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Benu was founded in 2016 when Alex Semanin and Kate Dmitrieva got together to make pens and accessories “for those who prefer bold, bright colours and new designs that are playful, stylish and fun”. A quick look at their range looks very much like they have succeeded - their pens are definitely bold, bright and fun, with vivid colours, glitter and flakes of gold embedded in them.

They both had backgrounds in watches, jewellery and home decor, but making fountain pens was more appealing to them.

Fountain pen fans can be quite mixed - some really want pens with some long-term heritage about them, from companies that have been making them for many decades, or longer. But there’s always a place for the new and interesting. But only if it’s really good. Fortunately, Benu’s pens quickly proved to work well and reliably, using nibs made by respected maker JoWo, and with plenty of attention to detail in the design and manufacturing processes.

For us, it started with getting some samples to have a look at. And in what was a bit of an odd decision with hindsight, we decided not to sell them. The thing was, we all liked them, but we thought they were just too strange for our customers. You lot. Yes, we thought you’d find them too bright and colourful; too glittery; too different.

So we told Benu we weren’t going to stock them, and could we send the samples back to them? They said to keep them. So after a little while, we decided to let our staff have them. And they (well, we, I was there too, keenly grabbing!) loved them. In our next meeting, half the people attending were using a Benu pen, and enthusing about how nice they were.

That was the point where we realised our error. If we were all that keen on them, surely our customers weren’t that different to us? Maybe you’d want them too. So we told Benu we’d changed our minds, and got them on our site.

And it looks like we were right - they’ve been very popular. There’s nothing at all wrong with a pen being boring - they usually are, and that’s just fine. But that’s not what everyone wants. And Benu pens are very much not boring.

It’s not all been easy - Benu was originally based in Russia, so the invasion of Ukraine prevented them doing business with the rest of the world. Fortunately, they were able to leave the country, moving the company entirely to Yerevan, Armenia.

Their efforts seem to be paying off - the range of Benu pens keeps increasing, with more colours and finishes being dreamed up all the time. And they’re now also making quite a range of hand-painted pens, where every individual pen has the design carefully painted onto the barrel by their artists. They’ve even made a couple of these exclusive to us, as part of our birthday celebrations.

For this year’s birthday, they made beautiful hand-painted pens with celebratory fireworks and trees.

 

Benu pens are very much for people who want their pen to be noticed - but if that sounds like you, check out our selection of Benu pens here.

Retro 51 pens are quite retro in style. There’s a bit of a hint in the name, really. The name isn’t a hint to when they were founded, though, that was in 1990. The aim was always to make pens ‘like they used to’, with nostalgic styling and build quality.

And the pens from their early days, which you can see in their archive of old catalogues, were, well, nice enough. But, to be honest, they looked like many other pens. But that changed in 1997.

But let’s start with the basics - they were founded in Texas, to make special gifts, but the emphasis was on pens from the beginning. And they’re no longer under the same ownership, but for positive reasons. The founder retired in 2021, and the company is now run by a group of three fans of the brand, collectors of their pens. They arrived just in time for the 25th anniversary of the Tornado, in 2022. But now we’re getting ahead of ourselves - the Tornado?

The Tornado was the pen that really made them - a design that still had some of that retro charm, but with a design that was really something special. It’s hard to say quite what makes the Tornado so special, because the design is so simple - just tapering towards the tip, with a knurled twist-knob at the top to extend and retract the tip. But it is special, and nothing else looks quite like it.

For the first year or so, the Tornado just sat at the back of the catalogue, but it was picking up a wide range of new colours and finishes even then. By 1999, it was featured on the cover, claiming “This pen will blow you away!”

By 2007, the catalogues were more Tornado than anything else, featuring a wide range of different finishes. It’s a great design for this - most of the body of the pen can feature full colour designs, or the usual resin can be replaced with various metals. And with such a huge choice of styles, one pen design can suit many different people, and feel special to them all.

Retro 51 plays well with others, too. Many of the special and limited edition Tornado pens are produced in conjunction with other companies or charities, museums or art galleries, often raising money for good causes. They’ve made artistic and historic designs with the Smithsonian, honey bees with NW Honeybee Habitat Restoration, cats and dogs with rescue charities, an assortment of stamps with the USPS, and William Morris patterns with The Met.

And where something is outside their own area, they work with the right people - for fountain pens, they use JoWo nibs, and their pen cases are made by Rickshaw. Refills are by Schmidt, and most of the pens use their much-loved rollerball refills, for a super-smooth writing experience. If you prefer a ballpoint, though, they’re compatible with the huge range of G2 ‘Parker-style’ refills available.

So if you just want a nice pen, the Tornado has enough choice to make it special for you. If you want a rollerball and a pencil, you can get a matching pair of Tornados, or mix it up so you can tell them apart more easily. And you could even have a fountain pen, rollerball, ballpoint and mechanical pencil, all Tornado pens.

