Jamnagar’s luxury fountain pens write history

Vadodara: Luxury writing instruments are mostly identified with the west or far east, but this pen maker, hailing from Jamnagar, has made his mark among fountain pen enthusiasts across the globe.
Kanakhara family business has today crossed borders and even continents.
The Kanakharas used to make fountain pen parts like bands, rings and others two generations back. But today, they make exquisite fountain pens and even the heart and soul of these pens – nibs and feeds – all by themselves.
The family’s Magna Carta fountain pens can range between Rs 5,500 and Rs 51,000 and a desk set that is themed on the Ayodhya Ram Temple which includes a fountain pen with Lord Hanuman inscribed on it could cost as high as Rs 2.5 lakh.
Hiren Kanakhara, who came up with the idea of making fountain pens at his family-owned unit in Jamnagar, says that till 2004, the firm used to make only ball pens. “I had visited the Paperworld exhibition in Germany in 2005, when we had a fountain pen in our collection. But it was the only one we had made then,” said Kanakhara.
The unit was an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for manyf ountain pen brands and it was only in 2012 that Kanakhara started thinking of making fountain pens after a customer in the USA asked him to do so over dinner.
“We were making many ballpoint and roller pens, and exporting these to various countries and had OEM work on hand. It was a suggestion that got us thinking and we decided in 2013 that we will make only fountain pens and registered Magna Carta brand,” recounted Kanakhara.
In 2016, the brand displayed its first Magna Carta brand pen int he Los Angeles Pen Show. “Nobody believed that the pen was made in India. At this time, I also met a connoisseur who suggested that the brand should use ebonite feed instead of plastic ones. These feeds give a much better ink flow than plastic feeds,” said Kanakhara, adding that he made the first ebonite feed in 2018.
Kanakhara pointed out that despite making pens, the brand was still dependent on quality imported nibs and wanted to change this. He said that the country made around five lakh nibs till the 1990s including those used in leading brands. The end result was a unit making nibs in Mumbai.
Magna Carta today sells around 35 fountain pens a day. These include only six to seven pens in the country. A majority of pens are exported to the Europe, the USA among many other countries. A bulk of the sales are from the USA, where around 20 pens are exported every day.
The business, however, still remains a family affair. “We are passionate about it as a family. We come up with ideas, discuss them and implement them. Everyone has some responsibility in the business,” says Kanakhara.