Edison Pen co. has 2 lines of pens they produce. 1 is a custom line where you just start with a shape and then browse through an immense array of different materials from stunning ebonite to bonkers acrylics. The other line is their production line which include a handfull of shapes in some amazingly looking materials which you can just go and pick up from your favourite reseller.
This one is part of the latter series of pens, so if you like the look of it you can just go out and get your own! But as stunning as this material is, I did take some warming up to it. I never understood these crazy materials since they looked a bit cheapish. But people always referred to the depth of the material but that just sounded a bit funny. But eventually my penny dropped when I got the chance to visit La Couronne Du Compte. In one of their displays they had a pair of these Colliers laying about and I couldn't keep my eyes of them, so naturally it ended up on my wishlist.
Now fastforward a few months to my birthday and I was the happy owner of my own Collier. At his moment of writing this review I've owned it for over a year, and I still manage to drown in the material and be amazed by the actual depth some parts really have!
Now onto the pen. This pen really strikes a pose since on the outside it is completely made out of this Persimmon Swirl acrylic. The only thing present on the outside is the stiff gold plated clip and the Edison Pen Co. Collier branding lazer engraved on the barrel. The engraving is not coloured in and due to the material doesn't really show up unless you're looking right at it. Shapewise the pen is rather unique. The bottom is more torpedo shape coming together into a point and the top of the cap has a subtle dome to it.
The cap screws of and then reveals even more of the same material on the section and a gorgeous #6 2 tone steel nib, mine is a medium. One thing I like is how, when you ink the pen from bottled ink, the ink immediatly rolls of the steel outside but it clings to the inside gold portion of the nib. So everytime you ink this up you get a really nice effect happening on the nib! And the nib-fun doens't stop there, when you put it to the paper you really notice how every nib leaving Edison gets tuned and tested in house. So it came out of the box well adjusted perfect tine allignment, no smoothing required. Just fill and go.
As all of the production line pens from edison, this is a cartridge convertor filled pen and it comes with a standard international convertor already installed into the pen. I've yet to have a problem with the ink flow using the convertor but I have encountered a slightly reduced flow when using a cartridge of Kaweco Sunrise orange. That being said, I've only ever used 1 cartridge in this pen so it's likely that it's the ink to blame rather than the pen. But as I'm not certain of the cause and I mostly use bottled ink I don't see this as a criticism towards the pen.
Size wise this looks to be pretty perfect. This is a larger pen and certainly dwarfs some pens in my collection (Sailor Professional Gear immediatly comes to mind). But it just perfectly fits in the hand. This pen has been designed so the cap can not be posted. But luckely it just feels right in hand. I have got oily hand syndrome and with that comes a lot of grip readjustment. But the section is shaped really well and keeps your grip locked in. But, if you like to hold your pen closer or further away from the nib it still is a rather short section and the threads, although not sharp, aren't the most comfortable place to hold the pen.
All in all I'm absolutely in love with this pen. I've owned it for nearly a year and the material still amazes me. The only thing that changes is the ink I put in it as it has not been left uninked for as long as I've got this pen!
I will enclude a small disclaimer. When I got this pen, the clip was really weak and completely snapped off. Immediatly contacted Edison pens and LCDC where the pen was bought and they were aware of the problem. In the reply Brian told me how they've used the same clip producer for 7 or 8 years and have never had any problem with them. They just seem to have gotten a bad batch. They sent replacement pens to their resellers to replace the affected pens (and I actually got lucky and got a nicer looking cap in the process).
