Best Writing Pens, February 2005

Westwood’s Flax Pen to Paper is an exquisite preserve for endangered species. We don’t just mean unrivaled writing instruments like Visconti Wall Street-edition pens, whose black-and-white shafts recall deco skyscrapers shimmering at midnight; Namiki fountain pens, with warblers and outcroppings of river rock hand-tooled by Japanese artisans; or red-lacquered S.T. Duponts. We’re also referring to the enthusiasm husband-and-wife proprietors Joan Flax and Philip Clark have for their inventory. Whether they’re caressing the solid gold nib of a $6,500 masterpiece or admiring the cleverness of a $33 Acme rollerball fashioned like an oversize no. 2 pencil, they reveal a passion and protective fervor that is nearly extinct in contemporary retail.