The America the Beautiful collection is the forty-second in the David Oscarson series. It was created for the Semiquincentennial, the 250th anniversary of the United States, and takes its title and imagery from Katharine Lee Bates' hymn, with its spacious skies, amber waves of grain and fruited plain.
A pen for an anniversary
Anniversaries have always been a part of the house's work, from its own fifteenth and twenty-fifth to the centenary of the Romanov abdication. America the Beautiful applies the same approach to a nation's birthday. Every detail honours the symbols, poetry and history of America's founding and its continued pursuit of liberty and unity.
The cap
The cap carries the American bald eagle, wings outstretched in high and low relief over the Star-Spangled Banner, beneath rays of light and a sunburst. The relief work gives the eagle real depth: its wings stand above the surface while the flag and the rays sit lower, under enamel.
The barrel
The barrel is designed as an elongated scroll of the Constitution of the United States, engraved with the opening words of the Preamble: "We the People." The Liberty Bell also adorns the scroll, a reminder of its inscription: "Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land unto All the Inhabitants thereof."
As with every David Oscarson design, the symbols are placed so that the pen reads as a story. Turn it slowly and you move from the eagle and the flag on the cap to the founding document and the bell on the barrel.
The craft
As with every Oscarson creation, the collection is crafted from solid sterling silver with multiple levels of guilloché engraving and kiln-fired hot enamel. The sunburst behind the eagle is a natural subject for guilloché: under translucent enamel its engraved rays seem to radiate light. Each colour is ground by hand, laid with a quill and fired at more than 1,000 °F, then filed and fired again until the enamel fills the engraving.
Six primary colour variations, each limited to 76 pieces, fountain pen and roller ball combined.
Why 76
David Oscarson edition sizes are chosen to mean something. For this collection the number is 76, in honour of 1776 and the founding of the nation. Each of the six colours is limited separately, and fountain pens and roller balls are counted together, so no colour will ever exceed 76 pieces.
Read with the eagle, the Constitution and the Liberty Bell, the number completes the story: the pen carries the founding year as well as its symbols, and makes a natural centrepiece for a collection built around American history.
Choosing a colour
The collection is offered in six colourways with sterling silver or gold vermeil trim. Each is available as a fountain pen, with an 18-karat gold nib made in Heidelberg in Fine, Medium or Broad, or as a roller ball. For collectors of American subjects, it sits naturally alongside the house's Lewis & Clark, Golden Spike and Spirit of St. Louis collections.
El Laguito Cigars is an authorized David Oscarson retailer in Canada. Contact us to confirm availability of a particular colour and style; every pen is genuine, individually numbered and shipped insured from Mississauga, Ontario.