GROUND.
A 14k gold nib on a black pen against the dark, its 14K stamp and scroll engraving catching the light, the tip running out of focus.

Ground to this pen.
Not stamped to a standard.

One pen. One nib size. Every tipping put to the wheel by one hand, to the pen it ships in, and written with before it leaves.

No. 1 · the only model
Nib
#6, 14k gold, 58.3 % fine
Tipping
Platinum-group alloy, hand-ground
Bench
Kelham Island, Sheffield

Six grinds, 0.25 mm to 0.9 mm · £245, the grind included · Order one

01 · The blank
Stamped
from sheet, one die
Tipped
one pellet, welded
Slit
one pass of a disc
Ground
by hand, to this pen

Stamped identical. Ground individual.

Every nib begins as a blank pressed from a sheet of 14k gold, the same die for every one. A pellet of hard alloy is welded to the point — still called iridium out of habit, though there has been no iridium in it for decades. A disc cuts the slit. Up to here the nib is a part like any other part, and one is as good as the next.

Then the tipping goes to a wheel, and to lapping film, and to paper. Its two faces are ground until they meet the sheet at the angle a hand will actually hold it. From that moment no two nibs are the same, and the letter on the box stops being a promise and starts being an estimate.

We don’t argue with that. We finish the job the die started, one nib at a time, and write with each one before it goes in a box.

A loose pile of stamped steel dip nibs on a white sheet, in black and white.
Off the press. Dip nibs, stamped by the thousand from one die — the same first step as ours, and not yet a pen.
02 · The variables
Measured
under a 10× loupe
Written
on 80 g/m² paper
Held to
± 0.05 mm of the box

Why two of the same pen write differently.

From one tray of factory mediums we measured lines of 0.52 mm and 0.71 mm. Both boxes said M.

  • Tipping shape

    The two ground faces decide the width and the sweet spot. Finished by machine in a batch, they land where they land.

  • Tine alignment

    Two tines a hair out of level scratch on one side and skip on the other. We set them under the loupe, not by feel.

  • Slit width

    Cut identical, eased by hand. Too tight starves the line; too open floods it.

  • Your angle

    Most hands hold a pen between 40° and 55° to the page. A nib ground for 50° drags at 40°. Tell us yours; we grind for it.

  • Paper and ink

    A wet ink on soft paper writes a size wider than the same nib on a hard sheet. Our widths are measured one way, and we say which.

A steel nib seen head-on: the slit running from the breather hole to the tipping, the tines either side of it.
The slit is a few hundredths of a millimetre wide at the hole and closed at the tip. It carries the ink; it does not decide the line. The ground faces either side of it do.
A hand writing a line of cursive with a fountain pen in low light, the nib and the wet ink catching what light there is.
What we do about it. Every nib is written with, by the person who ground it, before it leaves.
03 · The point
Contact
tipping only
Area
under 1 mm²

The tipping is the only part of the pen that ever touches the paper. It is the only part we don’t let a machine finish.

A steel nib filling the left of the frame against black: the slit, the breather hole and the ground ball of tipping at the point, in black and white.
The tipping. A pellet of hard alloy, welded on, then ground to a ball. Under a square millimetre of it touches the sheet.
04 · The grinds
Drawn at
10× · 1 mm = 10 px
Measured on
80 g/m², wet blue-black

Six grinds. Pick one; it’s in the price.

Each name below is set in the cut of type nearest the line it makes. The rules under it are the line itself at ten times: the down stroke, then the cross stroke.

  1. Round

    EF · F · M · B 0.4 · 0.5 · 0.6 · 0.8 mm

    Ground to a ball and polished until it forgets it was ever a pellet. The line is the same in every direction. Most people want this and don’t know it.

    M · 0.6 mm, every direction

  2. Stub

    Two widths 0.7 · 0.9 mm

    Flat across the writing edge, corners rounded. Down strokes take the full width; cross strokes take a third of it. Forgives a rolled wrist.

    0.9 mm down
    0.3 mm across

  3. Cursive italic

    Three widths 0.55 · 0.7 · 0.9 mm

    The stub with its corners left on, softened just enough not to catch. Sharper thick and thin, letters with real corners, less patience for rotation.

    0.7 mm down
    0.2 mm across

  4. Needlepoint

    One width 0.25 mm

    The smallest point that still carries ink. Finer than a 0.3 mm pencil on hard paper. You will hear it. For margins, ledgers and small hands.

    0.25 mm, every direction

  5. Left-foot oblique

    Two widths, 15° 0.6 · 0.8 mm

    Cut fifteen degrees off square for a hand that turns the pen inward. Ground to the angle you tell us, or the one we read off a page you send.

    0.8 mm down · 15°
    0.3 mm across

  6. Architect

    One width 0.6 mm across

    The italic turned through ninety degrees: thin down, broad across. Named for the hand that letters drawings. On block capitals nothing else comes close. No roman type writes this line; the rules do.

    0.25 mm down
    0.6 mm across
Read all six, and how to choose
05 · The test sheet
Written
before the box is closed
Posted
under the pen, in the box
Line
yours, if you send one

Every pen leaves with the page it was written on.

Figure-eights first, because they show a skip before a word does. Then the alphabet, upper and lower. Then the line you gave us, in the ink you told us you use, on the paper we say the widths are measured on. The sheet goes in the box under the pen.

If the sheet is wrong, the pen doesn’t ship. Usually it’s the first nib of the morning; that one goes back in the drawer and gets done again after lunch, when the hands have settled. I’d rather you got the second one.

A calligrapher's sampler sheet lettered by hand, each hand named beside it in French: anglaise, romaine, brush.
A specimen sheet. Every hand written out before the pen is trusted — the habit ours comes from.
A black pen with gold trim and its cap, lying across the open pages of a notebook on a black leather surface.
06 · The pen
Model
No. 1, the only one
Price
£245, grind included
Lead
three weeks at the moment

One pen. £245.

  • Barrel

    Brass, turned, under black lacquer. Cap band and clip gold-plated, and the clip is there so it stays where you put it.

  • Section

    Black lacquer over brass, a gold-plated ring at the nib. The lacquer will wear where your fingers sit; that is the pen telling you where you hold it.

  • Nib

    #6, 14k gold, ground to the grind you choose.The grind is the price, not an extra.

  • Fill

    Standard international cartridge, or the converter in the box.

  • Size

    141 mm capped · 28 g inked

  • Lead time

    Ground in the order paid. Three weeks at the moment.

Order one — £245 Choose a grind first