Moleskine Light Metal Roller Pen

I love New York. The smells, the sounds, the spectacles, the luxury. I could have never dreamed of such a city.

My wife and I chose New York City as our honeymoon destination. Our hotel was a block from Columbus Circle, which meant I had to venture into the first Moleskine store in the United States. Obviously I couldn’t just look. I had to buy. And I came home with a pen I use every day.

The Moleskine Light Metal Roller Pen is the first high end[1] pen I have ever purchased. The pen came in a svelte box which could not duplicate the elegance of what was inside. The weight to the pen felt right in my hand and rolled perfectly on the Moleskine Cahier I bought alongside. The pen and paper were made for each other.

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I proceeded to work through three ink refills in the next four months, increasing the cost of my “super expensive” pen. I had been a fan of the 0.5mm line until my recent Amazon blunder — when the 0.7mm refill arrived, my mistake turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The 0.7mm refills yield a smoother roll and a more comfortable glide across the paper but can be blotchy at times. I don’t know if I’ll go back to the thinner line. Despite the friction of the 0.5mm and the spotty 0.7mm, I’ve been a happy writer.

My Light Metal Roller may be slightly defective, however. The pen’s lid has no sense of commitment to the rest of the pen’s body, meaning it has narrowly avoided losing its head countless times. I don’t know if this is representative of the entire product line but the lid’s ease of removal has caught me by surprise.

Removing an empty ink cartridge is simple and has taught me to value a specific pen. I choose not to haul the pen around everywhere I go as my prized honeymoon souvenir is safer on my desk than on the go.[2] When at my desk, putting pen to memo book creates a more intimate passage than jotting notes in my phone.

Despite its problems and its relative cost, the Moleskine Light Metal Roller introduced me to the world of stationery. I never fathomed the idea of wasting paper and ink when writing notes. Once I bought this pen, my thoughts changed. It may not be the best pen in the world [3], but it created a new respect for the written word and the tools which create them.

For this reason, and for the inevitable fact of it being a honeymoon souvenir[4], I keep the Moleskine Light Metal Roller Pen on my desk.

By high end, I mean greater than $5. I’m a Mennonite after all. ↩

That lid problem doesn’t help its cause either. ↩

Which I have bought, do enjoy, and will write about in the future. ↩

My wife will never let me forget. ↩

Moleskine Light Metal Roller Pen

Friday, Feb 14, 2014