Bethlehem Olive Wood
	Olive Wood From Bethlehem or Jerusalem Israel The grain of the wood is fantastic. Because it is so twisted you never know what the finished product is going to look like until it is done.  The finished look can range from a nice creamy color to a contrasty light and dark mix of random twisted lines. These pen blanks are produced from the prunings of young olive trees, and the sprouts from the trunks of the old, unproductive trees.  Pruning is an essential process for healthier growth for the trees and to generate environmental stability. Some of the root stock of these trees are well over 2000 years old.
Western Bigleaf Maple Burl
	Western Bigleaf Maple Burl This is one of the most beautiful North American Burl woods, typically having many "eyes" as these pieces do.  That coupled with the very warm tone of the maple itself makes this a favorite wood for high quality, distinctive pen making.  The trees grow in the Pacific Northwest from northern California USA to British Columbia Canada.  The particular pieces we have (only half are shown in this photo) came from the state of Washington and are particularly beautiful in their inclusion of burl eyes and cross rays.  Some pieces are even spalted adding another whole level of distinctinveness to this already beautiful wood.
Bloodwood
	Bloodwood This wood is RED, blood red as the name would imply.  The small batch of blanks we purchased first turned out so well, that we picked up a larger piece.  It has more variation in color while still maintaining its RED, RED, RED color.  The grain of this wood is fairly coarse and can be very interlocked.  Interlocked grain is grain that periodically changes direction giving the wood a ribbon affect.  This causes a look in the turned pen or pencil very much like the curly wood we will describe below. This wood comes from Africa.
Purpleheart
	Purpleheart This wood is PURPLE, as the name would imply.  And it is a beautiful purple shade, but it is not always purple.  It takes some exposure to air and light to get the wood to really purple-up.  When freshly turned and sanded the wood takes on a more pink/tan color, but when left unsealed, over the course of a few weeks, the exposed wood develops the deeper purple color.  After 3 weeks or so the wood can be sealed and polished locking in the beautiful purple color that Purpleheart is known the world over for.  If you are considering a custom made pen or pencil in Purpleheart, please plan ahead and order early so we can allow plenty of time for the wood to gain its purple color.  The wood is hard and takes a nice shine when polished. This wood comes from Central and South America.
Bocote
	Bocote Bocote’s heartwood is rich, golden brown color, often showing varigated irregular markings. After looking at this wood as a potential addition to our line, this particular piece surfaced.  When we saw the nice tight Peacock Feather Eye markings, we had to pick it up. Bocote has a fairly straight grain fiber with a medium coarse texture. The wood is hard and heavy and polishes well. This lustrous wood grows mainly in Mexico.
African Mahogany
	African Mahogany There are many members of the Mahogany family of woods that grow all over the world and each has its own distinctive look.  African Mahogany grows in the tropical areas of western, central and eastern Africa.  It is a very large tree growing to 6 foot in diameter and 140 foot tall.  But the size isn't what makes African Mahogan great for pen making, after all it only takes a small piece of wood to make a pen.  It is the texture and figure of this wood that makes it so remarkable. African Mahogany typically has a very interlocked grain which leads to striped features when cut properly.  Also the wood grain is "speckled" with shimmering, gold-toned flecks that shimmer in the light.  This figure in the wood makes this a particularly interesting wood for pens as the features are small enough to standout well in a smaller piece of wood.
Bubinga
	Bubinga This is another beautiful wood from Africa.  Bubinga heartwood is generally medium red-brown color, with lighter red and darker almost purple veins.  The grain can be interlocked, which the stock we have is, and this makes the wood shimmer when polished.  Turing the finshed pen over in your hand will cause the wood to change from light to dark and back again, almost like a hologram.
Cocobolo Rosewood
	Cocobolo Rosewood This is a true rosewood found growing naturally in Central and South America, however, the Cocobolo we use is not harvested from the wild contributing to rainforest destruction.  Naturally Write's Cocobolo is sustainably harvested on specialized farms in Nicaragua planted specifically for this purpose.  Click here for more information on our Cocobolo supplier, Diamond Tropical Hardwoods.  The best Cocobolo comes from Nicaragua as wood from this source is harder and more colorful than Mexican Cocobolo. Cocobolo Rosewood is one of the finest and most beautifully figured woods in the world. True Rosewoods have colors as widely diverse as a rainbow. An incredibly figured wood, Cocobolo is very hard with brilliant colors and amazing purple to black stripes. Oranges, reds, yellows, browns and blacks all swirled uniquely together are a trademark of this fantastic wood.
