Muse Fountain Pen – Lost at Sea

DAN’S NOTES ON THIS PARTICULAR PEN

This Muse is an ocean like swirl of blues and aquas with a nice black contrast and features our bark texture. If you like blues (and I do), you can hardly go wrong with this one. It’s both fun and dignified. 

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THE STORY OF THE MUSE

While I’m unabashed in my love for pocket pens, for most of us it’s the full sized variant that does the daily driving. And, to be quite honest, it was the Muse that was trickier to get right than the Jester. The reduced length of the pocket pens allows for a certain levity of design that’s hard to do with longer pens. I originally worked towards a streamlined pen with no profile break between the cap and body as some of my favorite pens took this approach to their profile. In fact, I was pretty adamant that this would be my approach as well. 

I ended up playing around with iterations where the cap was wider than the body and was surprised to find how appealing the overall look became—particularly when the cap length equaled the length of the body when capped. That 50/50 balance found the design charm I was looking for. I might add that while the Muse photographs well, I tend to find it a bit smaller in hand than it would appear in pictures.

 

DESIGN ELEMENTS

The Cap

The cap is somewhat exaggerated in length, which in my opinion is what gives these pens so much of their charm. A single facet acts as a rollstop and features our wordmark—manually engraved with our 50 plus year old pantograph, I might add. 

The Body

The Muse cap does not post, simply because it becomes very unwieldy if it were to post. The pen is designed to be a comfortable length and with a great balance when using. And let’s be honest, our roots are in a product designed specifically for not posting one’s cap, so this is likely a surprise to no one.

The pen features a set of triple rings, and it’s worth noting these are not arbitrary embellishments. They’re positioned at the point of cap to body contact, so if the cap is turned when at an angle to the body and the edge of the cap rubs the body, it won’t mar the surface of the body over time and leave a line. As a secondary use, they’re positioned to visually break up the transition of any color change in the ebonite so even the natural changes that take place are incorporated into the finished product as subtly as possible—more on this below.

The Section

The section profile is clean with a simple taper to get the diameter at the grip point comfortable. No concavity or raised edges are needed to keep the fingers from slipping as the sections feature a matte, brushed, or textured finish specifically for this reason. 

The Nib Unit

While we’re making the body, cap, and section from scratch, the nib and feed are the tried, true, and loved German made steel Jowo units. We’ve opted for a number 6 size quite frankly because it looks the best, proportion wise. These really are great writing nibs and are common on artisan pens for good reason. You have your choice of nib finish (polished steel, gold plated steel, and ruthenium plated steel) as well as size (EF, F, M, B, BB). Other nib materials, finishes and sizes may be available. Please contact us for current availability and additional information.

The Filling System

The Muse is capable of using either a refillable converter or international cartridges of standard or short length. A Schmidt converter is included with every Muse pen.

Textures

If I had to point to one singular feature that makes our lineup truly distinctive it would be the textures we offer alongside the standard matte finish. Our textures are engraved by hand (with a power engraver, to be clear), and it really brings a dimension and feel to the pen that is singularly unique and quite fantastic.

Our bark texture is our most popular and the most eye-catching of the three finishes we offer. The light tends to play off the furrows, giving the pens a noticeably different look than their matte and brushed counterparts. The bark finish feels great in hand and makes for a very handsome pen.

The brushed finish has often been mistaken for wood, and it’s easy to see why. It very much resembles a thick coat of brushed paint. It feels completely different than either other finish and exudes an uncanny feeling of softness.

The Caveats to Using Natural Materials (i.e. a Disclaimer)

We’ve chosen to primarily work with ebonite because of its unique warmth and the historic provenance it enjoys. Ebonite is technically a trade name for vulcanite, a hard rubber product made through vulcanization. The raw latex material used to make ebonite comes from the rubber tree, and while it requires human input to get it to the state in which I receive it, it is considered a natural material. Ebonite has been used for pens for many decades, as well as for other common items like musical instrument mouthpieces, tobacco pipe stems, and hockey pucks.

While it is a very lovely material, a couple of things about the product should be noted. When freshly machined it has a sulfuric smell to it, but this dissipates rather quickly in the open air and is temporary. It’s also best to keep it out of direct sunlight as colored ebonite will brighten with UV exposure, some colors being more prone to this than others. Black is much more stable in this regard, although it’s still recommended to keep the material out of direct sunlight.

With those caveats in mind, we use ebonite over more resilient man made materials for a number of reasons. I would argue no other material offers the richness and depth of ebonite—it’s simply one of the most beautiful materials to make pens from and one of the most satisfying materials to have in hand. To me,the fact that it changes over time is less a fault than a proper indication that it’s a tool being put to use. Everything we make is designed to be useful, durable, and beautiful—and in that order. Our hope is that the honeymoon period of our products doesn’t wear off and that they last you for many years, all the while taking on the marks and character of a well used tool.

The brass components are left raw and will darken and develop a unique patina with use. While we work to keep the brass clean and bright so it’s as fresh as it can be when you receive the pen, it may already show signs of oxidation from the time of our final handling to your initial one. This is natural to the material and is nothing out of the ordinary.

We try to incorporate an understated elegance into the products we make, and to that end most of our ebonite pens feature a matte finish. With time and use the pens will take on a bit of a natural sheen from handling, but they won’t ever achieve a high luster as is common with many polished ebonite pens. 

Specifications:

• Material: Ebonite, also called vulcanite
• Muse Dimensions: 5.3″ long capped. Additional dimensions can be viewed in the image gallery
• Muse weights: 
  • Ebonite: 0.74oz/21.1g
  • Ebonite/Brass: 1.12oz/31.8g
• Proudly designed, manufactured, and assembled in So. Dakota – USA

South Dakota residents will be charged 4.2% sales tax in addition to any applicable municipal taxes