In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “The Birth-Mark“, the protagonist, Aylmer, marries the beautiful Georgiana. She is perfect in every way except for a hand shaped birthmark on her face. (Body 10/personality 10/face 9.9). Aylmer obsesses over this one flaw and that ruins his perception of the rest of Georgiana.

That’s kind of how I feel about the Edison Mina Extended. It’s beautiful and elegant. It just has a scrawny neck and that ruins my perception of it.

The pen is the 2015 Limited Edition version of the Mina and is made from a gorgeous Denim Ebonite that won’t be available again for one year. Ebonite (hard rubber) is one of my favorite pen materials as it has a warmth to it that other pen materials don’t.

The pen is about 5.8 inches long when capped and 5.03 inches long when uncapped. This makes it slightly shorter than the regular Mina as, in order to add the production number to the finial, Edison Pens had to flatten the Mina’s normal rounded ends.

The Edison Mina Extended. You can see the production number and slightly flared end on the cap.

The pen is slightly flared at the ends which reminds me of the special pens expert Pen Spinners use (often in my class; long story). Edison also included a new style of nib, which, unfortunately, may be the cause of the fatal flaw. (Note: I’m terrible at pen spinning and have therefore never attempted to spin this pen, although the temptation is there…)

My biggest complaint, and it’s very close to being a deal breaker, is that to get the flare and the new nib style the pen is left with a surprisingly small section down near the nib. If I’m measuring it correctly it is only 8.4 millimeters, which is only 1 millimeter thicker than a woodcase pencil. As a result, I find myself holding it up by the threads.

Although the steel M nib is well tuned and writes well, the pen quickly worked its way into my “back up” pen case and out of the regular rotation.

In “The Birth-Mark” Aylmer’s obsession with Georgiana’s small flaw leads to tragedy. In this case it might lead to an early pen sale.

A close up of the Denim Ebonite.