pen 103: senator nautic rollerball

last night i had the chance to spend some time with one of my oldest friends, we got a table at denny's and did some concept work for a few animations that we are planning on creating over the next several months. it was nice to see him, he lives in england with his wife and child and we only get to see one another in person once a year if we are lucky. the reason i'm telling all of you this is that during our brainstorming session i noticed the pen he had brought. it was from his work, the company had bought lots of branded office supplies i guess and he wound up giving me this new pen so that i could talk about it here. thank you dan.

today's pen is the nautic rollerball, a pen made and or produced by: "SENATOR GmbH & Co. KGaA is one of the leading providers of individualised and personalised means of advertising on and around the desk. The assortment includes high quality writing instruments, drinking vessels as well as writing folders and accessories."

basically this is a company that makes those pens you see in doctors offices, mechanic shops, pizzerias, albeit here in the states this is a role that is usually filled by bic. these pens, well, some of these pens are actually well made and i was impressed not only by the materials used (it's a hefty pen) but the quality of it's performance.


as i mentioned, this pen is heavy, its made of metal and weighs enough that you could throw it at a window and it would break the glass and i can't say that about many of the pens that i've featured here. aside from the weight, this pen is sleek and has an appealing design, it looks sharp and even has a spring inside the body that acts as a suspension coil, or shock and allows for pressure variance with little effort on the users part. the pen had good flow, and a moderate to fair value range. the ink of this particular pen is blue, but it's a nice deep, dark blue. the pen doesn't skip or stutter, although it does need warming up sometimes to get it going and there is a little bit of bleed, both out and through, the pen tip, however,  is fine enough for some pretty good detail work and was a good choice for the crossword puzzle i did earlier.

i would say that this is a good pen, considering it was free, but to be honest, this is a good pen that i would have been okay with paying for as long as it was under the $10 mark. i doubt that may people here in the states are going to randomly come across one of these pens - then again, i did - and considering that i've never seen companies spring for the level of quality in a branded product i doubt that its likely you ever will. if you do, i would take it, hide it, and walk away with it as quickly and subtly as you can. this is a really, really, nice pen.










website:
www.senatorglobal.com

what they say:

rollerball,

barrel/fittings: metal, glossy chrome

cap/grip section: soft lacquer
safety-roller metal refill blue

1092 nautic rollerball
colour: black