OK fellas, I’m about to dork out here… Hold your giggles until the end. See, I’ve gotten a few emails asking about the pens I carry. Typical of me, I like to carry durable stuff that is made to last. Also typical of me, I don’t like to spend a ton of dough. The ideal pen for me is most likely the traditional Fisher Space Pen, but I’ve always been ran off by the $60 price tag. What’s a cheap bastard to do?
So by studying the contents of a man’s pockets, what details can you learn about him? Can a man be defined by the gear he wears and carries? We “picked-the-pockets” of several New Yorkers (regardless of political party affiliation) and took a look at the details of their existence to answer the key question: what are the objects you simply cannot do without? We found the bangles, baubles, trinkets and final flourishes of their dress were unmistakable expressions of their craft, uniqueness, eccentricity, faith, sentimentality and humor…
A Time To Get, one of my favorite blogs, recently ran a little article with some great photography of new and vintage multi-tools. Nothing really new here, but it is fun to see such ho-hum objects portrayed more as art.
I can’t read Japanese, so your guess is as good as mine on the details of these little buggers… I will, however, say that these things are pretty damn cool to stare at…
A single entrepreneur or a group of like minded folks get together with a glow in their eye and manufacture something that makes the world just a little bit better simply because passion drove them to do so. You can tell these companies by the detail in their work. It goes into their marketing. It goes into their packaging. It goes into their product. They beat customer expectations in every thing they do not because they see profitability in it, but because their work is that personal to them. I know, it sounds like a load of bullshit… But it does happen.
I found this hugely inspirational… Some stationary expert with a blog posts his EDC pack out. It features a ton of hand made niceties and a vintage slant. Gorgeous work and it all looks very usable.
For details on everything, see his Flickr page.
I typically don’t get into these kinds of key tools, but this one has potential – not so much because of it’s utility, but because it is so small that it will get the hell out of your way when you aren’t using it… So maybe, you’ll carry for longer than a couple of weeks. It’s cheap as hell too.
These pens were done on a government contract and apparently there was some left-over stock. CountyComm got a hold of them and is letting them go for about $50 a pop. Sounds expensive, but that price is actually pretty good for what ya get. It’s an all stainless steel body stuffed with the same SPR4 pressurized Fisher ink refill that the Space Pen uses. It’s about 5.25″ long with a diameter of .50″.
You can get more details here.