Curly Black Walnut Crotchwood
	Curly Black Walnut Crotchwood Several things come together in these pieces that make them stand-out as great for pen making.  First, Black Walnut is a wood that in many people's opinion is one of the richest looking woods that grow in North America (these pieces are from the woods of Virginia).  The dark heartwood can be curly, a phenomenon in wood where there are contortions in the grain direction resembling waves that cut across the grain lines.  The undulations reflect light differently making this type of figure highly sought after.  Take a look at the lower piece in the photo.  This piece is extremely curly! The other two pieces are Walnut Crotchwood.  Crotchwood is the wood that comes from between 2 main tree trunks or between the main trunk and a large branch.  As the tree grows, the wood in these areas mash together causing unbelievable figure in the form of reflective "rays" and twisted grains.  These pieces of Walnut show some of the nicest crotchwood features we have seen.
American Elm Crotchwood
	American Elm Crotchwood Crotchwood from every tree species affords some of the most interesting and beautiful grain structure of any part of the tree.  This example of American Elm Crotchwood is stunning.  American Elm is a beautiful golden-brown color on its own, but add in the extra twists and reflective rays from the crotch area and you have some special wood.	Example Photo Coming Soon
Persian Lilac (aka Chinaberry)
	Persian Lilac This wood is also know in some parts as Chinaberry, and technically known as Paraiso.  It is a very under-utilized wood.  The tree grows in South Western Asia but has been transplanted to other parts of the world including South America and the South Eastern United States. Mostly this tree is grown for its beautiful purple flower cluster, but as you can see, the wood has a beauty all its own, ranging from dark chocolate brown/grey to a creamy, almost white color within the same small piece of wood.  What doesn't show in the photo of the raw un-finished wood, is the lovely speckled nature of the coloration of the wood when it is finished. Given the dark and light tones of this wood, we feel it is a wood that lends itself to the used of silver, black or gunmetal components.  That said, the wood does have enough brown tone to it to make it match up well with yellow gold as well.
Padauk
	Padauk Padauk is a close relative to the rosewood family, but is not a true rosewood.  A variety of trees growing from Africa to Asia are called Padauk, but the particular variety that we use is considered the most beautiful of the bunch.  This Padauk (or as is it sometimes called Padouk) grows in Africa and is one of the reddest of the Padouk family. When freshly cut, this Padauk has a very orange tone, as seen in this photograph.  Over time with exposure to light and air, the wood will change in color to a very bright red.  It is often used for inlay work where small pieces of bright coral red is needed.  When used in larger pieces like the size of a pen, some of the great variation in gran color comes through, making this visually interesting aside from its red/orange coloration.	Example Photo Coming Soon
Madrone Burl
	Madrone Burl Madrone trees grow typically in the Northwest United States and Southwest Canada.  Madrone is also known as Madrona and Manzanita.  The wood of the tree in and of itself has a beauty, but the real standout beauty of this tree is below ground.  Madrone Burl is a hard and dense burl that grows in the roots of this large tree.  As this burl is a root burl it is very wet when freshly cut.  As it dries, the wood distorts, twists, shrinks unevenly to a very great level.  See the pieces of larger stock in the photo.  These pieces were straight and square when cut green, and these are some of the straighter pieces we have.  Madrone Burl also lacks the typical burl bark inclusions making for a very beautiful and defect free wood (except for the twisting).  Dark red/brown in color, and streaked with curly features, Madrone Burl can be very difficult to dry, making it a rare wood in actual use.
Spalted Maple Crotch Burl
	Spalted Maple Crotch Burl Have you ever seen anything like this? Probably not as it is very rare. (If you have and it still is available to you let us know!) Crotch burl is not actually part of the crotch of the tree.  It occurs in large old Maple trees with enormous canopies; the lower branches can be 36" across each. They are usually found at the first set of branches where 4-6 branches meet the main trunk. Over time the center of this multiple crotch junction rots out leaving a hole which weakens the support system for these branches. It is thought that these burls grow to reconnect the inside of crotch area and provide support for the lower branches. They are a knot of barkless burl growing inside the void and are connected radially to the inside of the crotch. No one really knows for sure why they grow but we only find about 2 per 4-5 thousand trees and the figure is unlike any crotchwood or conventional mapleburl.
Spalted Maple Root Burl
	Spalted Maple Root Burl This is another very rare form of Maple wood.  It may not be as rare as the Crotch Burl above, but is just as rarely seen as these burls grown in the root system of the tree and remain burried, often after the tree has died, only to rot away.  What a shame as this is outstandingly beautiful with swirled color and grain, as you can see in the photo. As these burls grow underground, they are not as succeptible to the normal burl voids and bark inclusions as above ground burls are.  They are a mass of twisted, highly colored, highly figured wood, with little to no discernable wood grain.  This particular piece of burl came from the root system of a massive, 4 foot diameter maple tree and was harvested in Virginia USA. If a unique pen and/or pencil is what you are looking for, one made from a wood that is unlikely to have ever been seen by anyone before, then this wood is one to consider.
