Neil’s Handmade Pens
Finished university pens made from blanks like these.
A Note from Neil:
Aggies! Longhorns! Bears! Horned Frogs! Buckeyes! I have lovely pens that I have made from woods collected from your college campuses. AND, I have a longer list of woods below – rare/historic/beautiful.
I make the pens as a fund-raiser for Serenity High in McKinney, the nation’s only public recovery high school. Each pen takes about two hours from start to finish. My own personal investment, on average, is about $60 per pen, but all of the pen sale prices (they vary) go to Serenity. I keep none of your payment.
Blanks cut to size and ready to turn.
A sampling of one type of pen (The Century Oak from Texas A&M).
I give a “pen pedigree” with each pen I sell. It explains the project in general, the wood from which the pen was made, the date, my signature and the pen’s serial number given at the time of sale.
• TAMU: The Century Oak (the tree that is most sacred to Aggies).
• UT: from the Battle Oaks (planted by Prof. Battle almost 100 years ago.
• Baylor: The Old Main Oak – I found one more piece of this wood, and when it’s gone, no more pens from the historic tree.
• TCU: live oak from the Amon Carter Stadium renovations.
• Ohio State: oak from a very old library cart at the Main Library. I bought the entire cart from Columbus Architectural Salvage.
Pen sales are subject to supplies on hand. If there is a specific pen that you need, Gretchen at my office handles those sales. She also handles all pens sold and shipped by mail. Reach her during business hours at (800) 752-4769 or gretchen@sperrygardens.com.
A sampling of the pens I normally have in stock.
In addition to the university woods above, here are the other pens I always try to keep on hand:
- The Treaty Oak in Austin
- Mahogany given to me in person by Byron Nelson from Mr. Nelson’s workshop
- Live oak from the grounds of The Alamo
- White oak molding from the Texas State Capitol
- Gov. James Hogg Pecan from grounds of Texas State Capitol
- Olive wood from Bethlehem
- Olive wood from Italy
- 200-year-old mahogany molding from Lloyd’s of London
- 50,000-year-old Ancient Kauri from New Zealand
- Fiddleback koa from Mt. Haleakala on Maui
- 1,500-year-old Irish sinker oak from loch (Currently out of stock.)
- Goose Island oak (oldest tree in Texas)
- Figured Texas mesquite
- National Champion honey mesquite (from Texas)
- Cottonwood burl from McKinney
- Spalted hackberry from McKinney
- Redwood burl from California Tall Trees
- Rosewood burl (Honduras and Brazil)
- Amboyna burl (Viet Nam)
- Box elder burl, both natural and dyed
- And other fabulous woods in more limited supplies