Words on the Goods

Not even three weeks into the new year, Baron Fig has just announced its first limited edition (double!) release of 2018: The Lock & Key.

This matching Confidant notebook (Lock) and Squire pen (Key) turned some heads at home.

The Confidant notebook is a lovely forest green, featuring all the same Confidant features you’ve come to appreciate from Baron Fig. The limited edition Squire is a brass pen, for gosh’s sake!

Enough talk. Here’s what they look like.

I’ll simply repeat here what I said in my review of another limited edition Squire (still true):

The pen itself is smooth and weighted perfectly. The pen is just under an ounce (CORRECTION: this brass Squire is heavier) and feels slightly heavy after long periods of writing, but that’s nothing a little shake of the wrist won’t fix. For the daily note-taking and task-list-making I do, the weight feels just right.

For the price of the Squire ($65), one could purchase a really good fountain pen. But the rollerball offers really smooth ink flow. It nearly glides across the page—not quite like a fountain pen does, but it’s pleasant and easy to write with. It also fits nicely into a pocket.

Squire pens do lack a pen clip. There is no way to clip it to your pocket or any part of your clothing. Neither does Baron Fig make add-on pen clips. So the Squire really does need to go into a pants pocket, a satchel, or its own case or pen stand. Hopefully there will be clip options in the future.

How about the brass? It definitely smells brassy, and will make your hands do the same! But it will also (I suspect) develop a nice patina over time. And you can also tell people you’re writing with pure gold.

The notebook is yet another creative and fun entry into the Confidant line. Paper is fountain-pen friendly, I spotted stitching (which is good for longevity), and it lays flat well. There’s also a ribbon marker to keep your place.

But, wait, there’s more!

Baron Fig is diving right back into our new product releases, and we’re really excited to bring you our latest design, a Limited Edition Confidant notebook and Squire pen with an accompanying puzzle. There will be prizes for customers who take the time to solve the mystery.

I really wish I could give this away, but I’m not sure I have the solution right, and I don’t want to spoil it for you anyway. Let’s just say the puzzle is really fun to try to solve—the Squire gives you the key to 22/26 alphabet letters, and you have to figure out the other four. The puzzle itself is part of the notebook.

Okay, okay, I’ll give you a little hint—you’ll find all these letters on the pen case, but I took a Baron Fig Strategist notecard out and used the brass Squire pen to keep track of everything in one place. I suggest you do the same.

It took a family of five (all of which were excited to take a turn trying to crack the code) a good 30 minutes to come up with what we are at least fairly confident is the solution to the puzzle!

Here’s the product page for the Lock and Key. You can get the pen ($65) and notebook ($20) separately or together ($77).

 

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Thanks to Baron Fig for sending the Lock and Key so I could review them! This did not influence the objectivity of my review.