No, this isn’t a duplicate post. I find the construction of the Dandelion pen so unique and interesting that I want to give it its own post.
Previous pens I’ve purchased from Cypress (formerly Mr. Cypress) have had a standard cartridge-converter construction (cap, section, and barrel). This Dandelion pen, however, is very different.
To start, the Dandelion does not have a section. Instead, you hold the pen by the barrel. As I tend to hold my pens close to the nib, it’s taking some time for me to get used to holding the pen further back. The lack of section also means that you’re dealing with a rather girthy pen — 15.2mm vs 11.2mm on my skull and crystal pen. For myself, it would be nice to have a narrowing near the cap to make the pen more comfortable to hold.
Next, we have the actual parts. Most cartridge-converter pens have 5 parts: cap, section, barrel, nib, and converter. The Dandelion, however, has 8.
And these aren’t just off-the-rack parts. Parts number 2 and 5 are customized for Cypress, with the logo and company name, respectively.
Something that isn’t made clear in the video is that you can rotate the part that the nib slides into (part number 2 in the photo above). This means you get to choose which part of the pen is facing up when you write. This is useful both to feature the part of the design that you like best and to adjust the position of the rollstop to whatever is most comfortable for you when writing. This is a really neat feature.
While not specific to the construction of the pen, I have to give the artist points for the placement of the design. While the concept art shows the design directly below the rollstop, the actual pen has them offset. The artist moved the design — or chose the placement of the rollstop, more likely — so as to have the dandelions facing up.
By that, I mean when the pen has rolled and is resting — with the rollstop to the right — the dandelions are facing up. This is a nice touch for people who store their pens lying down or rest pens on their desk when taking a break from writing.
I really appreciate the features of this pen. It’s a brilliant piece of design. However, because I have small hands, I’ll likely avoid purchasing this model again. If you have larger hands than me — I can still wear kids’ gloves — then you should be fine.
Attribution: In case it isn’t clear from the image captions, I’ve borrowed a couple of images from the Cypress Dandelion product page. The video is from the Cypress YouTube channel.
Thank you for reading until the end. What do you think of this pen model and its nifty features? Do you have one? Do you want one? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.
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