CROSS SIGNATURE BLACK LACQUER FOUNTAIN PEN WITH 22K GOLD APPOINTMENTS #6006

Description

CROSS "Signature Classic Executive Series"
BLACK LACQUER FOUNTAIN PEN
(#6006)
"This Signature design features the understated elegance of black lacquer, created by a time-honored process of careful laying and polishing, with rich 22 karat gold electroplate accents.  All Signature writing instruments feature a clip design so advanced that it has been patented."
In 1987
The company's Irish-born Greg Rogers, vice-president of international marketing, along with it's German-born designer, Jens von Edler were emphatic that Cross needed a heavier, wider-diameter line for the overseas market.  An independent professional survey also informed Cross that it needed a higher-priced line (Signature was already designed), and a heavier, larger-diameter line (the Cross Townsend series, named after Alonzo Townsend Cross was on paper and ready to be made).  But a second domestic survey indicated that Americans wanted something more familiar and particularly representative of their culture, and a less dramatic departure from the thin Century line.  Manufacturing tooled up to produce the very beautiful medium-diameter series called Signature.
Begun in 1987, the distinctive Signature features included a newly patented pivotal clip, and a solid gold nib hand fitted to a new feed system, and black and burgundy lacquers applied on Cross brass shells by Swiss artisans.  A German firm supplied the front section and nib, and German craftsmen cut the decoratively engraved barleycorn or diamond-cut pattern on the gold pen and sent it back to Lincoln to be heavily gold electroplated.  Although parts of the series were made or executed abroad, the series' finishing and assembly was done at headquarters; it bore the "
Made in USA
" Stamp.
No expense was spared for this new adventure:
Signature is the most costly Cross product to date
!
Signature was released in October of 1987 to a limited number of the finer writing instruments retailers in the United States and Canada.  Priced then between 0 and 0 per instrument, it was aimed to capture the market share that Montblanc had established in the high-end category and further enhance Cross's position and prestige worldwide.
Made in the
U
.
S
.
A
.!
(From 1987-1990)
"CROSS"
with a lifetime mechanical warranty!
A collector's item, rare, no longer made.
These were from back when all their pens were being made in the USA