Back in the 1840s, Richard Cross, a jeweller from Birmingham, left the UK for Providence, Rhode Island, USA, where he founded the A.T. Cross Pencil Company in 1846. His company continued to hone their craft over five generations of the Cross family.

Their expansion into fountain pens began in 1876 with a ‘Stylographic’ pen, most similar to what would now be called a metal-tipped technical pen, but with a more smoothly rounded tip for writing. A tiny wire inside a tubular tip controls the ink flow, and the Cross design was very successful, and used by all workers in the US Post Office.

The company name came from Richard’s son, Alonzo Townsend Cross, whose name also lives on in the Cross Townsend range. It was Alonzo who sold the company to Walter Boss, their top salesperson, in 1915. With his keen mind for sales, Walter continued the company’s success, introducing the ballpoint pen to their range, and moving towards pens as ideal gifts.

For their 100th anniversary, in 1946, Cross introduced the Classic Century pencil, still one of their most popular designs. In the years since, they have added rollerballs with liquid and gel ink, brought back fountain pens, and added the option of fibre-tipped pens and refills, and now sell pens in over 100 countries. The Classic Century range was extended with more pen types to celebrate their 150th anniversary.

In recent years, Cross has also produced more special and limited edition pens, including Star Wars editions in collaboration with Disney. The Century II gave the Classic Century a wider body for more a more comfortable grip, and formed the basis for many special designs. The Tech range added stylus tips to some high quality multipens.

The Ion and Edge introduced interesting mechanisms to pull them out to extend the length of the pens while also extending the tip, making them both pocketable and fun to fiddle with.

The Selectip pens deserve a special mention too - rollerball pens, but with refills available as fibre-tip and super high-capacity ballpoints, so the same pen can write in different ways to suit the customer’s preference.

Cross pens are sometimes known as the ‘pen of presidents’, as they have been the writing instruments of choice for many US presidents and other world leaders, being used to sign many treaties and laws all over the world.

The Cross commitment to quality continues with extensive testing to ensure their pens are reliable, including drop tests and salt spray tests, to make sure they’re not only built to last, but they actually do last. And that quality is backed up by a lifetime mechanical warranty.

• Browse our range of Cross pens

I love POSCA!

I mean it... I really, really love UNI POSCA paint markers.

I have always had a love of drawing and painting. More recently dabbling in craft projects inspired by others, but I always find myself going back to drawing and painting.

I first discovered paint markers when working in a shop - you know, an actual shop, on the high street, with things on shelves, a counter with a till, where people came to buy things in exchange for cash and took them away with them in a bag with the shop's name on.....

…Anyway, we had these marvellous pens we could use to write on the windows to advertise our special offers. Which, after mastering the skill of writing back-to-front, became one of my favourite tasks.

Fast forward a few years and I came to work at Cult Pens and OH. MY. GOSH. A whole warehouse full of lovely stationery items and art supplies at my fingertips :) :) :)

One of the first products they allowed me to get my hands on were Uni's POSCA paint markers. They are filled with acrylic paint, in a variety of bold and bright colours. Also a great range of tip sizes. Big, wide tips for fantastic poster-style art works and the much finer PC-1M and PC-1MR for more detailed work and outlining. And outlining is the key - a strong neat outline really makes the colours stand out.

Level up and add a real pop to your art work by learning about shadows and high lights.

...and now the fun part - you are not limited to plain old flat paper. These pens work on almost any surface - wood, glass, plastic, metals, ceramics, fabric, stone, brick..... pretty much anything I can think of. I actively search for things to decorate - in my house, garden, charity shops, the recycling centre.....

Also, they are just as great for children as well as us big kids. A lot less messy than paint, easily washes off your skin (if you are inclined to get a little too hands-on) and easier to carry on the go than paints and all the necessary accessories.

You can download a handy size and colour guide here.

To make your amazing works of art permanent:

• Paper/Card: no action needed - POSCA pigment will be absorbed into the fibres, making it permanent.
• Textiles: iron on the reverse side.
• Terracotta: bake in the oven at 220°C for 45 minutes, then spray with clear varnish.
• Porcelain: bake in oven at 160°C for 45 minutes, optionally spray with clear varnish.
• Glass: bake in oven at 160°C for 45 minutes, then spray with clear varnish.
• Metal/wood/plastic: spray with clear varnish.

What are you waiting for? Get creating!

Oh! And don't forget, you can upload your awesome achievements to Instagram: #cultpenscreative #POSCA

Amy

Cult Pens Customer Service Team
Amateur artist
POSCA enthusiast

London Pen Show organisers told us this was the best attended show yet, with all exhibitor tables sold out long before the show. That didn’t come as a surprise: we were non-stop from 9-4 and we never did manage to grab that coffee!

