Bright: Sassafras Pen Case by Nock Co.

The future looks very bright for the pen case dream team of Brad Dowdy and Jeffey Bruckwicki. Brad, our beloved pen addict, and Jeffrey, a master tailor, partnered to form Nock Co., and just yesterday launched their line of made in the USA, great-looking and durable pen cases on Kickstarter. Within ONE HOUR, they’d reached their $5000 goal and have been steadily adding backers ever since. They’re excited! We’re excited! Heck, even my pens are excited!

Nock Co. Sassafras pen case

Brad sent along a prototype of their five-pen bi-fold case, the Sassafras, for me to use and review. All of their cases are made in the USA and feature 1000 denier Cordura exteriors and nylon pack cloth interiors which means that they’re tough, durable, and resistant to tears and scuffs. Along with all of that toughness, my case pops with the Mandarin/Mango color scheme. (Like Brad, I have a thing for orange, and this case scratches that orange itch perfectly.) It’s bright. You know, like the future of Nock Co. Yes, THAT bright.

The mango interior

The Sassafras model holds at least five pens, is lightly padded, and features inner flaps that cover the pen clips. Because of the flaps, when the case is folded, there’s no pen-to-pen contact, and no danger of a scratch or a nick or a ding. These guys know what they like and they know what they’re doing.

I’ve been carrying six pens in this case (I have a couple of Render K’s in one of the wide pockets), but if you’re strictly a “one pen per pocket” person, that’ll work, too. As someone who doesn’t like their pens knocking into each other (especially some of my easily scratched acrylic pens), I especially appreciate the individually stitched pockets. It’s like each pen has its own little sleeping bag.

And though this case isn’t specifically designed to hold a notebook, as some of their other offerings are, I’ve been tucking my doane paper notebook (also in a lovely orange color) inside for easy carrying. Works great.

Along with the Sassafras, Nock Co. is offering five additional models, one of which is sure to meet your pen and/or notebook carrying needs. Let’s take a look at the others (the following photos are courtesy of Nock Co.).

There’s the Chimneytop (small and medium), which is a zippered pen pouch.

The Maryapple, a two memo bi-fold:

The Lookout, a three pen holster:

The Hightower, a three + one bi-fold case:

And the Brasstown, a zippered roll case (very cool design!):

When the project launched, I quickly browsed their page and got a little panicky wondering which reward to choose, then noticed the ALL THE CASES option and had to go for it. This reward level gets you all seven cases, in your choice of the three color schemes, for a pledge of $75. That’s less than $11 per case— certainly a very reasonable price to pay for protecting my beloved pens.

When I think of the word “bright,” I usually think of bright colors, like my mandarin Sassafras case. But “bright” can also mean “intelligent and clever,” and “auspicious and promising,” and even “radiant with happiness.” Nock Co. is a bright company, and I mean that in every sense of the word.

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If you’d like to learn more about this project on Kickstarter, check it out HERE.

You can also follow Nock Co. at http://nockco.com/, as well as on Twitter (https://twitter.com/NockCo) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NockCo).

Protecting my Delrin Render K