Hasta La Ideas

Sketchers and writers, look around your desk: Could you never buy another pen? If your cup is filled with G2 rollerballs or disposable ballpoints, the answer is no. But some of us have “forever” pens where all we need to buy are the refills, and there’s something satisfying about that.

If you’re in the market for a forever pen, give Studio Neat’s Mark Two a look. Machined out of stainless steel and sleeved in Cerakote, it’s a handsome piece of industrial design that’s meant to last forever.

“Nothing extraneous. Mark Two was designed to be minimal and beautiful. There are no logos or excess ornamentation, and the seam on the body (to unscrew and replace the refill) is nearly completely hidden by a post-polishing process. The cerakote sleeve has a slightly textured, matte finish, and the body is polished and smooth.”

Capped, it’s just 88mm (3.5″) in length; posted, it becomes 130mm (5.1″) long.

You can order it with or without a clip. I’d want it with the clip, to prevent it from rolling off of a desk, but the smooth variant might be better for those who pants-pocket it.

For ink, the Mark Two ships with a Schmidt P8126 Mini refill, which features a 0.6mm tip. If you’re not a fan of Schmidt (and I’m not, see below), Studio Neat also offers a D1 Refill Adaptor that fits within the pen and will take any D1-style refill.

A nice tactile detail: When you cap it, “the body slides into the sleeve with a satisfying magnetic closure.”

The Mark Two comes in multiple colors.

Lastly, the pen comes with the Studio Neat Lifetime Guarantee: “A no asterisks, no strings attached approach to standing behind our products,” the firm writes. “Should anything need fixing in your Studio Neat product, we will repair or replace it, no questions asked. We are in it for the long haul, and are glad to have you along for the ride.”

The Mark Two runs $125 with the clip, $110 without.

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My gripe with Schmidt, for refill nerds:

My forever pen is a brass model designed by Karl Zahn and produced by Acme Studio. It takes a Schmidt 888-F (0.6mm tip) refill, and I’m surprised by how terrible they are: They start out blotchy, then gradually recede into an unpleasantly scratchy ink delivery that runs out quickly.

I write in a college-lined notebook daily, and on average found I was getting just 19 pages out of each Schmidt, with the last five or so pages delivered scratchily.

I subsequently switched to Pilot G2 refills. They deliver ink smoothly and consistently from start to finish, and on average I get 43 pages out of them. As a bonus the cartridges are transparent (the Schmidts are opaque) so there’s no guessing as to whether you’re empty or just jammed. Lastly, the G2 refills cost less than the Schmidts (about $1 vs. $1.40.)