Did The Time Bum just become The Pen Bum? No, we’re still all about the watches here, but I recently had the chance to chat with Jeremy Piper of the Eagle Pen Company. He was at Watches, Whiskey and Wine showing Eagle’s line of remarkable custom pens. He sucked me in with the watch-themed Chronos Collection and then wowed me with even more exclusive models made from historical artifacts. Knowing how many watch enthusiasts are also pen collectors, I decided to give them a shot. So today, I’ll review the Eagle Pen Chronos, 1776, and Mammoth collections.
Eagle Pen is a small luxury pen company founded in 2015 by Jeremy and his father, Jon. Their products are unique, exclusive, and manufactured here in America in limited quantities. While some materials, like those Swiss watch parts and the writing mechanisms, may come from abroad, the stainless steel machining, fabrication, painting, coating, polishing, and assembly are all done here in the States. If you choose a pen made from an American artifact, like the reclaimed wood in the 1776 series, you are buying a product that is as homegrown as possible.
Those unique materials are a huge part of Eagle Pen’s identity, so sourcing them requires research, patience, and rigorous authentication. Jon and Jeremy work only with reputable dealers, museums, and private collections. Every artifact must have a solid paper trail that is then independently verified. After all, if just one bogus item ends up a product, it could well be the end of their reputation and livelihood.
The three collections I sampled allowed a pretty nice overview of what Eagle has to offer, covering both their two-piece, 200 series design and cigar-shaped, one-piece, 100 series. They also showcase the range of items used, from natural exotic materials to modern luxury goods, to historical relics. The Mammoth 100 series is crafted from an exotic material, a fossilized tooth, and has a ballpoint mechanism. The Chronos and 1776 pens are 200 series models, using both rollerball and fountain inserts.
I’ll start with the Chronos because it is the pen most likely to appeal to Time Bum readers. Eagle has produced three lines in this collection, starting from $350. I sampled a few from the top-of-the-line Chronos Platinum Edition, which ranges from $995-$2500, depending on the watch dial. The pens are constructed of stainless steel and carbon fiber, decorated with watch parts and dials, sealed in resin, and fished with a glossy lacquer coating. They measure 5″ long closed and 6″ with the cap posted. I was pleased to see that both ends of the body were threaded, allowing you to securely screw the cap in place in either the open or closed positions. Also, note the engraved watch face on the cap. The combination of right-hand Roman numerals and left-hand diamond markers looks pretty good, although watch imagery purists will note that the hands are at 12:00 and not our preferred 10:10.
The pens look amazing. All of those jewels, hands, balance wheels, and other infinitesimal bits are carefully arranged and, where necessary, bent to conform to the curvature of the barrel. Carbon fiber has remarkable depth, creating a floating effect when the light catches it just so. You will be relieved to know that no watches were harmed in the creation of these pens. These are all donor parts from unsalvagable pieces. I sampled a Franck Muller, an Audemars Piguet, and an Omega. I liked the fact that the Omega still had its hands in place. My favorite was that silver Muller: it’s huge, it pops against the dark background, and fine details like the guilloche texture are crystal clear through the lacquer.
As good horological hobos, I am sure you will want to know about the movements, and no, they do not come from the same donor watch as the dial. They are Swiss mechanicals, but there is no guarantee your Rolex dial pen will contain other Rolex parts. Really, the dial is the star of this show. Eagle gets them from sources in Switzerland and independently authenticates them through American jewelers. The current stock is all Swiss. Want a Grand Seiko dial pen? Just contact Eagle. They can work with your watch parts too.
So, now what? I’ve reviewed plenty of watches but never a pen. I was musing about this to my son, who suggested I use the pens to write the review in longhand and then post the scanned pages. Obviously, I didn’t do that. While I write all the time, both for a living and for fun, I do it all on keyboards, and I am not about to go back. Still, the kid had a valid point. If you want to learn about a product, you’ve got to use it, so I made sure I had one of each inked up, and I got to it.
My daily “wet” writing consists of the notes I jot down throughout my workday and the lists I make to keep my life on track (I am a compulsive list-maker), but it did the trick. This was not my first experience using nice pens. I am hardly a pen guy, but I have owned a few over the years, and I know my way around a fountain nib and piston converter. Still, I invariably go back to my trusty $3.00 Uni-Ball 207 or Pilot G-2 gel ink rollerballs.
Like most luxury pens, the Chronos is fatter than your average disposable, and fatter is good because it feels far more natural in your hand as it requires less of a pinch. Carbon fiber is known for being lightweight, but all said and done, the pen weighs a fairly beefy 51 grams. While I enjoyed holding the barrel, I found the weight of the cap made it uncomfortably top-heavy when posted, so I kept it detached when I wrote. I should mention that I wear a size small glove, so you might not mind if you have bigger mitts.
The Chronos comes standard with a Schmidt 5888 ceramic rollerball insert. I’m a big fan of rollerballs because I like the way they glide. I don’t feel like I need to press hard when I use one, and the easy flow makes for an even line and a comfortable writing experience. Schmidt refills are inexpensive and easy to find, so there would be no reason not to use your Eagle every day. By request, Eagle can upgrade your pen to a fountain nib.
The 1776 collection sells for $2,000, and each piece incorporates wood that has been reclaimed from a historically significant object or structure. I got to review two models. The Horse Chestnut is made from the wood of – you guessed it – a Horse Chestnut tree and a very special one at that. It was one of 13 planted in Fredricksburg, Virginia, by Washington himself to honor each of the original colonies. Georgia’s tree was the last survivor, making it 222 years before it was felled and the wood preserved. Eagle will make only 76 of these pens.
