What’s In Our Everyday Carry: May 2023

We’re always in search of new gear to make our lives — and yours! — just that little bit better. And for this month, we have four different offerings for you to consider adding to your everyday carry:

• The coolest marker pen/highlighter we’ve seen yet
• A short and ultra-smooth fountain pen that’s perfect for everyday carry
• A darned near indestructible USB-C charging cable
• And a minimalist wallet with a clever flip-out card holding design

We’ve been playing around with each of these for the past few months, and now we’re ready to share them with you. Read on to find out more.

Marksmith Titanium Marker Pen

There’s a huge range of high-quality, carefully designed EDC pens to choose from today. Heck, we’re going to be telling you about a really cool one from BigiDesign right after this. But until Marksmith’s Titanium Marker Pen, there wasn’t really an option for a well-built metal pen with multiple color and brush tip options — much less a highlighter!

That’s the gist of why we’re loving this pen lately. In addition to its handsome, durable, lightweight, and well-balanced titanium body, the Marksmith is compatible with a wide range of refill cartridges. That includes various colors, plenty of highlighter options, and chisel tips for all you artists out there. And if you’re more of an ultra-fine-tip pen guy, there’s even a pen conversion insert for the Marksmith as well.

So overall, the Marksmith is a thick and chunky pen that’s unlike anything we’ve seen before. We hope you find it just as cool as we do.

BigiDesign Fountain Pen

Our friends over at Big Idea Design just keep pumping out the hits, with new EDC accessory designs released all the time. Their latest addition to the lineup is a squat and pocketable Fountain Pen, designed specifically for minimalist everyday carry.

You can choose from six different colors/materials for Bigi’s Fountain Pen: Raw titanium, stonewashed titanium, black titanium, brass, copper, or zirconium. Each of these has their own unique look and feel, with titanium as the lightest and brass as the heaviest.

A deep pocket clip makes the Fountain Pen especially easy to carry in your pockets, and a smooth design means no sharp edges or threading to catch your fingers or fabric on. So if you like the fountain pen ink style, but don’t want to carry around a whole fountain pen case, this new pen from BigiDesign is just the thing.

Nomad Goods Kevlar USB-C Cable

After about the third time that you lose your USB cable to an accident — pets chewing through it, accidentally zipping it up in your backpack, or slamming one in your desk drawer — you’re going to want to invest in one of these Nomad Goods cables instead.

Kevlar, the same material used for bulletproof vests, is the star of the show for this charging cable. A double-braided Kevlar sleeve gives unprecedented protection and durability for the cable’s inner core, and metal alloy connector plugs further emphasize that strength. It’s a meter and a half long, and offers charging speeds up to 100 Watts. And when you’re done with it, an integrated cable tie keeps everything wrapped up nice and neat.

Is it overkill? Maybe. But we promise you’ll be thinking of it next time one of your USB cables turns up broken again.

Ekster Senate Minimalist Wallet

A new generation of minimalist wallets started to hit their stride about 10 years ago, with the introduction of metal shells and innovative card-carrying designs. Ekster added their own take on the minimalist metal wallet style in 2015, and they’ve only continued to refine their design over these past eight years.

The main draw here is the Ekster’s unique card-deployment system. You start by storing your cards neatly inside of a grippy, somewhat segmented interior; they fold away completely when not in use. But when you need to grab your driver’s license or credit card, you get to flip them out switchblade-style with the touch of a button at the bottom edge of the wallet. It’s a little clunky to describe, but very neat and fidgetable to use in person.

Ekster offers quite a few different styles that each iterate on their basic flip-out wallet design, but the Senate is probably the best looking of the bunch as it’s covered in a leather shell and decorated with a leather-tab cash strap.

What’s Next?

We’ve always got something in the works here at the Carry Lounge offices, so next month we’ll be back with another round of the best new EDC gear we can find. In the meantime, why not check out a few of our new releases and old favorites, like the Sling in waxed canvas or Cordura, or the ever-ready TacSac series?