Finally: a pen with a customizable butt

The Pineider Metropolis has broken the last barrier in pen design

Have you ever thought “this pen I’m using is good, but it’d be a lot better if I could put a little design on the butt finial?”

Of course! It is a universal human desire, born deep in the collective unconsciousness. It is as much a part of you as your shadow self. Something something another Carl Jung joke—you get it, you’re smart.

And you’re also in luck, because the Pineider Metropolis solves this exact problem! You can finally make the butt end of your pen look like whatever you want, as long as you want it to look like something printed on gray cardboard:

That screenshot is from this Goulet Pens video, which explains the “Custom Pen System” pretty well.

So, that’s how it works.

Here is my Metropolis:

I got this a couple years back when it was first released in a Truphae subscription box, and it does not have any of those little gray cardboard things on it. This is because I hated the “Custom Pen System” and threw it away pretty quickly. Maybe there would be a way to execute this idea that works for me, but gray cardboard is not it. It just makes the pen look sad.

And the thing is: I like the actual pen! It’s super lightweight! The color is fun! The clip is cool! It writes well! And I didn’t have anything made by Pineider, so I got to try out something made by famous Wolverine pen designer Dante Del Vecchio.¹

via this Forbes article, a picture that my wife and I discuss frequently

The Metropolis is also a nice intro to Pineider’s UltraResin, which is both a lightweight mother-of-pearl/resin blend and a good example of how the German manufacturers are generally better at marketing than the Italians.

Why? Because the Germans know that subtlety can be your friend here.

That is, Pineider calling this material UltraResin would be like if Lamy said the Lamy 2000 was made of SuperFiberglass or Lamyithium instead of Makrolon—all of those are made-up trade names, but one sounds less obviously made-up than the others.² And the most effective marketing tends to avoid screaming HEY DUMMY I AM MARKETING TO YOU AAHHH!!

But counterpoint: using the Metropolis got me to try out the more expensive Avatar UltraResin line, which is probably what the Metropolis was supposed to do—so who’s the marketing wizard now, eh?

Of course, not me. It is him:

i know it’s the same picture i just really love it

The Metropolis is trimmed in a copper-colored finish and has this fun Metropolis branding on the band that is Fritz Langy enough that you can be like “I too tried to watch that movie one time” since you definitely did not make it all the way to the end of a nineteen-hour silent film.³

The actual pen finial, unadorned by a gray cardboard circle, has a neat texture that I really like. You can stick one of the little clear domes that came with the Custom Pen System on it if you prefer a rounded bottom.

The grip has a very slight sandblasted finish about halfway up, which is odd (why half? and why the top half?) but it does the job of being pretty grippy.

And the nib works well! I put this nib in my Visconti Rembrandt sometimes because the Rembrandt’s (much cooler-looking) nib is a fine that writes like a broad and this one writes like a legit EuroF. The Metropolis’ nib also outperforms the one that came with my matte black Pineider Avatar, which is the subject of my forthcoming alt-country song I will get this matte black Pineider Avatar nib to work if it kills me (and right now it’s pretty close).

The clip is one of my favorite features; it’s a cruder version of the Avatar’s wraparound “feather” clip, but I like the Metropolis’ clip better as it doesn’t have that little notch at the top that can catch on stuff.

It’s very strong and satisfying to use.

In sum: I like this pen. For me, the Custom Pen System is a cringe distraction from what otherwise would have been a nice entry-level pen in the Pineider line—the customization thing makes me think they felt like the pen wouldn’t have worked without a gimmick, which makes this the Nekrogoblikon of pens.⁴

from their video, We Need a Gimmick

And the cringe is pretty powerful! If I hadn’t gotten it in a subscription box, it’d have been a fast “nope” just based on the packaging alone, which focuses A LOT on the customization gimmick. Indeed, my first reaction when opening my subscription box that month was “what? why? oh no I hate it,” but since I was stuck with it I ended up being pleasantly surprised.

I don’t think I was alone in this, which is why you can currently get this pen at a deep discount. If you want to see for yourself, this pen is on final sale for $29 at Colorado Pen; it debuted at around $86 retail per this rather positive Figboot review.⁵

1. This is such a great headshot. You know exactly what he does, he is lit with a little drama but not too much, and he has extended his iridium claws for battle so he looks fierce.

2. Like, I know Makrolon is a made-up trade name for fiberglass and polymer but it still makes my brain go ooooooh while my response to UltraResin is lol that’s fake. But this is a reason why I prefer Italian pens—I find their marketing to be more straightforward so I never feel like I’m going to be tricked into getting something I don’t want.

3. If anyone in the modern era has actually watched all of Metropolis—and I mean watched, not just read the plot summary on Wikipedia and then occasionally looked up from their phone to be like “oh, neat”—it would be someone who reads a niche pen blog. So if that’s you, you can comment down below on that and then I’ll be like “wowwww” while also secretly believing that you are a filthy liar. Also I know it’s not nineteen hours long but it feels like it and I am saying that as someone who spends hours practicing Spencerian handwriting from a spiral-bound instruction book.

4. A death metal band that has a dude who dresses up as a goblin; they have a single called “We Need A Gimmick.” 90% chance you will not like that song unless you are already a death metal fan, but you might like this one about a magic spider.

5. Since we have a lot of new readers: Colorado Pen is not sponsoring this. No one is sponsoring this. Any of this. This is just my collection of stuff. It feels like a pedantic self-own to mention that in every post so I’ll just let you know if that ever changes.