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Kim and Co. is an optician in the city of Calicut in the state of Kerala in India. The shop also sells pens. Their pen turner was Mr AC Ramachandran known fondly as ACR or simply Master to his students. Sadly, he passed away in Dec 2024. Link His pens were fundamentally well made plain eyedroppers. The hallmarks of his pens include triple start cap barrel threads, an in-situ machined air tight inner cap, heavily finned ebonite feeder to mitigate the effects of low ink volume link, inherently moderate ink capacity and depending on the size of the pen; ample proportions. Most of his pens had his signature wide spade clip installed. In addition to Kim and Co, ACR used to make pens for a few other shops in Calicut and Mangalore as well. Fortunately for the pen community, the legacy of ACR lives on. Two enthusiasts from Kerala; Saji S and Dr Sreekumar have trained under him and learnt his art of pen making. Saji is the owner of kiwipens located at Trivandrum and he still has some inventory of the pens turned by his master ACR. In mid May 2025, I contacted Saji using the email address on his website, enquiring reg the possibility of purchasing an ACR pen. The correspondence started. I finalised my preferred color in June 2025 and the pen was made ready and despatched to me in end of August 2025. I chose solid black color for the pen, BB point Kanpur writers nib and requested the original ACR feed. Saji was kind enough to agree and here are the results. The much anticipated package was extremely well packed for the journey. Opening it revealed a host of surprise gifts and a lovely handwritten note. In addition to the ACR pen, Saji sent me some samples of the multi-finned feeders that he had painstakingly developed with a machinist which required several iterations to perfect. He also sent me one of his early self made pens that he had turned using off cuts remaining after his master ACR had turned the pens. Saji’s pen has the same features found on his master’s pens including the triple start cap-barrel threads. The nib on this pen is a lovely OBB stub, I will cover this pen in another topic. Onto the main pen of this review: Saji buffs and polishes the pens made by ACR and his labour of love shines through. This ACR is easily the best finished ACR among the several that I own. Uncapped: The Saji tuned BB nib: The original ACR feed: The tell “tail”: The ample proportions that I was talking about, however I have some ACR pens with even thicker barrel walls: Saji has polished even the mouth of the section to a glossy shine. A feature previously seen only in P Prabhakar Chari garu’s Woodex creations amongst the Indian hand made pen makers: Some other jumbo pens from the Indian hand made pantheon: L-R: Woodex 63 Std, ACR jumbo, ACR flattop, Guider Zimbo. The dimensions of this ACR: Capped: 178mm Uncapped: 130(body)+ 23(nib) Cap dia max: 19.4mm Barrel dia max: 17.4 mm Section dia: 14 min -15 max. Saji has tuned the nib really well. It’s a wonderful writer. Thank you Saji. Reg cost, I paid INR 11,500/- in total which included the freight, nib option etc. Some older posts on KIM ACR pens: Link1 link2 I am really happy that I could add another Kim ACR to the flock. The superb finishing and nicely tuned nib with the original ACR feed are the highlights. Cheers Hari

The pens made by the late AC Ramachandran were noted for their generous proportions. However the proportions did change and evolve over the brief period from 2011 onwards when I started buying his pens and also placing some custom orders. In this post I will be covering three pens: Pen 1: An Early ACR Jumbo with 28mm stock nib Pen 2: A Later ACR Jumbo Pen 3: Stock Woodex 63 I have measured the outside diameter of the barrel mouth and the inside diameter of the barrel mouth. The difference between these two when halved, yields the barrel's wall thickness. The weak part of any section is its neck as there is very less material in this region. This region also sees a lot of stress as the tightening torque of the section acts on this weak region. The thickness of this wall is also important and is the half of difference of the neck OD from the section bore ID (6.35mm for Indian no 8, 35 and 40 nibs). The measurements are tabulated below: As we can see from the table, the early ACR had a thick barrel wall but a weak section neck wall. It’s a trade off. Increased barrel wall thickness will automatically yield a lowered thickness of the neck wall. The later ACR version has a good balance between the barrel wall and the neck wall. The Woodex 63 has nearly the same barrel wall thickness and section neck wall thickness as the later ACR Jumbo. So rather than indiscriminately increasing the barrel wall thickness, it’s more important to strike a fine balance which was done in the later ACR and the Woodex 63. Comparing the section neck wall thicknesses of the Kim ACR #1 and #2: The bore IDs in the above pic are nearly same. It’s an optical illusion that #2’s ID looks smaller. What role does the barrel wall thickness play? Read on here at this link. Cheers Hari

A C Ramachandran, popularly known among fountain pen enthusiasts as ACR or Kim ACR, passed away two days back (Dec 22). He was 84 years old and had been suffering from age-related illness for the last few months. ACR started his pen making life at a very early age of 16 and continued his pen journey until his 80s. ACR was one of the greatest pen makers of India. His handmade ebonite eyedropper fountain pens, using conventional lathe and hand tools, are known for its simple but elegant design, burp free writing, and build-like-tank features. In addition to making wonderful pens, ACR had special skills in repairing all sorts of pens. During the heydays of fountain pens in India he had repaired thousands of pens. ACR was a man with so many skills and talent. He was very knowledgeable in Ayurveda (the traditional Indian medicine), Jyothisham (the Indian Astrology), Tantra, Yantra & Mantra (the Indian Occult Science). He also had a great interest in Hypnotism and practiced it for long years in his earlier life. Over the last six decades ACR pens were sold all around the world, and sure he will live through his pens for ever in the minds of Indian pen lovers. RIP, the Great Master ACR!