No. 2 pen on parchment — The window — Iron Gall. The eraser stays pink.

No. 2

The eraser doesn't erase.

It's the pencil you learned to write with, made in gold. Fine nib, hexagonal barrel, a bubble-gum pink eraser at the top where the rubber used to be, except this one pulls off and caps the nib. The color you're writing in shows through a narrow window cut into one of the flats.

We kept the eraser because we liked what it stopped meaning. Nothing you write with this gets taken back. It gets released, which is the opposite thing.

A line of it is about a milligram, so the page is the dose. Fill one and you've done the same thing the marker does in three words — you just took the long way, which was always the better way.

150 mm, hexagonal · 0.8 mm fine nib · fine cartridge, 1.5 mL · ~500 verses, or ~48 fully written leaves · Fourteen cartridge colors · Housing hand-numbered, First Ink batch

Sharpest on The Assignment and The Daily. Small paper wants a small hand.

The housing alone

$28

Just the pen. It doesn't run out.

A cartridge alone

The Ladder

The Leaf

$28Choose an ink first.

Fine cartridge

The kit

$52Choose an ink first.

The pen and your first color.

Or take the set — a kit and a book together, from $58.