Cross Store Opens on Brattle

Cross, the company that developed the ballpoint pen and the mechanical pencil, opened its first-ever retail store this weekend at Zero Brattle St.

The paper products and pen store, located between the Curious George bookstore and TeaLuxe, attracted around 1,500 customers on its first day in business Saturday, Assistant Manager Emily Dryden estimated.

“It was packed in here all day long,” said Store Director Brian Knowles, who along with the other three store employees was sporting a small pen on a string around his neck. “We were going to close at 8 and had to move it to 8:30.”

In addition to a back wall of pens, the small store also features an eclectic mix of products including $26 umbrellas, $2.50 black stone paper weights and $12 hand-made cards, in addition to more traditional journals, photo albums, magnets and pen pouches on simple metal and wood shelves.

In fact, it was the modern design of the store that attracted at least one customer yesterday.

“The layout attracted me. I love notebooks too,” said pre-frosh Morgan Haven-Tietze, who added that she thought the store was expensive.

The pens ranged in price from $25 to $450.

The opening of the Harvard Square shop marks an effort by the A.T. Cross Company, which was founded in 1846, to rejuvenate its image.

“This is not your grandfather’s Cross pen anymore,” Dryden said, pointing to a wall of colorful pens at the back of the store, that did, however, include classic Cross products.

Knowles said that two pens, a two-inch long bullet shaped “Metal Ion” gel pen and a red, black and yellow starred ballpoint pen called “Kimono” were designed exclusively for the store.

Dryden said that pen collectors had insisted on stopping by—before the store opened—to ask for pens that had not yet been released.

Nevertheless, Knowles said that the store’s target audience was a “younger” crowd. Dryden added that the store planned to market its pens as graduation gifts.

Cross sells several products that are also available at nearby Bob Slate Stationers and Black Ink. For example, Black Ink sells a metallic credit card case that is nearly identical to one sold at Cross. The case costs $5.95 at Black Ink and $12.00 at Cross. Bob Slate also has a Cross pen case at its Mass. Ave. location.

Employees at Black Ink and Bob Slate would not comment yesterday on whether the Cross opening would hurt their business, because they said they had not yet visited the Cross store.

Cross is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and from 12 to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.