PdAg nib

[homebody146]

Just joined today, after reading the article in the Boston Globe this morning. Fountain pens! I remember in the 1970's and 80's it was hard to find some.....but I stayed true....now I'm looking to get an 'old friend' back. I remember having a sheaffer snorkel when they first came out and lost it over the many years. My concern may be unfounded but here it is. I've been told that nibs form themselves to the user's handwriting. But I'm noticing that the snorkels that I'm looking at have PdAg nib and not 14 or 18 carat gold. If this is true,i.e., nibs form themselves to the user's hand, would the PdAg nibs be less prone to this than 14 or 18 carat gold? This is a long post for a first timer and newbie! ;-)

[jar]

First, welcome home.

 

It's possible someone might have abused their pen but unlikely. The great news is that old snorkels are about as rugged as they come and usually need only minor repair to replace the old seals and sac and are good for another few decades of writing.

[Robert Hughes]

The Sheaffer PdAg material is just fine, don't worry about it. One of my best writers has a Sheaffer Pd/Ag nib.

[solitaire]

OK OK but what does it mean?

 

Solitaire

[jar]

OK OK but what does it mean?

 

Solitaire

 

 

Pd=Palladium

Ag=Silver

[jonro]

As I write this, I have a PFM II, with a PdAg nib, sitting on my desk. It's one of my absolute best writing pens. Back in the day, Sheaffer used PdAg vs. Au to differentiate between pens at different price points, pens with 14K gold nibs being more expensive. Palladium is a fairly valuable metal, and often used to give white gold its color. It wouldn't surprise me if a PdAg nib cost just as much to manufacture as a 14K nib back in the early '60s. Nibs made of precious metals do not necessarily write any better than stainless steel nibs, but the PdAg nib, to me, is every bit the equal of a gold nib.

[Dan Carmell]

And to the OP's original question, I've had a dozen or so Snorkels and Touchdowns (earlier version without the snorkel filler, but the same nib style) and none of them had any trace of the prior owner's use that affected the way they wrote. That bit about nibs adapting to an individual owner's writing style and then being unsuitable for others is largely a fable. For these great nibs from the 50s, the most that is usually needed is a bit of smoothing for damage that typically occurred while the pen was out of use for those many years.

 

Oh, and Sheaffer USA didn't make make 18K nibs until the 1980s or late 1970s at the earliest, so if you are looking for a Snorkel, it will be gold, their PdAg alloy nibs, or in the bottom of the line pens, steel. [Whoops, no steel nibs in the Snork line, sorry!]

 

Dan

Edited December 29, 2009 by Dan Carmell

[significantpass]

Over years and years of writing, the iridium tipping on the nib may wear according to the way it is used. However, this is just the iridium and not the nib itself, so the material that the nib is made of doesn't matter. If you put the same tipping on steel, gold and PdAg nibs, and used them equally, they would wear the same.

[Ernst Bitterman]

I'll add that the whole "nib formed to the hand of the user" thing is a little overblown; I've run into exactly one pen that was so far off the norm in terms of the foot which the user had produced on the point that it needed any kind of reshaping. Even when there is an observable effect of that sort, it's usually just a matter of letting the pen rotate slightly in your hand to find the attitude it's grown used to, and in the vast majority of pens (especially the really firm ones, which most Snorkels are) the past users haven't been so heavy-handed that there's been any amendment of the tipping. It's not something you should worry about too much.

[The Grim Sheaffer]

Palladium is radioactive. You can watch it glow in the dark. I use mine to write in poor light.

[Sholom]

Palladium is radioactive. You can watch it glow in the dark. I use mine to write in poor light.

 

Palladium is NOT radioactive - let's not panic people.

[Roger W.]

Palladium is radioactive. You can watch it glow in the dark. I use mine to write in poor light.

 

Palladium is NOT radioactive - let's not panic people.

 

I think he was being funny. I've never seen it glow in the dark - the radium hands on my watch are a different story. Also, it would have to glow a lot to aid in writing in poor light.

 

Roger W.

[Ernst Bitterman]

He was thinking of the 1956 Sheaffer Neutron, with the "NITE-RITE" polonium/mendeleevium point. After the man-ant panic of that year, they withdrew them from the line-up.

[troglokev]

The original prototype, with the Polonium-Beryllium "screwball" nib, was the subject of an FBI investigation. This may have led to the decision to drop the line.

[Jimmy James]

If PdAg works the way the new Visconti Palladium nib works, it may actually be springier (if I'm not confusing that thread with the titanium nib thread). Whatever it is, the PdAg Snorkels I own tend to write better than the gold ones for whatever reason. This alone has be contemplating a Visconti for their new Palladium nib and hoping that Bic is smart enough to realize that they probably own a formula for a quality PdAg alloy somewhere that they could sell to somebody for immediate use unlike the 3 year exclusivity period Visconti has on the nibs with the formula used for them.

[ZeissIkon]

If PdAg works the way the new Visconti Palladium nib works, it may actually be springier (if I'm not confusing that thread with the titanium nib thread).

 

Just as with steel, 14k gold, and titanium, a Pd/Ag nib is springy or flexible if it's designed that way, not because of the material it's made from. The only real limitation on flexibility due to material is that gold of 18k or higher content will be much more prone to taking a permanent set if you attempt to flex the nib than lower content gold or other metals.

 

Palladium Silver nibs were sold during WWII because the copper used to alloy 14k gold was a strategic material, and no copper was needed for Pd/Ag, but with sufficient palladium content (40%, as I recall) the alloy is just as corrosion resistant as common 14k gold alloys -- and a Pd/Ag nib will be just as flexible as the manufacturer made it to be, just as is the case with gold, steel, and titanium nibs.

[Jimmy James]

Yeah, let me correct what I'm saying. I'm suggesting that as I understand it, the new Visconti Palladium nibs are made of a material that has more potential for spring than that of gold alloys. If that carries over to PdAg that Sheaffer used, perhaps that has something to do with why I like the nibs. I should be clear that it's not even an issue with line variation or anything of the sort. My PdAg nibs just feel good somehow.

[teej47]

The only points I've seen that had taken an obvious 'set' from a previous user were untipped. Specifically 1 and 2 series Esterbrook nibs, which wear down to the point that there is a pronounced foot. Maybe this contributed to the popular myth (which is somehow pervasive, particularly among those who don't use fountain pens. More than once I've had people who've never used a real pen tell me I'd better not let anyone else use my pen because it would mess up my custom fit). It would take an awful lot of heavy handed writing at an unwavering angle to do that to a tipped nib. (Or an instant on an abrasive surface...)

 

Tim

[kirchh]

If PdAg works the way the new Visconti Palladium nib works, it may actually be springier (if I'm not confusing that thread with the titanium nib thread).

Palladium Silver nibs were sold during WWII because the copper used to alloy 14k gold was a strategic material, and no copper was needed for Pd/Ag, but with sufficient palladium content (40%, as I recall) the alloy is just as corrosion resistant as common 14k gold alloys -- and a Pd/Ag nib will be just as flexible as the manufacturer made it to be, just as is the case with gold, steel, and titanium nibs.

Sheaffer didn't introduce PdAg alloy nibs until several years after WWII ended, and the alloy contained copper.

 

--Daniel

[framebaer]

Probably it was a quest to save manufacturing costs by finding a substitute to Gold.

 

I do think my PdAg nibs are smoother than my gold snorkel nibs.

Edited December 31, 2009 by framebaer