The market's thirst for multi-function everyday carry gear doesn't seem to be dying down. The latest evidence is the success of a Kickstarter campaign for a titanium pen with enough tricks onboard to make any James Bond wannabe happy.
2023 certainly saw its share of multitools hit the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform. There was a magnetic multitool that stores bits in its belly, a titanium capsule with an inbuilt kerosene lighter, a multitool that hides out in the handlebars of a bicycle, and a lot more. (To see all of our favorite multitools from 2023, check out our year-end wrap up on the topic.)
Now, another tool entering its final days on Kickstarter shows that the trend of multi-functionality in small form factors is far from ending in 2024. The Mantis Pen packs four different useful abilities into a titanium tube measuring just 3.7 inches long (94 mm) and weighing only 0.6 oz (18.1 g).
First there's a scalpel blade that nests inside one end of the tube. To use it, users simply unscrew it, flip it around, and screw it back in to turn the Mantis into its own version of an X-ACTO knife. The blades are replaceable with any number 11 scalpel blade so the cutting efficacy can be continuously renewed. When the blade is facing inside the tube, its other end features an opening that lets the whole pen be clipped to a keychain or worn like a necklace.
At the opposite end of the tube is another reversible bit. One side features a window breaker with a tungsten steel core, which could ostensibly also be used for self defense. Remove that, flip it around and screw it back in, and you expose the "eternal pen" which lets you write on pretty much any surface and even underwater. While 3 Peters, the company that makes the Mantis Pen, doesn't spell out exactly what this tip is made from, other similar writing implements usually consist of some type of metallic alloy.
Finally, when all the bits are screwed into the pen body, the tube itself is waterproof, which could make a good place to store small pills if you need to have some kind of emergency medication along with you.
Currently, the Mantis Pen has beat its initial goal of raising US$5000 nearly sixfold, standing at over $28,000 with 12 days left to go in the campaign as of writing. If you want to get in on the action, there are just a few early bird options remaining which will snag you the fully equipped pen for $39. After that, the price goes up to $45. As this is a crowdfunding campaign, all of the usual cautions apply.
You can see the Mantis in action in the following video.
Source: Kickstarter