The White House is made with wood from a roof beam installed in the executive residence after it was burned by the British in 1814. It was replaced in the 1927 renovation, and now bits of it adorn the 30 pens in this series.
Both pens feature artwork by miniaturist painter Lynn Peterson. These are not paintings that are photographed, resized, and reproduced onto another medium so they can be wrapped around the bodies; they are hand-painted by the artist directly onto the pens. The Horse Chestnut features on its cap an image after John Turnbull’s portrait of General Washington at the second Battle of Trenton, while the White House has on its barrel a painting drawn from John Plumbe Jr.’s 1846 photograph. The paintings are remarkable.
The shape and construction of the 1776 pens is like that of the Chronos, consisting of stainless steel and the exotic material of choice sealed in clear lacquer and polished to a glossy sheen. Length is identical, but at 45g, they are noticeably lighter. I found them to be less top-heavy than the Chronos, but I was still more comfortable using them with the cap on my desk. The caps are engraved “1776” and, in the case of the White House, a serial number.
The 1776 line comes standard as a fountain pen with a complementary rollerball insert. While I like the plug-and-play utility of a rollerball, I have to admit that there is something extra special about a fountain pen. Filling one is easy and a bit ritualistic. Remove the mechanism from the barrel and completely screw down the piston. Then dip the dib into your ink bottle and unscrew the piston so it pulls back, creating a vacuum that draws ink into the reservoir. Wipe the nib clean with a cloth, reassemble, and you are good to go.
Fountain pen ink is thinner and flows more freely than that of a rollerball. Very little effort is required or indeed desirable as more pressure will dispense more ink than you need and will eventually damage the nib. A fountain pen encourages you to slow down and think a little more about what you put to paper. The ink supplied by Eagle was translucent blue, making it easy to see where I crossed lines, paused, or changed direction when forming letters. Fountain pen ink will also make you reevaluate your paper. It bled easily on my cheap legal pad, making the lines a bit fuzzy. The heavier stock I had in a bound journal fared better.
The last of the samples was the Mammoth. A fossilized mammoth tooth is a curious thing. When cut, they show growth striations and a range of colors from the various minerals absorbed over the millennia. While Eagle makes a two-piece, 200 Series Mammoth pen for $1,250, this one was in their $850 100 Series. It is just a whisker under 5″ long and uses a Schmidt P900 ballpoint refill that deploys with a twist. It sells for $850
While shorter than the capped pens, at 47g, it is still on the heavy side, which is to be expected considering the density of its material. I suspect a 100 is likely the most comfortable configuration for me. If I couldn’t handle a carbon fiber or wooden cap on a 200, then one made of stone would be right out of the question. Like other Eagles, the top is engraved, this time with a wooly mammoth.
My biggest gripe about the Mammoth is the cartridge. Schmidt makes a nice enough ballpoint if you like ballpoints. I don’t. I hate the waxy feel of the ink, the pressure needed to get a clean line, and the inevitable aching hand after writing for any length of time. I know, they don’t smear, they write on almost any paper, and they last longer but I don’t care. Keeping that old bias firmly clenched between my teeth, I tested the ballpoint.
The picture below shows how the three different types of pens differ. I have to admit that the Schmidt P900 is a damn nice ballpoint. It flowed better than the junk pens they buy at my office and it didn’t feel sticky, but the ink still retained the great advantage of not soaking into the paper, so the lines were crisp.
Compare that to the rollerball on the second line. I love that it requires no real pressure, and the solid blackness of those lines can’t be beat, but paper choice matters. Notice the edges where the fibers kept sucking up that ink. It’s not enough that you would notice without sticking your nose to the page, but it does make it appear a bit softer.
Finally, we have a fountain pen nib and blue ink. It is a joy to use, but any place I lingered, like at the end of the downstrokes on “T” and “h,” my cheap journal insert soaked up that ink like a sponge, producing some rather extreme feathering. If you are going to head into the world of fountain pens, you will do well to track down some compatible paper. I’ve heard good things about Rhodia Premium Notepads, but your mileage may vary.
If you don’t want any of these pens, you might want to browse the Eagle Pen Vault. They have some amazing stuff just waiting to be put to use. How about teak decking from the U.S.S. Missouri or a piece of lunar meteorite? When I met with Jeremy, I handled a fragment of the muslin cloth from the original Wright Brothers’ airplane (replaced after its crash and subsequent restoration) as well as a strip of Kapton Foil from the Apollo 11 Command Module, the only stage of that craft to return from the moon. I had the history of aerospace in my hands and could imagine the historic vibes emanating from these relics and pulsing through my body.
If you are a student of history, you might balk at the idea of turning artifacts into pens. I confess I had those same thoughts myself. But just as the folks at Eagle aren’t destroying watches to get their dials, they aren’t desecrating historically significant objects either. Every rare item incorporated into an Eagle pen has essentially already reverted to a state of raw material. The White House wood had been replaced because it could no longer function as part of the structure. The Apollo foil and Wright Brothers fabric were removed from their respective vehicles after they no longer served their purpose. And I cannot tell a lie, that George Washington tree was chopped down 17 years ago. There are legitimate ethical concerns here, but Eagle Pen seems to be on the right side of them.
I started this journey wondering what exactly I could possibly say about a pen, and I have ended up writing almost twice as much as I would for a watch. Jeremy and Jon are turning out some fascinating products for the Eagle Pen Company. If you are a pen enthusiast, a history buff, or just a person who appreciates unique and handcrafted items, I highly recommend you head over to EaglePens.com and check them out.
