inoxcrom ID fountain pen & unknown inoxcrom mechanical pencil, 0.5mm.
Two pens that fall in the something different for the day category.
inoxcrom was founded in Barcelona by Manuel Vaqué Ferrandis in 1953. The company produced general office supplies, with a healthy focus on cost-price. They grew out to be one of the leading brands in that sector, globally producing about 150 million units annually; with 70% of it foreign market turnover.
After Vaqué’s death in 2003, the company entered into insolvency in 2009. Ownership has since changed a few times over.
I can’t speak much to '21st century inoxcrom, but they did have a broad catalog of affordable & mid-class office writing instruments in the 80s and 90s. A lot of it also a matter of personal taste.
In 1993 they launched the ID model as a fountain and ballpoint pen pair. Its design broke with the previous style of the brand, and maybe somewhat unsurprisingly: had Germany as a target market. It stayed part of the inoxcrom catalog until 1998.
The body is a stainless steel tube, with a threaded plastic screw-off cap, revealing a clean steel feather. It came with and fits universal cartridges. It was produced in a variety of different plastic color details, including corporate advertising.
It’s also a featured example of Spanish industrial design at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Barcelona: ID | Museu del Disseny de Barcelona
If that speaks to anyone: these are not really expensive vintage models to pick up I believe, just a bit harder to find online. They were very well engineered and built durably. So anything with shipping under $50 is good deal.
I’ve never seen this particular inoxcrom model though. Most of their mechanical pencils are 1:1 paired to a ballpoint pen; no production date or whichever market it was released in. They do feel cheap, and are definitely not made to last, but they exist.
The only reference I have is a Spanish retail platform, with a listing at 10E :
They were apparently produced in a bunch of different colors as well:
