Guide: the best clicky pens

plus: the scalding turquoise sands of my home world

While this blog is mostly about fountain pens, sometimes you need a clicky pen. For example, when you need to sign an important document with permanent ink. Or when you look at the clock in the conference room and realize oh wow this meeting is still going strong maybe if I count to 100 clicks Jeremy will be done talking about the Workday implementation and we can all go home oh no he’s still going ok maybe by the time I count to 200 nope still going ok maybe the sun will explode that’s fine too.

That is: sometimes you want to embrace the grace and elegance of a fountain pen, and sometimes you need to occupy your mind and hands and ears with literally anything other than the boring meeting you are in.

For that, there is the clicky pen.

But which one? There are so many! It is a real dilemma! To help you out, here is our guide to the three best clicky pens, listed by use case.

For silent clicking: Caran D’Ache 849

POV: you are a peon in a vast and unimaginably dull corporate behemoth, stuck languishing under Manager Gary who says that clicking a pen in a meeting is Not Professional.

And so, although clicking is an effective way to occupy your mind while sitting through Manager Gary’s painfully slow parsing of last month’s cart conversion rates so that you do not use the interminable silence to ruminate on where did it all go wrong, you have been forbidden to do so under penalty of having to sit through another rendition of Wendy From HR’s one-woman show entitled hey do you have a sec to chat about respect in the workplace.

prompt: playbill for a show entitled hey do you have a sec to chat about respect in the workplace

Enter the Caran D’Ache 849: the legendary Swiss ballpoint with a virtually silent click mechanism. It is the perfect companion for silent rebellion against the petty tyranny of Managers Gary the world over, allowing you to click as vigorously as your impotent rage demands without making a sound.

The pen is available in ballpoint and a capless rollerball that is way bigger for some reason that is unclear to me. They are both basically silent.

This matte green one I have was made of Nespresso capsules and I got it for free for buying a lot of Nespresso capsules.

The 849 has the classic shape of a Ticonderoga pencil, which is perfect for reminding yourself of childhood and the big dreams you had of being a famous archaeologist like Dr. Grant.

That said, unlike the Ticonderoga pencil the 849 starts at around $20 for a basic version, which is perfect for telling your childhood self that while no, you did not become a famous archaeologist, you do have $20 to blow on a pen and that’s more money than your dumb child brain can even comprehend SO THERE, and also dinosaurs are birds and Pluto is not a planet.

This pen comes with a proprietary “Goliath” cartridge. I don’t know if other cartridges are compatible because I’m still on the first one, so even if you do have to use a special cartridge (lame!) you can get hours and hours and hours of silent clicking utility out of a single refill (yay!).

You can buy these at basically every pen shop, but for some reason I want to say “European airport” as the best place to get one.

For dominance: Tactile Turn Bolt-Action

POV: you are Wendy From HR. You click a pen to exert your dominance in the true fashion of all corporate pit vipers: passive-aggressively. You know that Gary from Product Marketing has a thing about sound and take joy in knowing exactly how many times you can click your pen to drive him nuts while maintaining plausible deniability that you are doing it specifically to antagonize him.

Because, after all, he had not wanted to make you his nemesis, he certainly would not have replied all to your all-company email announcing cake in the break room for all-who-celebrate-their-birthdays-this-month-or-just-free-cake-if-you-do-not-celebrate-birthdays-we-are-an-inclusive-company-and-respect-all-beliefs-and-thank-you-Katie-for-educating-me-on-this-important-issue with the most humiliating response of all possible responses: UNSUBSCRIBE.

Jerk.

To utterly destroy him, though, the key is quality of click, not quantity. Each click must deliver the maximum amount of sonic aggravation to Gary, allowing you to shatter his train of thought while being able to credibly claim that you are simply clicking it a normal amount for someone who is concerned about pen dry-out.

Moreover, you want a pen that not only clicks loudly, but which is capable of drawing out the click. This means a simple push-button will not do; you need a mechanism that lets Gary visually see a click is coming so he can sit there in dread as he waits for the sound.

You need the Tactile Turn Bolt-Action pen.

This is a machined pen that comes in a variety of metals. The version shown here is copper, which is the preferred choice for corporate subterfuge; if challenged, you can claim that you need this material’s natural anti-microbial features for health reasons and be assured no one will check that because YOU KEEP THE PERSONNEL FILES.

The pen opens and closes with a bolt mechanism that is extremely fun to play with. It can be smoothly operated virtually silently:

Or it can be violently flicked open and closed with a commanding click that validates all of your life choices:

You will choose the latter.

The copper will be shiny once new, and you can maintain that through regular care if you wish. Alternatively, you can let it age into a nice matte patina as shown.

The Bolt-Action comes in a variety of sizes that range from “pocket size” to “self-defense baton.” Accordingly, they work with a wide variety of refills, including the popular G2. You can buy them directly from Tactile Turn and also from, I don’t know, you look it up—I bought mine at a pen show.

For opening the portal to return to your home dimension: Rotring Core

POV: you are Prince K’thzzrg, the exiled ruler of Lexon-12. You are handsome and strong, brimming with vigor and confidence earned from years of successful conquest and fair and just rule. Songs have been written about your wisdom and kindness, songs your people sing on every Midnalt Eve to commemorate your final victory over the Karacnoids. You miss the sweet voices of your people, and you sing their songs softly to yourself as you consider the means of escape you might use to return home.

And escape you must, escape from this strange realm where everything is beige and full of strange glowing screens and some weirdly fussy barbarians calling themselves Gary and Wendy keep insisting that you are a “software engineer” (some kind of elf profession, you presume) named “Kyle” (definitely an elf) who “tripped and fell” and “has a concussion.”

For you, there is the Rotring Core.

The Rotring Core ballpoint is the best option for when you must click a pen exactly 323,430 times, without a single missed click, in order to open the portal to return home. (Of course, this is assuming the invisible witch who gave you a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos in the break room was telling you the truth, but it’s your only lead so you might as well run with it.) The Core accomplishes this by having a truly gigantic button that is impossible to miss, rendering it the perfect pen for initiating esoteric space-time rituals.

Made of precious rubber and available in this limited-edition “blue”—a color never used before or again on anything ever—the Core ballpoint’s heavy-duty construction makes it well-suited for inter-dimensional travel. Also for throwing because mad.

The ginormibutton is made of metal, which means the pen is both significantly back-weighted and can absorb all the psychic energy necessary to create a rip in space-time.

I purchased this one from someone on the Pen Addict Slack for like $10 or $15. This was a good deal—it’s a lot sturdier than the fountain pen version and I carry this one around a lot even though it’s comically huge because it’s so satisfying to click and also because I long for the scalding turquoise sands of my home world. There are a lot of them available on eBay.