Maple Crotchwood
	Maple Crotchwood We have mentioned crotchwood in some of the descriptions above, this piece is truly Crotchwood from the Maple tree, and does afford some of the most interesting and beautiful grain structure of any part of the tree.  Twisted grain as it wraps around the branches and reflective rays from the crotch area, great variation in color... This is a great piece of Maple from Virginia.	Example Photo Coming Soon
Spalted Pecan Crotchwood and Sapwood
	Spalted Pecan Crotchwood and Sapwood While we are displaying crotchwood, here is a piece of Pecan Crotchwood that is currently available.  There is some spalting also going on in this piece, in fact the spalting was allowed to continue after this photo was taken so that the piece has developed a bit more of the black line you can see in other pieces.  Pecan is closely related to hickory but the heartwood coloration and grain structure is different making pecan more visually interesting in smaller pieces, like pens. The second photo is the back side of this same piece, which shows some of the spalting going on in this piece as well as some of the beautiful light colored sapwood.  Sapwood is the outer layer of wood, sometimes encompasing several years worth of growth.  In most woods, like this pecan, the sapwood is considerably lighter in color and clearly defined from the heartwood, usually the more colorful part of the tree's wood.  Pecan sapwood can be very curly (like this is) which makes up for its lack of bright color with the more subtle beauty of its undulating grain structure.
Red Coconut Palm
	Coconut Palmwood This is an interesting hardwood, not seen very often in commercial use.  Unlike most woods, the annual growth rings that we are so familiar with (remember counting rings as a child to figure out how old a tree was?) are non-existent.  This is because this wood is actaully more of a grass than a tree.  Because of this, also non-existent are heartwood vs. sapwood, branches, crotchwood, etc.  That might remove some forms of interesting wood features, but in Coconut Palm they are replaced by the darker linear water channels, which form a unique look.  Most palmwood available comes from 70+ year old trees that have been cut down to make room for younger more productive coconut producers on plantations throughout the world.  This is a renewable resource that would otherwise be wasted. Most Coconut Palmwood ranges in color from dark brown to almost black channels on a greyish background.  This red variety is rarer and comes from a strain of Coconut that grows in South East Asia and the Pacific Islands.
Spalted Beech
	Spalted Beech Spalted woods are a favorite among Naturally Write customers.  Spalting is an initial stage in the decay of the wood and how each different wood "spalts" differs from species to species.    Beech is commonly used in furniture making.  It is prone to the blackline spalting and discoloration from the variety of fungi that attack the wood as it starts to decay.  Spalting decay weakens the wood which is why it is difficult to find greatly spalted wood of any variety that still has the structural integrity to be turned into fine furniture... or writing instruments.  One of our suppliers, the one who supplied this beech for us, actually takes a natural process that happens in the wild, and causes spalting in a controlled environment.  By this they can provide greatly spalted wood that still has the properties needed to turn the wood and polish it.	Example Photo Coming Soon
Spalted Curly Maple
	Spated Curly Maple Spalted Maple is an all time favorite with pen makers and buyers alike.  Because maple develops a very distinctive black-line form of spalting,  pens made from this beautiful wood are always unique, no two are ever the same.  Add to that the fact that this wood also has the undulations in grain that cause it have the wave like feature called "curly", this wood is very special.  Maple can range in color from very light tan colors, lighter than the piece shown, through medium tones as shown in the photo, into the beautiful red tones of the Red Maple.  W have in stock spalted maple in the medium tones and also the red tones.  Both make beautiful pens and pencils. The example pen photo is of the medium toned curly spalted maple, a wood that never ceases to amaze anyone who sees it in person.  No two are ever alike.
Spalted Hackberry
	Spalted Hackberry Hackberry is a medium hard wood that grows in areas of Canada and the US.  The sapwood sometimes can be stained by its own sap which gives it a slighly blue-grey coloration.  Some of these pieces exhibit this discoloration.  But the main feature in this lot is the spalting in some pieces, and the curly grain in others.  In some of this lot the spalting moved through the wood's grain causing a spalt pattern resembling the fine down feathers on a duck's breast.  In other pieces the pattern is more the typical random black lines.  Either way the pens and pencils that will come from this lot will surely be unique in every way as you can see in the photo to the right. There are the few pieces that are curly in the the foreground... so curly it looks like the wood is actually cut "crooked".  It isn't, and this pattern will carry into the pens and pencils made from it.
Apple Wood
	Applewood Sometimes wood is available from trees you would not think of when you think of lumber.  One of the advantages of pen and pencil making is that you can use smaller pieces of stock so we can use varieties of wood that don't generally end up as furniture or other larger pieces.  Apple is one you may never have thought of, but is a favorite of many, including one of our main suppliers of specialty wood here in Rhode Island.  This is locally grown stock.  If you are familiar with apple trees, you know that they naturally grow in a twisted and gnarled fashion.  It is no wonder that the wood cut from these trees is also twisted and gnarled in grain structure.  That coupled with the variation in color between the heartwood and sapwood can make for some really interesting pens. One question we often get is, does the wood of different apple varieties (ie. Mackintosh, Granny Smith, etc.) differ.  Answer... not noticeably, not enough to categorize the wood differently.  All applewood is generally lumped together and is not broken down by variety.