Guide to Pocket Pens

Most pens fit in your pocket. Pens aren’t usually huge things, they’d be a bit unwieldy to use. And most pockets are big enough to hold most pens. So why is there a category of pens known as ‘pocket pens’?

Most full-sized pens may fit in a pocket, but usually only sitting upright, which can be a bit awkward, where most pocket pens can drop lower into your pocket, being a bit less in the way. They’re usually either capped, or use a twist-action to retract, so they don’t get their tips pushed out if they get squashed in your pocket. And they’re usually made to be tough enough to stand up to life in a pocket, when they might have to share living space with keys or coins.

Maybe somewhat ironically, pocket pens often don’t have pocket clips. They’re usually intended to drop right inside your pocket, so clips are often either missing or optional. If you’re likely to want to use a clip, keep that in mind when you’re looking at pocket pens.

The other main consideration is just how small you want your pen to be. Some pens are smaller in the pocket than they are in your hand, usually by having most of the pen hide away inside the cap when it’s not in use. But you do want to make sure it’s not so small you can’t comfortably write with it, unless you’re looking for something for emergency use.

Some Recommendations

The Small

• Kaweco Sport - available in plastic and various metal bodies, at a good range of prices. The capped varieties hide in the cap, so they’re smaller in the pocket than when you’re using them.
• Lamy Pico - extendable, pops out when you extend the tip. A design so weird people may not even guess it’s a pen.

The Tiny

• Kaweco Liliput - a really tiny range of pens. Might be too small for some people, but quite comfortable to use for most, with the cap screwed onto the back of the barrel for writing. Only available in metal, maybe one of the tiniest pens that are still practical and usable.
• Graf von Faber-Castell Pocket Pen (and pencil). A tiny bit of luxury. Beautifully shiny and platinum plated, so you might want to take a bit more care with it than with most pocket pens!

The Really Tiny

• OHTO Minimo - a pen so small it’s barely bigger than the (very small) refill. Probably too small for the vast majority of people to write comfortably with, but it’s so small it might slot away in your wallet. If you just want to have a pen available when you’ve forgotten your pen, it might just save you. Mechanical pencil also available, with the same advantages and disadvantages.