“Praise is like gold. It’s value relates to it’s scarcity…”
Samuel Johnson
I recently toured the Super Pit gold mine in Kalgoorlie. It is a hive of action and expanding massively in the near future. The driver is the escalating price of gold, which has made previously uneconomical seams of ore viable to mine for profit, Gold nibs have always been key to the definition of a high end fountain pen. The marketing has aways portrayed these nibs are smoother, better flowing, bouncy and more flexible. Pay good money for a pen and a gold nib is expected. The price of gold means that the fountain retail market is changing. Flagship gold nib pens seem to be doubling in price every six months or so. The message from pen brands is now about new nib design, technology and alloys that perform better than gold. The issue is whether the pen community is ready to embrace high end Japanese (Pilot, Sailor, Platinum) and German (Montblanc, Pelikan) pens with steel nibs, particularly without a substantial drop in cost. #allthatglitters #letsmakelemonade
Pen Paint and Scalpel 