Hi everyone!

I'm new here, and relatively new to fountain-pens. Love the forums, and love fountain pens! I'm hooked. <ugh, another expensive thing I like...>

I started my modest collection of 2 pens with an el-cheapo Parker Vector(?) I think it is... it was only $25 or so... I can take pictures and ask to be sure about the model in the parker forum...

but, my Second pen... I just absolutely love. A Pelikan M150. Fine nib. Very very nice. Oh, how I love to use this thing... a joy to write with. [Filled with Noodler's Legal Lapis at the moment... great color and permanence.]

Anyways, I had a question- just out of curiosity, is the M150's nib units capable of being replaced/unscrewed? I believe mine may be... the sales-lady at the store did unscrew it a bit I believe... (an FP gal as well)... this came up in another non-FP forum, so I thought I'd check it out here.

So, "Hi, everyone. My name's Allen, and I'm an FP-aholic."

"Hi, Allen..."

What are the 12 steps again? First, buy a Parker 51 Areo? Ok... working on it...

-Allen

After step 1, step 2 is to acquire one or more Esterbrooks. That way you have something really old and really sturdy.

Welcome!

Andy

I'm not sure if the 150 nib unit is changeable or not - but I would be surprised if it isn't!

Since the 150 is only slightly smaller than the 200 series, I guess that would be the size you would need to buy.

Anyone know for sure?

Hi there and welcome.

The nibs on the 150 are interchangeable, but they are specific to that pen -- that is, the nibs for the 200 and 400 won't fit. AFAIK, the range is a bit limited -- just the basic F, M, B.

As Andy says, Esterbrooks are interchangeable nib heaven, and excellent pens, too, and not expensive. A bit bigger than a Pelikan 150, more like the size of a Pelikan 200. Oh, hush my mouth, if you like a smaller pen, there are the Esterbrook SJ or LJ pens, which are normally even cheaper than the J pens, and just as well made. In pens, bigger is not better, just more expensive.

Have fun

Michael

Yes, the 150 nibs are smaller than the 200 ones, in keeping with the smaller size of the pen. And the options are indeed more restricted, as you pointed out.

Awesome replies, guys!! I'll definitely have to check out those Esterbrooks now!

And fantastic info on the m150 nibs! I appreciate it. I had heard that the 200 nib *might* fit, but that it doesn't go all the way into the body or something like this. I was just surprised when someone told me that the 150 didn't interchange, and I was pretty sure I had seen it unscrew... So, thanks for letting me know! [I wasn't sure I wanted to try to unscrew mine. ]

This forum is fantastic, so glad someone led me across it's path!

Hope to chat with all of you more in time!

Cheers!
-Allen

Greetings Allen,

Get to Richard Binder's site below and spend considerable time. It's a great resource for fp info.

http://www.richardspens.com/

Just for starters, though, you find there that the nib/feed assembly for the M150 Will fit the M200 and M400 series but not the other way around. That's because the cap for the M150 is not large enough to accommodate the larger M200 nib/feed without scrunching into it as it is screwed closed, whereas the smaller nib/feed for the M150 is easily handled by the larger cap of the M200 and up in size.

Also, asthetics come into the picture and the smaller nib/feed of the M150 might not look good to your eye when mounted in a M200 or M400.

maybe those options depend on your location:

Swisher seems to think that the same options for the 200 are available for the 150.

click on the following link, then on Pelikan Nibs. At the top of the page is the 150 nib range.

https://secure3.nexternal.com/shared/StoreF...et=products.asp

The M150 nibs are interchangeable with the M300 nibs. the nibs on the M200/400/600 are way too large for the 150.

TNS

Umm, no, actually, they're not. M150 nibs use the same exact threaded collar as nibs for the M2xx, M4xx, and M6xx series; the M3xx threading is smaller in diameter. The only nibs that fit M3xx pens are M300 nibs.

My Pelikan Nib Interchangeability Chart lays this out for you.

Hey Richard,

Thanks for the posting to that table of yours. I remembered finding it after my post here... I was intrigued... so, it appears that the 150 will take a 200 nib, but that it won't cap anymore... [i.e., the nib length is too long for the 150 cap.] Interesting. Welll, it all boils down to me- I should have possibly bought the 200 instead. But, well, I still love my 150, so perhaps it'll get a sibling in the future.

Love your website, Richard, it's excellent.

BTW, just so you know, I get some weirdnesses with your site while using firefox in the tabbed format.. if I view your site alone, without tabs, things are just great. For some reason, Tabbing the html files causes trouble. It's not really a problem now that I know how to surf your site, but I just wanted to let you know incase someone had complained in the past. All they really have to do, is run your site in it's own window.

Cheers, Richard! Love your work... wish I could afford it at the moment. Someday!! [Your work is certainly reasonably priced, I merely meant that I'll have to wait a bit for my own finances. ]

It works for me with Firefox 1.5.0.3 on XP. I don't use Firefox on my Macs, so somebody else will have to tell me if the problem is related to Mac and Firefox.

WARNING: OFF-TOPIC WAR STORY FOLLOWS!

Interestingly, I do have Camino on my Macs. Camino is the Mac-only browser from Mozilla -- it uses the same guts as Mozilla, with a truly Mac-style GUI. I don't see any funkiness with it. Umm, well, almost no funkiness. When I first installed Camino, I found that it wouldn't display the vintage advertisement images in the upper right corner of most of my pen profiles. I played around with it until I figured out what was happening. All the other browsers I've ever used to view my site worked with it, but Camino couldn't display images stored in a folder named ads -- believe it or not! I worked around the bug by renaming the folder adv and Camino started working. How, you may ask, did I figure this out? Simple. 11 years ago I saw the same problem in the first public version of Netscape. We reported it as a bug, and I changed the folder name. Never tested it with a later version, silly me, to see if they'd fixed it. Guess where Mozilla got the code they started with. Hint 1: There was never a Netscape 5. Hint 2: In any Netscape browser, enter about:mozilla into the address box.

I just tried an M400 nib in an M150, and it did indeed fit. I hadn't tried it before because I could have sworn that I read on more than one occasion that the 200, 400, 600 size was incompatible with the 150. I even screwed the cap on without difficulty. Had other people read the same thing, or did I just dream this?

You might get lucky. There is some manufacturing tolerance in the assembly of the nib units, and some M2xx or M4xx samples will be short enough to fit into an M150. Most won't, as my database of repaired pens can attest. Trying it out is not the best way in the world to find whether you're lucky or not, because if you aren't, you really aren't.

Thanks for the advice Richard. I'll stick to swapping my nibs amongst my non-150 pens.

Ha! Fantastic info, guys! I'd be afraid the tip of the nib would slam up against the inner cap... But, very nice to see the threads are the same. And it *might* give me a possible way of getting a bit more out of the pen if I get tired of it somehow... but so far I generally feel lost without it. [I left it at home today, and I'm trying to get by without writing anything. Not working too well...]

Richard- Well, I'll play more with the site... as I said, it is perfect in the normal stand-alone window... so it must be a mozilla weirdness. They do do some things differently on the mac, and some of it is frustrating (the prefs.js file locations are weird on the mac, and no one can answer why that is when I ask)... but, the functionality is still there, and I find myself going to your site more and more.

Thanks a ton, everyone, for this great info!

-Allen