This is a Cross Townsend Garnet fountain pen.
Cross is a fountain pen brand by the A.T. Cross Company, and originates from the US, where it is probably one of the first companies making fine writing instruments in the country. Although it also makes other products, it is most well-known for its writing instruments.
Did you know that Cross has acquired Sheaffer last year from Bic? Now, I wonder what’s going to change between the two brands… Fortunately I have managed to celebrate Sheaffer’s Centennial when it was still Sheaffer (even though under Bic). Now let’s see what synergy the two fountain pen brands can come up with in the years to come!
The Cross Townsend range of pens has a variety of design and colours, but Garnet seems to be one of the discontinued colours as one cannot find it on the Cross website anymore. So I feel I am pretty lucky to be able to have a look at one before it is even going to be snatched up by another customer!
This pen is delightful to me mainly because of the colour. I tend to be attracted to red-blue-purple-orange colours easily, and this garnet colour of the Cross Townsend definitely caught my eye as I was browsing around at Fook Hing the other day. It has rhodium trims, and I tried imagining this garnet colour with gold trims… hmm… it probably doesn’t look as nice. There is a double ring design in the centre of the pen which can look nice to some and horrid to others because of the unequal thicknesses of the rings. The pen body overall is slightly tapered on the cap end, and flat on the other end.
Now for my famous close up shots! I love doing close up shots on pens. Here is the body of the Cross Townsend Garnet pen. It has rings carved into the pen body as the design of the pen. This gives the otherwise plain-looking body of the pen a nice touch to make it look more visually appealing.
Now another reason why I am featuring this today is that I have recently found out that some of the US presidents seem to like using Cross pens, the Townsend especially! A couple of notes online mentioned that presidents like Obama and Bush use Cross pens, and this forum thread on the Fountain Pen Network was also talking about it. I suppose the presidents may be using the rollerball or ballpoint versions, and being a fountain pen blog, I would definitely prefer to feature the fountain pens here!
Here is the nib close up, and it’s got beautiful curves engraved on it. Plus the fact that it is a two-toned nib, I am absolutely attracted to it. The Cross brand logo is also engraved with serifs, making it look classier too. Awesome nib! The only issue is that I didn’t get a chance to try this out myself, so that is why this article is falling under “#pendelight” instead of a normal review.
As this colour is no longer available, I’m not really sure where you can get it. But if you happen to fancy a black body fountain pen, here is one that you can get from Amazon.
Here’s a last photo of the Cross Townsend Garnet fountain pen for your delightful viewing pleasure:
I am the founder of this website.
Chemist by day, slacker by night, fanatic of stationery all the time.
I write with my left hand, but can also do the same with my right hand – it just won’t look very pretty.
