Fountain Pen Shop on Sloane St: Smythson's Two Silver Pens

Smythson keeps exactly two fountain pens in its range, and both are solid silver: the Fountain Pen at £1,050 and the Grand Fountain Pen at £1,395. You can see them at 141-142 Sloane Street, London SW1X 9AY, which opens Monday to Saturday from 10am to 6pm and on Sunday from 11am to 5pm. This is not a fountain pen shop in the sense of a wall of Japanese demonstrators. It is a stationer that treats one heavy pen as the finishing piece for paper, diaries and engraved cards.

Frank Smythson opened his first boutique on Bond Street in 1887, according to the company's own history page. In 1908 he produced what Smythson describes as the world's first portable diary, and that small leather book is still the product most visitors walk in for. The pens came much later and sit beside the diaries rather than above them, which tells you how the shop sees writing: paper first, instrument second.

The Royal Warrants explain the formality you feel on arrival. Smythson received its first warrant from Queen Elizabeth II in 1964, and the history page says that in 2024 it was one of only seven companies granted a Royal Warrant by the King and Queen in the first round of their reign. In 2026 the brand opened a new Midtown New York flagship, which the same page calls home to its only bespoke stationery salon outside London.

The writing instruments page lists a short family of solid silver pens with ballpoint, rollerball and fountain versions. The Ambassador Ballpoint Pen is £395, the Rollerball Pen £650 and the Grand Rollerball Pen £1,195. The fountain pens are the regular Fountain Pen at £1,050 and the larger Grand Fountain Pen at £1,395. That is the whole nib selection. Collectors hoping to compare a dozen gold nibs will be disappointed within a minute.

What the narrow case gives you instead is time with each pen. Ask to hold both sizes side by side, because the difference in length and weight between the standard and the Grand is the real choice here. Silver warms quickly in the hand and shows fingerprints, so a cotton cloth in your bag is worth having if you plan to compare several pieces. Bring the paper you actually write on, or ask for a sheet of the house writing paper to test on.

The store page lists two services at Sloane Street: the Bespoke Stationery Salon and gold stamping. The salon is where correspondence cards, writing paper and wedding stationery are designed with an engraved die, and it is the reason serious letter writers come to this address rather than the concessions in Selfridges or Harrods. A fountain pen bought here usually ends up paired with personalised paper ordered on the same visit.

Gold stamping is the quicker service and the one most shoppers use. Initials go onto a diary, a notebook or a leather case, and the store email, sloanestreet@smythson.com, is the simplest way to ask about timings before a gift deadline. If you are buying a pen as a present, consider stamping the recipient's initials on a matching diary instead of engraving the silver, so the pen can still be passed on later.

Weekday mornings just after the 10am opening are the calmest time. Sloane Street fills with shoppers from late morning on Saturday, and the Sunday window from 11am to 5pm is short enough that the afternoon gets busy. The silver pens are kept in a display case, so plan to ask for help rather than browse alone, and say whether you write letters, journal pages or signatures, because that decides between the two sizes.

Many visitors come for the diaries, the correspondence cards or a gift with initials, and the pens are a secondary purchase for most of them, so looking without buying is normal. If you are after ink, cartridges or a pen under £100, though, skip the trip, because the range simply does not go there, and the website lists nothing in that bracket.

For a genuine fountain pen shop with steel and gold nibs you can try, Papersmiths has a branch at 170 Pavilion Road, SW1X 0AW, a few minutes east of Sloane Street behind the main shopping strip. Its website lists a Kaweco Sport at £28 and bottles of Royal Blue ink at £10, so it is the obvious next stop if the Smythson case feels too narrow or you want a cheaper everyday pen to sit beside a silver one.

Further afield, Choosing Keeping at 21 Tower Street, WC2H 9NS, in Seven Dials is London's strongest independent counter for Japanese fountain pens and inks. Pair a Smythson notebook with a pen from there and you get the best of both: English paper and a nib chosen from a wide tray. Knightsbridge and Leicester Square, the nearest station to Tower Street, are on the same Piccadilly line, so the trip needs no change.

Leave the shop, turn south and you reach Sloane Square in a few minutes. The Saatchi Gallery at Duke of York's HQ, King's Road, SW3 4RY, is a short walk west along King's Road, and its ground floor galleries are a good way to spend half an hour after shopping. Peter Jones, the department store that fills one side of Sloane Square, is useful if you need a card or wrapping paper before handing over a gift.

If you are heading to a concert, Cadogan Hall at 5 Sloane Terrace, SW1X 9DQ, sits just east of the square in a former church building. Walking north instead takes you along the full length of Sloane Street towards Knightsbridge station, past fashion houses and the private Cadogan Place gardens. It is a pleasant route on a dry afternoon and ends at Harrods, which also has a Smythson concession on its lower ground floor.

Address: 141-142 Sloane Street, London SW1X 9AY. Hours: Monday 10am to 6pm, Tuesday 10am to 6pm, Wednesday 10am to 6pm, Thursday 10am to 6pm, Friday 10am to 6pm, Saturday 10am to 6pm and Sunday 11am to 5pm. Services listed for this store are the Bespoke Stationery Salon and gold stamping.

Prices from the Smythson website: Fountain Pen £1,050, Grand Fountain Pen £1,395, Rollerball Pen £650, Grand Rollerball Pen £1,195 and Ambassador Ballpoint Pen £395. Sloane Square station on the District and Circle lines is the nearest Tube stop, and Knightsbridge on the Piccadilly line is the alternative from the north. Ask the Karpo APP for a route that links this shop with Pavilion Road and King's Road in one afternoon.