Hi, long time no see. Did you miss me? 😉
If you did, here I am and unfortunatelly February is with me too. February – another winter month. Years are passing by but I still hate snow and cold like in previous millenium. I can tell you – men don’t change at all. Generally, I like everything but winter!
The question for today is “how could I improve my (not so happy) winter mood”? Spending a week in Dubai? Sure 🙂 but a week, is only a week. What about the rest of the season? Do I have to survive till the end of winter with memories only? Are there any other options? Perhaps I should lock myself in a room with TV set and tasty food to watch summer movies only? Noooo, before summer begun, I would start to look like a sumo wrestler.
Maybe I should consider the simpliest option ever? A warm and sunny fountain pen and … it must differ from all other pens I already have in my pen cases.
Sounds ok, let’s try this.
So:
Warm – means for sure not a metal pen.
Sunny – rather light colours, not black one.
Different – in other case I could take out just any pen from my pouch.
And let’s add fourth option – money wise.
And … here it is.
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Pen is called Bamboo Fountain Pen.
I have asked a question, which you can find in photo below, on Instagram before writing this text and I was really surprised with answers I received. The answers you will see if you successfully reach the end of this review 😉
Could it be a perfect winter writer and improve my mood as well? I have to check it.
What you see first is nice packaging with an outside cartoon box and cool presentation case with engraved logo and ‘Dryden Designs’ name inside. Really impressive, premium packaging. Looks far more expensive than it really is.
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Of course, except for the boxes, there are also: fountain pen, certificate of authenticity (with instruction and coupon “back-again” for 10% off) plus converter.
You only need bottle of ink (or a cartridge) to start writing.
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Today’s pen is a little bit different than I am usually using. First of all it is made from bamboo. Sounds exciting? It is a matter of individual taste, for me yes. Due to material it is quite light 26,2 grams with fully loaded converter.
Weight and narrow feed diameter makes this pen perfect for smaller hands and long writing. With one remark, there is a big gap between barrel and section where diameter is dropping from 12,5 mm to 8,7 mm, the feeling depends on how you hold the pen. When holding it higher on the section, the gap is more noticeable. But if you hold in lower or middle part of the section, after some time you can get used to it and the gap becomes unnoticeable.
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Other dimensions:
Length closed – 146 mm
Length open – 124 mm
And this is how these measurements look in practice.
Size comparison
Because it is made from natural material, each pen is different from another one and you can find natural imperfections in the form of light roughness on both finials or minimal flaws on the cap and barrel. It does not interfere with everyday use and may even add some charm to it, so that it could be treated more as patina than defect.
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Another quality issue is the not very accurate fitting of elements noticeable with mounting of the rings, you can feel them under your fingers.
It is really nice in touch, warm and delicate. This is what I really would want not only for a winter pen.
The pen has gold-plated accents in the forms of wide center band, trim ring, clip, ring at the end of grip and closing ring on the barrel. It’s again a matter of individual taste if they suit natural bamboo.
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Don’t be misled by a single D engraved on a center band which looks like D from S.T. Dupont logo but it stands for Dryden – name of the founder of ‘Dryden Designs’ Michael Dryden, calligraphist and fountain pen geek. Maybe I should write a little more about the company, because it is not so well known in fountain pen community yet, although it has been present on the market for 3 years. They have offices based out in Albany, New York and a small design team in London. They are also a reseller of Jinhao pens and a few products connected with calligraphy and writing. They have 3 strict criteria for their products: aesthetics, functionality and affordability. We will come back to this issue a little bit later.
Some of pens, from their offer, are designed in London and assembled by hand by their team from different parts sourced from Germany or Hong Kong in London or in China. This could be a little tricky to fully understand it, but is it important in everyday usage?
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Now it’s time to go and check in real life. How it is writing?
Steel nib is marked as Genius Iridium Germany and writes wet and very smoothly with a little whisper. It gives a juicy medium line which I really like!
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
The only thing that worries me, is why they put into practice famous Henry Ford’s comment “any nib size so long as it is M”.
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Yorkies are checking writing sample
Yorkie judges accepted nib performance as well.
Pen is light, well balanced, so even long writing is not a problem.
Bamboo Fountain Pen
You can write with cap unposted or posted depends on your individual preferations but posting requires some strenght to do it, due to cap construction the cap does not sit very firmly on at that end. On the other end the cap slides into barrel with loud click and keeps your nib tightly and secure like in a bunker.
For sure this pen is worth each cent spend on it, far more reliable and functional than metal one, from photo below and a lot more cheaper, than the black and gold one from the same photo.
Size comparison
What I can say – it is a very good writer, not only for the winter time. I am using it for ca. a month almost every day, during that time I did not notice any skipping, hard starts or any other potential problems as well.
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Clip is fully functional and there is nothing to worry that the pen will fall out of the pocket.
I think that Bamboo fountain pen fulfills all 3 company’s criteria. Functionality (desribed above), affordabillity (you can buy this pen for ca. 30 USD) and aesthetics (individual issue).
Finally, it could be my winter mood improver, which is not afraid of any external conditions.
Bamboo Fountain Pen
Maybe I’m a grouch, but I’m still missing something. For me this pen could be a “Eco statement” (eco – material, eco – price) for the owner but that is my personal opinion, slightly “damaged image” by gold plated elements. So now I hope that Dryden Designs will issue a Special Eco Edition Bamboo Fountain Pen without those quasi luxurious elements. No clip, no center band, no rings. Wow! Just imagine a pure form of a bamboo. Eventually from practical point of view, there could be a small stopper, but it might interferre with a simple eco design. Anything else? Presentation case is rather big, so it eventually could take two instruments … 😉
If you found this pen interesting, you can check their shop and blog here.
Finally it is time to show you how my question was answered on IG.
Now how do you think, could this review affect the results presented above?
When I need to improve my winter mood… Hi, long time no see. Did you miss me? 😉 If you did, here I am and unfortunatelly February is with me too.















