With Lunar New Year in full bloom, Yard-O-Led continues its long-running Zodiac series, having recently announced a collection honoring the Year of the Fire Horse. Over the past few months, craftsmen at the Birmingham-based workshop have individually hand-chased and hammered each of the 126 writing instruments, now ready to meet their future owners.
Perfectly capturing the vitality and untamed spirit of the zodiac symbol, Yard-O-Led renders a horse in full stride through a hand-chased pattern that stretches from the cap all the way to the barrel of the writing instrument. Its muscular form appears to dissolve into trailing flames, reinforcing a sense of motion.
Composed of countless individually chased lines, the horse is shaped entirely by hand – a technique deeply embedded in the brand’s DNA and carefully preserved by the British maker. While no official production time has been disclosed, the complexity of the chasing suggests that each pen demands many hours of meticulous work to complete.
A single red gemstone set into the clip – long associated with renewal and strength – flickers like an ember, lending the horse its fiery spirit. A closer look at the end of the barrel reveals a hammered surface, another signature technique of the brand, followed by a brass section at the end of the cap engraved with running horses and finished with black enamel inlay.
The collection is handcrafted in England from solid sterling silver and fitted with an 18-carat gold nib, available in fine, medium, or broad. According to the brand, the edition – limited to just 126 individually numbered pieces – is produced exclusively as a Grand Fountain Pen.
Priced at €1,847 – a figure that feels reasonable given the intricacy of the design, the limited run, and the occasion it marks – the new Yard-O-Led Year of the Fire Horse is likely to become a sought-after piece among collectors, with some already placing pre-orders.
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