About Us

Our Mission:
Writing with a fountain pen is a truly unique experience. This is why fountain pens are so fun and so wonderful to write with, they simply reflect one's personality and style on the paper. Fountain pens also greatly improve the handwriting as they encourage you to experiment and they adapt to your style. Almost everything written with a fountain pen looks great! Many people claim to have "rediscovered writing", and once they use a good fountain pen, they never go back to anything else.

This is why we love fountain pens and fine writing! With everything we do, we hope to convey that feeling to you. When you receive a parcel from us, you will defiantly understand to what lengths we take our work; you will have difficulty believing you are holding a vintage pen, since it will look like brand new and the way is packed, is as you were buying a new tech gadget. We only sell the best pens, selected from thousands which never make it to be listed.

Just few decades ago, the fountain pen was the means by which people put their thoughts, work, communication and everything else on the paper, there were no computers, no smartphones, just a pen and paper. So those pens had to be special and well made, developed over centuries. Those are what we call today vintage pens, and in many respects they are far superior to today's pens, they simply amaze people of what writing truly can be. This is why we strive to bring the best pens to you, and give you that unique experience.

The fountain pen craft by the old manufacturers is somewhat lost, but this is why there are people like us and like you out there, to give pens new life, new appreciation... These writing instruments defy the modern age, they resist to go away, and the more the digital age imposes changes on us, the more we defy, we rebel, we resist. Pens and paper are one of those things that are here to stay for eternity, essential and natural as the spoon and the plate...

Our Vision:
We are living through our vision right now, this is why ProtoPens.com is unique. It's specialized, dedicated expert team vintage fountain pens store. We are also the only company in the world providing warranty on all vintage pens. That being said, we look ahead to a lot of new and exciting work, that is to bring as many as possible of the best vintage pens on the market, on the best possible prices via the ultimate buying experience and make as many as possible truly happy customers!

Meet our team here...

Our history:
I started ProtoPens (Known as UberPens until Dec. 2019) from my dorm room while I was student back in 2005, I was 23 years old. At that time it all started with a simple eBay store and a great passion for fine writing and the mechanical wonders of vintage pens. I always wanted to try out new vintage pens, but as a student, I could not afford them, thus I sold the pens I’ve enjoyed for a while, and bought new pens with the money I’ve earned. Soon I realized how many other people also share this passion and how many people are rediscovering this truly amazing and original writing with vintage fountain pens. So I made the decision to sell the best possible pens, in same condition and with the same service I myself would like buy.

As an engineer I payed extreme and even excessive amount of attention to detail both in cosmetic and functional condition of the items I sold. This lead to ProtoPens becoming TopRated and PowerSeller eBay store, with virtually the best feedback score among all eBay pen stores; 10 years straight with 1000 positive feedback comments and not a single negative feedback ever. I constantly challenged myself to improve the service and come up with new features.

Soon ProtoPens team grew with other passionate people and we started doing new and exiting things.

We hired a professional photographer and set up a studio exclusively for pen photography. We were so happy with the results! We’ve discovered and brought up the unique beauty of each pen unlike ever before. Everybody loved the photos and even printed the photos from the pens they've purchased. Some of the photos we made were even printed for showrooms and exhibited in galleries! The photos below of the Montblanc 149 pen were exhibited  in art gallery in Europe.

We also realized that the newcomers in the fine writing wanted some more information. This resulted in us buying tons of books and aside the knowledge we had, learning new things as much as we could and sharing that knowledge. We have even rediscovered some lost history and brought it back to light. Now customers could also know much more about their pen, the history of the company, the development of the pen, and share that info with their friends and family, they became experts as well.

 

 

 

In 2012 we decided to do a little bit of tinkering and try our engineering skills. We've noticed that some vintage pens could use some improvement. For example, the vintage Pelikan pens, models 120, 140 and some 400’s, which were in production since 1955 had plexiglas like material feeder ring, which could perform a bit better. Needless to say, Pelikan pens had always been and still are one of the best in the world! Since we take our pens to extreme, we decided to manufacture this small part and replace it on all Pelikan models that we had. We soon realized that manufacturing even the smallest part took enormous amount of research, experiments, trial and error and a lot of work. It took us a long time and effort but eventually we succeeded, and made a better performing vintage Pelikan feed ring.

 

 

In May 2014 we took a big step in to the unknown, we were the first ever vintage pen store in the world to offer a full 1 year warranty on all of our pens. We were so confident with the quality of the items we sold, and we wanted to convey that feeling to the buyers. Why not have a warranty on an item which we are confident it will perform flawlessly for years, decades and even more? So we did it! Since May 2014 we have sold hundreds of pens with a 1 year Warranty included. So how many Warranty claims did we had since May 2014? Not a single one! This furthermore proved that our attention to detail and perfect quality is really a win-win situation. This is why we intend to increase the warranty time to 3 and even 5 years in the future.

At the end of 2014, we decided to take ProtoPens outside eBay and develop our own website. We've launched this website in May 2015. We have big dreams for the future. We love pens and writing. But we are also a very driven team because we believe the fountain pen, and handwriting in general is making a big comeback into people's everyday life. The pen will become once again a very personal and valued accessory, dearly loved and carefully chosen as the smartphone. We want www.ProtoPens.com to become one of the best fine writing destinations in the world and help many more people rediscover fine writing.

By the end of 2019 we have changed our name to ProtoPens, Proto meaing the origin, the first, the original pens.

In 2020 we intend to increase our inventory by 10 fold, having at least 500 items at any given time in our store. Soon we will add a Education\Whiteboard Secion into our store where we will keep an ever growing database of open source knowladge, as well as hope to make some videos on pen repair and maintenance.

Our ultimate goal is to start manufacturing our own fountain pens. Some of the designs are already on the drawing board.

Much more to look forward to. So, here is to the past 10 years, the next 10 years and to You! We could not have done it without you!
Thank you all for your support.

Sincerely,
Dragan Chichikj 
co-Founder & CEO 
ProtoPens