMAINING · OFFER ENDS SUNDAY 11:59 PM CENTRAL OR AT THE 78TH TRAY
Five concepts went in front of Kickstarter backers in May 2024. 717 of them pledged $123,826, and one shop in San Antonio has been machining the winner ever since. This pen is that design, in a harder metal.
A mini converter and standard international cartridges are in the box, same as every other one.
No. The tray is limited; the pen isn't. We plan to keep it in the lineup, and it'll go in and out of stock as we finish batches — we expect it available most of the time through the end of the year. If it's in stock, buy it whenever you like.
We're still finishing them. Orders go out in the order they come in, so ordering earlier gets your pen sooner. Expect a few days.
No. It's the metal's own oxide, formed by heat. It can't flake off the way a plating can, and it wears harder than the polished zirconium under it.
It's added to your cart automatically at $0.00 before you check out — if you can see it in your cart, it's yours. There's no code to enter. The counter on this page shows how many are left.
The surface finish isn't up to what we'd charge $99 for, which is why they were never released. They're otherwise solid stainless with a DLC coating, about a pound each. They ship in bubble wrap because we don't have a box for them. Send it back if it's not for you.
A polished stainless Bock 180 in extra-fine, the same nib on every Modern Fuel fountain pen. A German EF runs close to a Japanese fine. The nib unscrews and swaps in about a minute if you want a wider line.
Yes on the long body and body cap — both are being machined right now and are available as add-ons below. The long body comes two ways: add one alongside the standard body for $99, or swap your pen to the long-body version for $59 — swapped pens don't fit the cork insert, so they ship broken down. Every long body includes the full-size K5 converter. Orders containing either add-on ship mid-to-late next week. Loop ends and smooth grips aren't offered in zirconium. Engraving on zirconium is $30.