I’ve got a thing for wood, and I’ve got a big thing for cars. Combine the two, and you have one of my favorite car makers, Morgan. For those of you that don’t know, Morgan is a British car manufacturer that still makes their chassis out of wood. I visited the LA Pen Show this past weekend with the rest of the Velvetron crew, and imagine my surprise when I saw a man who makes pens out of discarded wood from the Morgan factory! That right pens, and not just pens, pen accessories and usb drives.

Maybe some of you out there are as obsessed with cars as I am. Don’t have $7,300 to spend on an Aston Martin couch? Well how about getting a piece of automobile paraphernalia that is not only classier, but unlike the couch, is actually made from discarded “car-parts”.

MacMinn Designs produces these fantastic looking pens from genuine English Ash straight from the Morgan factory in Malvern, England. This is essentially discarded wood that they have, that didn’t make it into any cars. The wood is then turned into pens, pencils, USB drives, letter openers, magnifying glasses, and cases by hand right here in LA by MacMinn Designs. The results are simply stunning office accessories that are intimately tied to a great auto manufacturer. They have a great pictorial on their website showing the pen making process.

Another big surprise to me was the price. You’d think that a hand made wood pen from wood sourced from the Morgan factory would be ungodly expensive. At the show, I ran into a few pens that were well north of $1k, and they did not have 1/2 the character of these pens. The standard Morgan pen will run you around $230, and comes with a really nice case. Sure you might be saying, jeez, $230 is sure a lot for just a pen. And yeah, your right, it’s not cheap. But when you compare that to other “nice” pens, I think it’s quite reasonable.

Below are some photos from the LA Pen Show. You can find more images and info at the companies website.

MacMinn Designs

Filed under: Art | Design, Cars | Transportation, Other — Santi @ 9:38 pm