Aurora
Pens and Ephemera

The marbled cobalt blue of the Aurora Optima is one of our favorite colors. We believe this to be the "Mare" version of the luxury pen. Italian for "the sea," these pens came in other colors representing various elements important to life on earth such as the sun and greenery. Our preowned pen is in excellent working order. You will love writing with its smooth 14k gold nib. It is listed as a fine-point nib, but it skews closer to the medium side of writing. Click the headline for close-ups. The pen itself only has light wear from use and looks gorgeous. The perennial problem with these pens is that the ink-view window never seems to get totally clean. We have flushed this pen many times with water, and there is always a trace of black ink that refuses to come all the way out. That ink is so diluted at this point that it shouldn't mess with your preferred ink that much. 12.7cm capped.

If you like a preowned luxury pen with nice girth and a smooth 1mm stub nib, you are going to love this Aurora Talentum fountain pen. Golden trim and a brick-red cap and barrel make a handsome combination. Only light wear can be seen on the pen. It is way more fun to focus on its dynamic 14k gold nib. Included with the pen is its Aurora converter. We believe these also take Parker converters and cartridges, in case you can't fine Aurora ones. 13.6cm capped.

Paying tribute to the 7 continents of Earth, Aurora created a special edition of luxury pens. This is the Aurora Afrika. Quite possibly new old stock, the white piston on this pen shows no trace of ink. In fact, this warm orangy brown pen with black swirls is almost entirely perfect. Click the headline for close ups. We don't see much, if any, wear. The only flaw we see is that the gold filling of the limited edition number has fallen out of the back of the cap. Yet, it is still easy to read the imprint that this is pen number 4309. There's a beauiful onyx on top of the cap. Marked under the 18k gold nib is an "M" for medium point. We have not written with this pen, in case it is, in deed, new old stock. Comes with original boxes and papers. Its bottle of ink is still sealed. Pen measures 12.9cm capped.

Matte orange is both attractive and rare in the Aurora Ipsilon line. Plus, there's the tactile bonus of a lightly textured finish. This set includes both the fountain pen and ballpoint. The fountain pen comes with an Aurora/Parker-style converter. You can also feed it both companies' ink cartridges. There's light wear and a light mark where the cap posts. You can see its steel nib is marked F for fine, but we find it writes closer to extra-fine with a little feedback. Writing is a simple click away with the ballpoint. You'll get it with a super smooth blue gel refill made by Parker.