Explained: a case for just one pen

plus: cryogenic sleep pod

lol who needs a case for ONE pen? I use a fountain pen because they write well, not because I’m some weird dork.

- you, a non-dork

Look, I get it. You are very cool, person who has a Substack account. You are probably reading this while sitting on your motorcycle, waiting for the traffic light to change so you can go check on the tattoo parlor you manage. You don’t have time to consider how to use what is basically a pocket protector because you are too busy yelling NERDS! at people leaving your local library.

But here’s the thing: you’re going to end up owning a bunch of one-pen cases anyway, because retailers and makers love giving them away; I have eight of these things and I have never purchased one. You might as well know what to do with them.

So, to help you out, here is a guide to the four main types of single-pen pen cases, including how and when to use each type.

Lil’ Floppies

The floppiest of all pen cases, these are sometimes marketed as pen robes or kimonos and they are basically a soft piece of fabric.

If you drop your pen or crush it in a briefcase or spill coffee on it, these will not protect your pen very much. They do basically nothing in terms of impact protection because, like, they’re a soft piece of fabric.

What they will do is let you carry a very nice pen in your pocket without either (1) having to be careful about putting your keys or other stuff in the same pocket or (2) looking like a dork who is fussy about his fancy little pen.

That’s because these are the most discreet of all options: you can fold it up and put it back in your pocket. They are the right thing to carry for those situations where you want to use a very nice pen while looking like you do not care that much about it while also actually caring a lot about it—client meetings, first dates, your brother’s lizard graduating from lizard college, that kind of thing.

Steves

Pen steves are exactly what they sound like: steves for your pen.

They are like lil’ floppies, but they generally offer a little more protection when you drop a pen on your garage floor like the moron you are. You can also put these in a briefcase or bag and the pen will generally be safe.

The tradeoffs are (1) you can’t fold them up to jam in a pocket and (2) they do not have a flap or otherwise close. As to the latter: if you are always using the same size pen in the case, that is probably fine; if you put a thinner pen in there after you’ve already stretched the thing out a bit, there’s a chance it’ll slip right out. A demonstration:

For example, say you are at jury duty and the security officer is like “what is this thing” and takes the case out of your briefcase, bottom first; your pen will fall straight down and stick in the rollers at the x-ray machine, which is a very specific but also very plausible thing that can happen (ASK ME HOW I KNOW).

For most day-to-day work and travel stuff, these work well. The lined versions (like the Esterbrook one) are especially nice for both protecting the finish of a nice pen and absorbing ink from a pen that has exploded in-flight.

+10 Suit of Leather Armor

These pen cases are a big step up from steves but not quite all the way to suits of iron or mithril armor. They offer +10 defense and can be used for very nice pens, depending on the finish and build.

The zipper kind is from Shibui and is very secure. It is perfect for when you really want to protect a pen and trust yourself to get the pen in and out of the case without scratching it on the zipper. I do not trust myself like that, but maybe you do.

The flappy one is by Diplomat and is the one that I use for my nicest pens. It is not as secure as a zipper but accomplishes its purpose of letting me keep my best pens out so I can actually use them while reducing the likelihood of me ruining them through clumsiness.

These are the right cases for that situation (have nice pen, don’t trust yourself), as well as day-to-day use when you are especially hard on your things. For example, while a steve is normally fine for briefcase use, you should use a +10 suit of leather armor when your briefcase also has a lot of sharp rocks in it because your other hobby is collecting sharp rocks you find on the road on the way to work.

Cryogenic Sleep Pod

Finally, we have the cryogenic sleep pod, by LAMY.

I got it with a LAMY LX. It holds one pen.

It does not fit in a pocket and will take up way too much room in your bag. There is no discreet way to use it in any social setting.

There are two core use cases for this. First, if you are taking a pen on an interstellar space journey, putting it in this metal stasis pod will make sure it arrives safe and sound.

Second: dominance. Have to attend a performance review meeting with your boss? Project dominance by waiting until they start talking, saying “hold on, I want to take notes,” taking this thing out, disassembling it, removing a BENU Parrot, saying “OK, continue,” and then not taking any notes.

No matter what your boss says after that, they’ll know: you’re the boss now.