Before I dive into this post, I want to say I “discovered” these brands like Columbus “discovered” America. What I mean by “discoveries” is that I purchased from the below brands for the first time in 2023. That a brand is on this list doesn’t mean that I didn’t know it existed before 2023, although that’s true in a couple of cases. It means that the brand did not have any representation in my pen collection before 2023.
In an unsurprising reduction, I only purchased from seven new-to-me brands in 2023, down from the nine of 2022. It makes sense that with each year I’m in the pen world I will have less new-brand purchases, even more so when I buy less pens overall — more of that in a later post.
What is a surprise is that nearly half of them are mainstream brands. But, enough exposition, on with the plot! Per usual, let’s start with mainstream brands, then jump into the indie brands. FYI: The lists are in alphabetical order.
