Description
New Artwork for a New Year, Back to Shire Post Mint for Stamping.
Some things change, and some things stay the same. Let’s get the things staying the same out of the way, so we can get on with the new stuff! Ishmael Salleh, our intrepid artiste, is back with some brand new artwork (but that’s for the next part). And that’s about it for the “things that stay the same”.
The CHANGES! The artwork is brand new for the both the front and the back. Ishmael and I collaborated on a variety of ideas and motifs, and being the master he is, the finished product is vastly better than anything I imagined. If you’ve followed along with our Vertex box lid artwork, we’ve done a lot of nautical and cartographic themed lids. The decision to use city maps for our Pen Show special releases was a joint venture between Ishmael and I, and they all look great. We landed on a centerpiece for the coin in a modified compass rose, with our KK logo in the center. This part is raised on the “heads” side of the coin around which is a take on our famous “Dozens of Satisfied Customers” in latin Duodecim ex Satiata Emptor”, not an exact translation more of a slang translation but it works. The internal relief portion of the coin is a nod to our business, that of machinery and machining. It can be hard to translate the elements of machining into a visual representation, ultimately we landed on the use of gears, fasteners, and what most would consider “steampunk” visuals to represent machinery as a whole. On the “tails” side of the coin, we’ve chosen our standard border with the company information: Karas Pen Company and Mesa, AZ along with the year of the 2024 in Roman numerals. The interior of the coin is an hourglass motif with stylized nibs on both sides of the hourglass (you know we had to put some writing elements on this coin). The hourglass has wings but they’re our KK logo in a new format, elongated and made just a bit more aerodynamic to show movement of the “how time flies” pun this image was drawn from; both in terms of our company (now 15 years old) and the Pen Club itself being six years old this year. Behind the hourglass is our homage to Arizona in the shape of a sunburst that is somewhat similar to the one on the state flag. You can see bits and pieces of it poking through and tying everything together.
We partnered with Shire Post Mint on this release to get these stamped because we really wanted every elements to show up nicely and that meant using traditional stamping/minting. We chose copper again, going back to the same material we used in year one of the club, and adding a nice heavy patina to the copper. This weathered look really goes well with the overall design of the coin. It’s a new look and representation of many elements that are key to our success as a company overall, and it looks super cool!
Club Members will still have early access to select small-batch, special release, and limited editions. Other benefits include Pen Club Exclusive pens; items only available to Pen Club Members. These will be specially curated items in colors and/or materials not offered anywhere else, the will may also include club-specific marking and item numbering. The current Karas Pen Club year runs from January 2024 through December 2024.
Limited numbers of coins will be released.
