Magna Carta Trilly Review: A Fountain Pen You Wear Around Your Neck

Introduction

The Magna Carta Trilly is easily one of the more unusual fountain pens to cross our desk. It is a fountain pen on a necklace, which makes it both a writing instrument and a fashion statement, and by a wide margin the smallest pen in this category we have spent time with. Despite its minuscule size, it still carries a 14 karat gold nib, and that alone makes it worth a closer look, even for readers who would never consider buying one.

What Makes the Trilly Different

The pen is a partnership between the Indian brand Magna Carta and the Italian artist Letizia Jacopini, who also runs the 10pen blog. It comes in three versions: Neverland, Fairy Bloom, and Pixie Dust. Ours is the Neverland, a small resin pen permanently attached to a necklace chain.

The chain is not heavy-duty jewelry. It is not silver or gold, but it does have a tactile grooved texture and smaller and larger circular beads made from the same resin as the pen. The necklace is fairly long, so the pen hangs relatively deep on the chest. Because the cap cannot be removed from the chain, everyday use means unscrewing the cap from the barrel rather than taking the necklace off.

The resin itself is genuinely attractive, the kind of material that would look just as good on a full-size pen. The cap is straight with a rounded step down to the barrel, which angles up, tapers back down, and ends flat at both ends. The cap twists off in a little over one rotation.

The Tiny Gold Nib and Ebonite Feed

Under the cap sits an extremely small custom in-house nib, roughly the size of what you might call a number one nib. It carries the Magna Carta logo plus “14 karat” and “585” markings, and it is available in fine, medium, and broad. Beneath it is an ebonite feed, a sensible choice for a nib this small and this custom.

The section begins with a very small flare and angles up, with the cap threads sitting right at the end of the section. They are not sharp and barely visible through the material. The barrel is straight for about an inch and then tapers toward the end.

Eyedropper Filling Only

The Trilly is an eyedropper pen. The barrel is not even large enough to hold a cartridge, so filling is the only option. An O-ring seals the joint, and with it tightened down the pen felt secure enough to wear right next to clothing without leaking concerns. We filled ours with Cavacco’s Summer Purple, a nice dense purple ink, using a syringe for control. Just be careful not to overfill; the barrel holds very little.

How It Writes

This is not a pen for extended writing sessions. It is so short that it does not even reach the palm; you grip it in the crook of the hand or experiment to find your own angle. Writing becomes a small creative exercise, and it takes a while to figure out the grip that works for you. It is really meant for jotting down quick notes.

Once settled, the experience is genuinely interesting. The gold nib is not super smooth; it leans a bit feedbacky with some line variation. Ink flow sits on the lower side, and writing at a more vertical angle diminished the flow noticeably. At a lower, faster writing angle the feed kept up very well. Reverse writing barely managed anything. The nib markings were unclear, and what we assumed was a medium might actually be a fine; it certainly is not a broad.

Who This Pen Is For

The Trilly suits fountain pen enthusiasts who want something genuinely different, or anyone drawn to the idea of a wearable writing instrument. At approximately $250, you are buying more than a pen; it is closer to a wearable work of art. It does what it promises, looks interesting, and makes a statement, but buyers should be honest about how often they will actually write with something this small.

Things to Consider Before Buying

The chain is not premium jewelry, the nib writes with feedback and lower flow, and the grip requires patience to figure out. Eyedropper filling means a small capacity and careful filling. None of these are dealbreakers for the right buyer, but they are worth weighing against the price.

Conclusion

The Magna Carta Trilly is a fascinating niche product: a necklace fountain pen with a 14 karat gold nib and an ebonite feed, fun in short bursts and useless for long sessions. If a wearable pen with real writing hardware appeals to you, it is available from the Magna Carta site and a number of other retailers, and it remains one of the most distinctive pens we have encountered.