Founded in 1925 by Armando Simoni, OMAS pens were notable for their beauty, the quality of their materials and the innovation and imagination bought to engineering. Simoni’s dictum was that “a pens should always make writing pleasurable”, and original pens fetch a premium on the vintage market. The family retained involvement with the company following Armando’s death in 1958 until 2000, when the Company was sold to Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy. Subsequently it was sold on to a Chinese company, Hengdell, in 2007. Other changes in ownership followed rapidly following a downturn in the Chinese luxury goods market until, in 2016, the company was placed into receivership, and the assets, including the brand name, sold.
OMAS was a treasure amongst Italian pen manufacturers, and its demise was regretted throughout the pen world.
The heirs to Simoni retain an interest in both the name and tradition. His daughter Rafaella and grandson Gianluca were both closely identified with the company, Gianluca having designed many of the special editions in the late 20th century.
Recently the family have regained rights to the coveted brand name OMAS for the European Union and a plan of extraordinary ambition and audaciousness is underway to relaunch OMAS manufacturing in Bologna, in the original premises. This is under the leadership of Gianluca Malaguti-Simoni, Armando’s grandson, who I met earlier this week in London.
The family have retained and have recovered recovered some of the original machines, the nib making tools, and Armando Simoni’s notebooks recording his work on perfecting the alloys and techniques that made the classic vintage OMAS nibs. There are stocks of spares for pre-2000 pens and, crucially, a limited stock of 1939 vintage nibs.
Gianluca intends to resume production of nibs to the exacting specifications laid down by his grandfather over 80 years ago. This includes the careful alloying of the gold and painstaking processing to produce a nib of unmatched responsiveness – a technical tour de force.
A workforce, including employees from the pre 2000 days has been recruited and a repair service for classic OMAS pens will be offered.
I described the plan as audacious and ambitious. It is clearly a massive undertaking, but my sense is that those involved have the technical and financial resources to succeed, as well as the determination. The prize is a revived OMAS made in Bologna, with the heritage of the Simoni family.
Finally, production of OMAS pens will resume in Bologna. To whet the appetite, a limited edition of 125 pens is in production, a classic Paragon design, manufactured in cotton resin (OMAS’s preferred material), but enhanced with a 0.3mm costing of titanium – another favoured material. Each will be fitted with one of the vintage 1939 nibs. It is exceptional.
It will be introduced on the 16th July via an online – details below. The pen will be ready in November. The downside is that it must be collected from Bologna – you will recall the new company cannot sell outside the EU. However, as a regular visitor I can strongly recommend a visit and if you don’t fancy it I might even be willing to pop over on your behalf!
Register for Wednesday’s presentation at https://www.omasbologna.com/ .