Pentel Touch Sign Pen
Pentel came out with this really fun pen in 2011. Touch Sign Pen has an additional elastic core to allow the tip to write from thin line to thick line by applying pressure. It’s great for both character writing and brush lettering. The pen actually has a long history behind it. The predecessor is Sign Pen, which came out in 1963. The Sign Pen doesn’t have a flexible core, so in a glance, it might feel like a normal felt tip pen. But the felt tip is what makes Sign Pen special. Sign Pen was the first pen to use water ink (as opposed to oil based ink) with a felt tip. The oil based marker typically has a really thick core, which is not great for writing characters. Sign Pen is designed with special fiber to provide a finer point for the pen, which is more suitable for daily writing in Asia. However, after 8 years of trials and errors, the pen didn’t do that great in Japan, but somehow made its way to the president of USA at the time, Lyndon Johnson. The pen was also used in two NASA space missions in 1966, and was photographed inside the space suit arm pocket from the astronaut. After these two great stories, the Sign Pen gained a lot more recognitions, and today the pen still keeps it’s original design since almost 60 years ago.