A Fountain Pen For The Modern
Fountain pens may lend an air of sophistication but damn can they get anymore dated? I mean all I need is a monocle, a bowler hat, a tweed suit and I’m all set. This fountain pen design but Vivien Muller updates the ubiquitous writing tool to where I wouldn’t mind using one. Okay ergonomics may have taken a backseat here but hell, it’ll look sexy just sitting on my desk.
Classic Pens is well known by collectors for its long running series of sterling silver guilloche pens in the CP collection. Classic Pens Limited was formed in England by Andreas Lambrou and Keith G. Brown in 1987 with the objective to create exclusive fountain pens for their fellow pen lovers. Their first limited edition pen was the Classic Pens CP1, a stunning guilloche engraved sterling silver Sheaffer Targa released in 1990 as a series of 250 pens. Classic Pens collaborated with major pen manufacturers, including Sheaffer, Aurora, Parker, Sailor, and Pelikan to produce additional unique sterling silver guilloche editions in the collection. The CP collection has grown to eight editions, with the latest being the CP8 Murelli Pens, released in 2008, the first edition to use a completely new pen design, produced by Classic Pens.
Juan Carlos Pallarols at work
Andy Lambrou met Juan Carlos Pallarols at one of the Washington, DC pen shows and fell in love with his work. They began to discuss a working relationship between Pallarols and Classic Pens and since the pen would be sterling silver based, the Legend 766 sterling silver model was chosen. At the 2008 Washington, DC pen show, they discussed designs and chose the grapevine design. Pallarols was given a plain silver unassembled CP8 to work out a prototype. Pallarols makes the cap and barrel tubes by chiseling the Grapevine design by hand and the plain polished sterling silver end caps are added. The base sterling silver Legend 766 pens are produced by Aquila Brands in Italy.
Juan Carlos Pallarols makes the cap and barrel of the pen through established silversmith methods, as sometimes used in the jewelry industry. He creates each Grapevine design by hand so that each LP1 art pen is unique and a little different from the rest. It is a lengthy process of more than 40 hours for each pen and requires the highest degree of craftsmanship. The Pallarols passion and meticulous care create an art pen rarely seen except with a few vintage fountain pens during the golden era of jeweler's craft pens in the early 1900's.
