Chechen Burl & Sterling Silver Plate

Fountain Pen — Chechen Burl & Sterling Silver Plate

If the Amboyna burl pen is all warmth and amber fire, its Chechen sibling brings something altogether more dramatic to the table.

Chechen — sometimes called Caribbean rosewood — is a wood that doesn't do subtle. The barrel here glows with deep, saturated tones of rich burgundy and dark cherry, shot through with brooding darker streaks that give it a real depth and intensity. The figure is wild and unpredictable in the way only burl ever is, swirling and folding across the surface with that characteristic tight complexity that makes you want to keep turning the pen in your fingers just to see what's lurking around the other side. In certain light it's almost jewel-like — dark rubies and mahogany shifting against each other in a way that no two blanks ever quite replicate.

The sterling silver plate kit is the same beautifully crafted package as its Amboyna stablemate — lavishly engraved floral scrollwork on the decorative bands, a detailed silver clip panel running the length of the cap, and that gorgeous engraved medallion on the flat top, all framed with warm gold accents that sit just perfectly against the deep reddish tones of the wood. And the iridium-tipped gold nib — engraved, elegant and unmistakably serious — rounds off a pen that means proper business.

Two woods, one extraordinary kit, and a pair of pens that between them cover just about every mood going.