Big Idea Design Chaves Base Line Bolt Action Pen

• Big Idea Design x Chaves
• Bolt action pen
• Signature Chaves Skull Clip
• Schmidt P900 refill

Two brands you recognise instantly by one detail. With Chaves it’s the skull clip, with Big Idea Design it’s the titanium and the mechanism. This collaboration brings both together in one pen, as a limited edition, in stonewashed or Black DLC.

Bolt action means: you push the bolt forward with your thumb, the refill comes out, and it makes a solid mechanical clack. The principle comes from the bolt-action rifle and has caught on in EDC because nothing deploys by accident — the bolt has to be walked through its track before the tip appears. So nothing happens in your pocket that you get to admire on the inside of your trousers afterwards.

The body is turned from solid titanium at 10,9 cm overall. Short enough for the notebook in your pouch, long enough that your hand doesn’t cramp while writing. The stonewashed finish absorbs new scratches instead of putting them on display, while the DLC version stays matt and deep black and disappears into a blacked-out setup. The deep carry clip can be reversed, which lefties will appreciate. And sitting on top of it is the Chaves skull clip.

About the story behind that skull: “chaves” is Portuguese for “keys”. The skull points to Golgotha, the place of the skull. Out of both came the skeleton key in the brand logo of Ramon Chaves, who started out as a custom maker and whose overbuilt folders are now among the best-known names in the EDC segment.

Big Idea Design, in turn, is based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was founded in 2009 by Chadwick Parker and Joe Huang and broke through on Kickstarter in 2011. Titanium has run through nearly everything they’ve made since, and every pen carries a lifetime warranty. The Base Line is their deliberately accessible series: the same build quality as the flagship models, but instead of the auto-adjusting collet that swallows hundreds of refill formats, it’s set up for the Parker standard. A Schmidt P900 comes fitted from the factory, and because Parker-style is so widespread you can switch to just about anything you’re used to. Ballpoint through gel.

Who’s it for? Anyone with a Chaves in their pocket who wants the matching pen. And anyone after a titanium pen that gets written with rather than sitting in a display case.