Porsche Design Unveils Their $27,000 Fountain Pen

[Intellidepth]

I wonder if I could get one with a flexible nib...

I was wondering why they didn't put their effort during design and production into a flexi nib. That would have made it unique. As it is, it's a piece of glorified plumbing with a nib too scared to show itself for fear of being scratched.

 

The cap costs extra, and is limited to a run of eight.

Exploded in laughter at this one.

[ingolf]

... and when do we expect to get a presentation of the iPen by ... I guess you know

[ISW_Kaputnik]

At that price level, this pen would be out of reach even if I wanted one, so I can simply be curious. "The shaft, which hides the fountain pen mechanism" is an odd phrasing, and I have no idea what they mean. It would be interesting to know what the filling mechanism is, and why the picture doesn't show a cap.

[ANM]

A man knocked on the door of a very fine house in an obviously wealthy neighborhood. He told the man who answered the door that he was down and out and really needed some money. He asked the gentleman if he had any kind of work he could do for him. The guy thought a minute and said he had a porch that needed painting around back. There was a bucket of paint and brushes in the garage.

 

 

A couple hours later the man presented himself back at the front door and said he was done. As he was being paid, he said "Oh by the way, it wasn't a Porsche. It was a Mercedes.

[tmcneil82]

I really don't understand who the target market is for these pens. If you just want a hunk of gold "art" to show off there are far better options. Same goes if you want a pen. I'd be much more impressed if someone had a 30k piece of art or sculpture than this.

[Parker51]

The pen likely is a cartridge convertor fill as it appears to be based upon another pen they market which is made of titanium. That pen comes with an aluminum case, rather than a cap, and so likely would this pen.

[Cepasaccus]

I wonder, why they used 14k and not 18k for a pen of this price. $500 more or less surely wouldn't have made a difference.

[inkstainedruth]

Okay, I like "understated" as much as the next person. I do. after all, have a 51 Aero as my "favorite-most pen on the entire planet".

But even the founders of the Bauhaus movement (you know, the "Less is More" crowd) would be scratching their heads on this one, and going "WTH"?. And yeah. it looks like a piece of plumbing pipe to me as well (maybe from the bathroom of that Jim Bakker PTL guy from a number of years ago -- the guy who cheated on his wife and IIRC maybe his taxes). And I kinda agree with Cepasaccus in that I'm surprised they *didn't* use 18K: isn't the whole deal about 14K vs. 18K nibs that in some places the EU 14K doesn't make the cut for "real" -- (i.e., "solid") gold?

I kept checking the dates of the posts so far to see if this was to the level of an April Fool's prank (*especially* after Farmboy had people on the Esterbrook forum going for the better part of a week... ).

Oh, and when I showed the photo to my husband (after reading some of the more, er, entertaining posts) his response was "ewww...."

So if this is actually legit, I don't see how it could be anything *but* a c/c pen. But then comes the issue of "How do you replace the cartridges?" Does the nib unscrew from the barrel? Does it come with its own special 14K extraction tool? Does it take International Standard carts? (And are we still sure this isn't some sort of April Fool's joke?)

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Cepasaccus]

In France gold had at least in the past to be 18k gold.

 

AFAIK Porsche-Design pens are made by Faber-Castell. So I assume that they take the same c/cs as the Faber-Castell pens, whatever they are. Some more information here: http://www.porsche-design.com/en/News-Fountain-Pen/ (No idea, why they mill it from titanium and then coat it with titanium.) And here about a gold plated one: http://www.porsche-design.com/en/Men/Accessories/Writing-Tools/Solid/Solid-Fountain-Pen-Gold-Edition.html It seems, that this is the "capless" pen which I saw some time ago in one of the pen forums.

 

The design reminds me of reed pens. It would be not that bad if it had a cap.

[Cepasaccus]

Or if they provided with it a solid 18k deskpen holder.

[inkeverywhere]

Even if I had 27K to spend on a pen that would not be the one for me!

 

Something with a lot of history attached would float my boat.

 

Oh to dream of having that much to spend on a pen......

 

 

 

Greg

[trandy]

I can't imagine paying $27,000 for the car much less a pen.

Really....you can buy a pretty nice car for that amount of money.

[jar]

Really....you can buy a pretty nice car for that amount of money.

 

Sure, but I just wouldn't buy a Porsche.

[Christopher Godfrey]

Cepasaccus is the one who has put his finger on the question of design: this surely has nothing to do with the motorcar manufacturer (well, it <does>: same family) -- this will be the work of the Porsche-Design company in Austria.

 

No one has thought about the actual writing experience, I think: there is <nothing> on which to get any sort of purchase or grip! I am betting this thing (this expensive thing!) will simply slip upwards in one's fingers as one tries to write.

 

Twenty-how-many-thousand dollars' worth, this thing? What a colossal waste: think how many <top>, vintage Pelikans one could buy for that!

[Cepasaccus]

I never used a Lamy 2000, but I expect the Porsche Design pen to be similar to that. So some people will be able to write with it, some not. The nib is surely a boring nail.