Today, I’m glad to introduce you to the story of a newborn manufacturer of writing instruments, that has a solid background in the industry of pen-making. Founded in 2017, by the Matrone family, the brand I’m going to talk about is called Leonardo Officina Italiana and has over 45 years of experience in the field of writing instruments.
Maybe you ask yourself how it’s even possible. The answer is pretty simple, if you consider the roots of the two founders and their background, you’ll quickly understand. First of all, the two founders of Leonardo are Salvatore and Mariafrancesca Matrone. Together they’re carrying on the legacy of their father’s business. Now, for those who haven’t heard about Ciro Matrone yet, he is one of the founders of Delta – a worldwide famous italian pen-maker which, unfortunately, closed its doors some time ago. So, with the launch of Leonardo Officina Italiana, the Matrone family is going to take the family tradition in pen-making to another level combining years of experience with know-how and technology. The creative mind of the company is Salvatore, he is responsible for most of the interesting designs you see in Leonardo’s collections, while his sister, on the other hand, is taking care of marketing, sales and communication.
Everything that comes out of Leonardo’s factory is made in-house – which we think is a true sign of authenticity. From the design and production to the assembly process, everything is done in Caserta, Italy. As the co-founders claim, there is nothing outsourced. Leonardo is ensuring their highest quality standards by having highly skilled and internally trained employees. In terms of materials used to craft their writing instruments, Leonardo really stands out from the others. All of those high-quality materials such as celluloid, resins and ebonite make each pen looking and performing fantastic. To create such writing masterpieces takes a lot of time and there are tons of processes that have to be done to obtain a perfect result. Firstly, there comes a process of selection of the materials that are going to be transformed into barrels, caps, clips, etc.
Leonardo is using both machines and traditional pen-making tools, but most of the crafting processes are done completely by hand. Once the materials are cut in the right shape, there follows a special polishing procedure that provides the components with a perfect shining look. After each polishing process, someone inspects the parts to make sure that everything was properly done.
The nibs used on the Leonardo pens come from Bock and Jowo and are polished and engraved in-house by hand at Leonardo’s factory. To make sure that there’s no other micro dirt on the nibs, they are submerged in an ultrasonic bot and after that, they are ready for the following steps. Regarding the feeds, Leonardo is crafting them from ebonite bars which are known for their characteristics – ebonite feeds provide an increased performance of ink flow compared to the plastic ones, they can be more precisely fitted to a particular nib, which of course can lead to a better writing experience… The ebonite feeds are also cut in-house by the skilled craftsmen of the company.
The parts of each fountain pen are carefully connected and well-aligned, by hand and before leaving the factory, each writing instrument is tested and inspected very well by the company’s staff and Salvatore Matrone himself. Details like these show off that each writing instrument was born from passion… and passion, which is everything in this world of writing instruments, if you aim to achieve great results like Leonardo does.
image sources: web
Please link the producer in an article.