Friday, January 2, 2015

The Deccan Steel Cap Masterpiece – a 2014 year-end model from Deccan Pens, Hyderabad

Wish you all a Happy New Year 2015 ... 


An unscheduled visit to Deccan Pens, Secunderabad branch, to buy some stationery items, yielded a big surprise on the last day of 2014 … and a new pen for the new year…

I was visiting Deccan Pens after a long long time and Zubair was very effusive in his welcome and before I could ask for things I wanted to buy, he asked me if I had seen their latest model and if Wasimbhai at Abids branch had shown me their latest creation … I said no and told him that I had visited their Abids branch a couple of months ago and Wasimbhai hadn’t spoken about a new model … he then took out this fountain pen from inside the steel cupboard and showed it to me … it was their very sturdy and very popular Masterpiece model, and this one was with a steel cap … ‘pure’ stainless steel, Zubair said … the first thing I noticed was the clip … most of the times, the clips on Deccan pens are straightforward … I can remember only the clip on Author being slightly ornamental … the clip on this pen was ever so slightly ornamental at the top and also curves down ending in a kind of teardrop …

I opened the pen and the cap felt very heavy … really heavy … I had my  Deccan brushed Masterpiece in my pocket and when I compared the weights of the caps just by holding each cap in either palm, I could sense the heaviness …

The pen is a green and black combination with steel on the cap adding the ‘steel’ … the pen looks sturdy and the cap is very well done … the green is actually military green and my personal opinion is that steel goes well with green … I had always admired the green steel capped Advocate more than the brown steel capped one, but somehow that Advocate is not in my collection … the black, military green, and steel makes a very pleasing combination for me … and as you can see, the nib is a regular large one found in Deccan Masterpiece fountain pens …

Posting the cap makes it heavy at the barrel end and therefore one has to hold the section more firmly than usual while writing … it would be better to use the pen unposted … and since the pen was inked for testing, I tried writing and as expected, the flow is even and the nib smooth … and Zubair said he has taken the pen out after two weeks and I wrote with it and no starting trouble at all … I have seen this amazing feature myself with my Deccan pens and it is one of the outstanding features of Deccan pens and found in very few Indian ebonite pens … I am pleased that this quality continues in this pen too …


As of now, this is the only piece that was made … a sort of prototype model … and Zubair gave it to me for the time being … here are some pics of this new model circa 2014 … 









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