Twelve slim cream barrels, each printed MICRO-TIP PEN with a large 05 after it, the colour carried on the cap and the end plug. Our photographs show every pen beside a written sample of its own ink, which is the clearest colour chart a set can have.

There is a number worth reading carefully, because two of them appear on the same pen. The large 05 is the series mark. The width printed beside it is 0.45mm. Listings — including the one this stock came from — round that to 0.5 mm, but the pen itself says 0.45, and where a pen and a listing disagree we quote the pen.

Twelve colours at one width is a set built for reading, not for drawing. It is the shape that suits a revision timetable, a mind map, a set of margin notes, a labelled biology diagram or a bullet journal — work where each colour has to mean something and none of them should look more important than the others. A set of one colour in twelve widths does the opposite job, and we stock that too.

The palette is a working one rather than a decorative one: yellow, orange, red, pink, two greens, cyan, blue, purple, brown, grey and black. That grey and that brown are what separate a usable set from a bright one — they are the colours a diagram needs for the parts that are not the point.

Against our other twelve-colour set, the arithmetic is small but real. This is Rs. 1,740, about Rs. 145 a pen. The Mont Marte Signature twelve is Rs. 1,950, about Rs. 163 a pen, and comes in a hinged clip case with odour-free and xylene-free printed on it. This set is the cheaper way to twelve colours; that one buys the case and the printed wording.

Rs. 1,740 for all twelve. Cap them as you go — in a colour set it is always the most-used pen that dries first, not the one that runs out. Cash on Delivery is available across Pakistan, and stock, your city and delivery charges are confirmed on WhatsApp before dispatch.

Why this product is worth considering