Nice job on that pen. The finish looks perfect to me, and if you actually click on the thumbnail, and then expand the pic from your album, the grain is apparent in the larger picture. I'm sure that there is some variation from batch to batch, and probably from piece to piece within a batch, and it looks like you just got a blank with thinner layers than usual. The actual difference in color between the two is consistent with what I have seen in that specific metal combination blank before.
As far as true mokume gane, Hank is on the right path, but not quite there. The process he refers to of forge welded and folded steel is indeed believed to have first been developed for the manufacture of swords, and was developed in many different areas of the globe at about the same historical timeframe. The Japanese craft of Nihon-To, or swordmaking is one of the best known, but the art is known to have been developed in the middle east, Scandinavia, and middle Europe in roughly the same period. Interestingly, the process of true "Damascus steel" is not actually forge welding, rather a process of casting molten steel under very specific conditions.
Mokume Gane, is a combination of non ferrous (often precious) metals fused at much lower temperatures then worked to produce the "grain". It was developed in japan by a master swordsmith, but only for making decorative hardware for the sword, not the blade itself.
Sorry to hijack the thread, but these terms are getting tossed around here more frequently lately, and I thought a little definition might be a good thing. Of course these things were not presented to me by a voice from a burning bush or anything, and I welcome correction or discussion
