In the realm of fountain pens, to mimic other brand’s successful design has long being a common practice for manufacturers, the Chinese pen makers may have enjoyed a unproportioned long era of making knockoffs. Even now, many of them are dedicated making the replicas, both vintage models or contemporary ones. But my main issue with them is less about referring successful designs, but more about their lack of intention to do more with the portfolio, to push the level of perfection and innovation higher.

Thus, unsurprisingly, when I was first encountered by the moonman M1 during my summer vacation last month, I was enamored.

The Product

The M1 is a pen recently launched by Shanghai Jingdian, one of the most famous professional Chinese pen sellers and designers on Taobao, under a new brand named moonman. It offers five different wood barrels to choose. The review unit here features a Tiger-wood barrel.

A New Balance

Obviously, without clip, without obtrusive trims, without ostentatious branding, this pen is a perfect and vigorous streamline.

The streamlined shape of a fountain pen, with both head and tail tapered, was first declared by Sheaffer with the Balance in the year 1928, a time when most of the fountain pens on the market was featuring a serious-looking flat top on both ends.

The Balance changed everything. From there, more and more sleek designs such as the Skyline from the Wahl-Eversharp, the 51 from the Parker, were inspired and realized. And by the time the Chinese pen makers got themselves together after the establishment of the PRC, the flat tops were no longer fashionable and to imitate the Parker 51s and Sheaffer Triumphs was the no-brainer. Thus, the streamlined design language ruled the domestic market in China for decades. Among them, you can spot every famous model, such as the Hero 616, 329, 331 and 100, or the Wing Sung 233, 237, and 612. When compare a 90s Hero 329 with a 30s Sheaffer Balance, as in the picture shown here, you can see a clear pattern of inheritance.

But isn’t it a little bit miserable if the Chinese pen makers are still enjoying producing the same products after 50+ years without significant achievement in refining the design? That’s why the tapered shape of this moonman M1 was so valuable and rare: it resonates a lot, but it is already in the next stage of innovation.

Opening the box, you may focus on the contradiction of two vastly different material in the first place: brass v.s. wood—fair enough—but when you pull it out from the slot inside the box, you may find it hard to ignore the shape of those two materials: they are both well curved in the end, making a friction-free torpedo shape. When I first pulled it out, I got quite a feeling of nostalgia build up in my mind.