A quick look at the different types of digital pens and stylus pens - for when you want a nice pen, but you don't want to get ink all over your screen! Learn about the different types of stylus pens, and the types of devices they can be used on, from the super-simple finger replacements to styluses for art, with pressure and angle sensitivity.

EDC, or EveryDay Carry, is all about the things we all carry with us every day, and choosing the very best things for us. It doesn't have to be about luxury, it's more often about things that can stand up to plenty of use, and still work well and look good. Here, we look at some of the best fountain pens you can make part of your everyday carry.

It's very hard to pick a Top 10 when you have as many products as us. But we did it. No doubt there'll be disagreements. You can't please everybody. But we've given it our best shot. So... from the top...

1. Cult Pens Exclusive Sport Silver by Kaweco - subtle, silvery, semi-translucent
2. Cult Pens Christmas Crackers - bangin'!
3. SUCK UK Skull Desk Tidy - the best use for a skull we've found
4. BENU Santa Hand-Painted fountain pen - coming soon and very limited!
5. Sailor Dipton Hocoro Dip Pen Set - a fude nib to show off glitzy inks
6. Pilot 60th anniversary Capless - as innovative now as it ever was - now sold out! See the rest of the Pilot Capless range.
7. Derwent Inktense new colours - you can never have too many coloured pencils
8. POSCA set of 54 - versatile, mark-almost-anything markers
9. Caran d'Ache Keith Haring - subway art-inspired pens and pencils
10. Cult Pens Ink Subscription - get a monthly ink fix!

If those didn't seem to be quite what you're looking for, we have plenty more ideas in our full Gift Guide.

Yes, you can use pretty much any ink for calligraphy, just as you can use any pen. And if you just want to get started and try some calligraphy, that's the best thing to do - use whatever you have. But for the best results, it's worth getting the right ink for the job - some will be better than others for certain styles and certain pens. Here, Louise will help guide you through the world of inks for calligraphy.

Not the tastiest type of jam, to be honest. This little guide is taken from our more complete and detailed Guide to Mechanical Pencils, as a quicker answer to this common question, without so much to scroll through!

If you use mechanical pencils, at some point you're likely to have a lead jam. It happens. A tiny bit of lead gets stuck somewhere in the mechanism, and stops it from working. Lead might not click forward, or it might click forward but slide back in when you try to use the pencil.

Most mechanical pencils can be dismantled to some extent to clear a jam. Usually, the part near the tip unscrews, which lets you see the mechanism. If you then push the button down against your desk, the clutch mechanism pushes up. There's a brass ring around the clutch jaws, holding them shut - push it down, and it will release the jaws. Once they've sprung open a bit of sideways tapping should dislodge any tiny bits of lead.

If the mechanism can't be opened up, blockages can usually be cleared by holding the pencil tip-up, with the button held down against your desk, and feeding a cleaning pin in through the tip to push any little bits of lead out from where they're stuck. Some pencils include a cleaning pin, usually attached to the eraser, but many don't. If you don't have one to hand, another piece of thin wire or a pin may fit, but don't force anything too wide into the tip. At a push, a spare piece of lead can do the job, but it takes a steady hand to feed it in without snapping it!

With all that done, you should be up and running again. If you're having trouble with leads snapping or jamming your pencil, and you're using cheap lead, you might find better quality lead is worth it for the extra strength then can bring. See our full range here. We'd especially recommend Pentel Ain Stein leads as being very strong and smooth.

A fountain pen that doesn't have a cap? A retractable fountain pen? It's unusual now, so back in the 1960s when the Capless was launched, it must have seemed really outlandish; either a case of 'it'll never catch on' (just as TV was thought to be a flash in the pan) or perhaps an assault on tradition, a bit like the newly-coined words 'selfie' and 'defo' could be seen as detrimental to the English language.

When they arrived on the scene, their attention to design details made Ferris Wheel Press fountain pen inks an immediate hit. The beautifully round bottles, the intricate designs on the packaging, the inspiration from a combination of fairground rides and printing presses. People loved it all.

But what many have missed since then is that Ferris Wheel Press have turned that same eye for good design details to pens. They now make a small range of fountain pens and ink rollers, with the same quirkiness that so many people love in their inks.

Take the grip sections, for example. For most pens, the grip section is either plain, or maybe has some simple lines engraved into it to add some grip. Ferris Wheel Press have taken a different approach, reasoning that if there needs to be some sort of engraving done to improve the grip on that section, why not use grab the chance to make it look good too? Why just add some lines or a simple pattern when they can add a fancy and intricate custom pattern, inspired by vintage Underwood typewriters?

The fancy engraving doesn’t extend to the more basic plastic pens, but in pricing, these are competing with some of the most popular entry level pens from the big names like Lamy and Kaweco. And they make a very nice alternative for those who just want something a little more unusual.

As with most people, we mainly knew of Ferris Wheel Press for their inks, so we asked them what made them start making pens too. They told us: