[Sold] Here Be Monsters painted fountain pen
R11,000
The seafarers of old believed that monsters and giant sea serpents lurked in the depths of the world’s oceans and that one was bound to encounter them if you sailed too far. Hence they marked the outer edges of their maps, Here Be Monsters. On this pen Hanna Farmer has imagined what these monsters might look like: a merman (sirens were originally though to be men with fish tails); mermaids who tried to lure ships on to the rocks with their captivating voices; the Kraken or giant octopus; sea dragons; and an albatross which (as told in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner) carried bad luck if you killed one.
Also on the subject of nautical superstitions, sailors believed that if you said the word pig, you were inviting the devil on board, and whistling was challenging the wind to bring up a storm, hence several British pubs (and an infamous South African one!) being named, The Pig and Whistle. On the cap Hanna has drawn a ghost ship, The Flying Dutchman, and on the barrel, a map showing the islands of Mindanao and Luzon in the Philippines, inhabited by a tikabalang, a half-man half-horse creature carrying a trident-like spear.
Hanna has also included a variety of tattoo icons favoured by sailors, each of which had a particular meaning, for example:
- Anchor – signified the sailor had crossed the Atlantic
- Swallow – tattooed for every 5 000 nautical miles sailed
- Nautical Star – ensures the sailor can find his way home
- Fully-rigged ship – showed the sailor had rounded Cape Horn
- Turtle – earned when the sailor had crossed the Equator
- Skull – mortality
- Shark – survivor.
This pen was made by us at Stanford Pen Studio, painted and zendoodled by Hanna then coated in a clear resin by ourselves and given its final shape, polished, and buffed. It has a bronze section ring, cap band and a logo medallion in the cap finial, and we have added a grip section in a custom-made bright blue with a pearlescent shimmer.
Each of our hand-painted fountain pens is a 1/1 original work of art, hence no-one else will ever own an identical pen.
Nib:
Available in Jowo #6 in polished steel. Please select Fine, Medium or Broad at the check-out.
The Jabulani model
SPECIFICATIONS
This is a gently curvaceous model, with a relatively wide girth of 16 mm (0,6″) narrowing to a 10,5 mm (0,4″) grip section. It has our logo on the finial, and the finial is ever-so-slightly rounded, rather than dead flat, which adds to the pen’s elegance.
Dimensions:
| mm | inches | |
| Total length (closed) | 148 | 5,8 |
| Length (pen only no cap) | 136 | 5,3 |
| Diameter at widest point (excl. cap) | 16 | 0,6 |
| Width of section at narrowest point | 10,5 | 0,4 |
| Section length | 25 | 10 |
| Cap thread | 14 | 0,5 |
The section can be made to fit either a Bock #6 or a Jowo #6 nib.
Refill type:
Standard international fountain pen converter (supplied) or ink cartridge.
SHIPPING
International shipping to your door via DHL Express is R350 and should take less than 10 days once despatched. Pens are securely packed.
Shipping within South Africa to your door is R60.
