As a curiosity have any of you fine folks used a fountain pen to the point (no pun intended) to where the nib has worn away or that you have it well worn down? How many pages or years of writing did you get out of that pen and what was the make, model, year and nib material? How did the rest of the pen hold up? --- Thanks

I have worn out a couple of Pelikan 120 calligraphy pens with a fine, gold plated steel nip but the nib is still just fine. I have had a couple vintage pens have the tip fall or break off but never had one acutally wear out.

A good nib should last a whole lifetime and still have some life left when the next generation inherits it

Depends on what your writing pressure is and, naturally, how much you write.

The folks at Nakaya insist that writing 1,000 characters (or words, in our case) a day will wear a nib down in 10 years or so. Considering that's about 5 full pages a day, I'd say a pen should last the lifetime of the user at least - unless you're Stephen King.

I think that in the thread about the pens that H.P. Lovecraft used, it was mentioned that he replaced his pens several times during his career. But then, he did write a lot...

Point of interest: 500 words size-12 font = ~1 A4 page (one side).

You ask about "nib material," but the real question is "tip material." A plain steel nib's point of paper contact will outlast a gold nib's substandard tipping material. Now, before anyone gets bent out of shape, I know of no one retipping nibs today who is using anything but quality tip balls, but that was not always the case. I have a few 1930s-1940s Pelikans, and a couple of Sheaffers, whose tips look like the surface of the moon under a loupe. All those tips are very soft, suggesting a limited life span. So was the case with some of the old copycat pens -- pens that looked like Wahls, for example, from afar, but were not.

I bought a black Esterbrook SJ pen with a 2668 nib that appears to be worn down from medium to broad. The nib could have been ground down to this figure on purpose, but, judging from the wear on the rest of the pen, it was probably just worn down. The 2xxx series nibs are just rolled over on the tip and soldered, so the stainless steel made the contact surface with the paper and it just wore away. I have no idea how much writing that was.

The pen had its barrel button chewed away. The sac was a crispy critter. There were hundreds of tooth marks on the barrel end and on both ends of the cap. There were severe scrapes and scratches on the barrel and the cap. Some work with various grits of sandpaper, fine grades of steel wool, buffing compound, and acrylic floor polish have the pen looking good again. I went to a rock shop and purchased a small, faceted piece of hematite to replace the gnawed button. A member of this forum graciously sold me a new 2668 nib and now the pen is back in business. It is in my shirt pocket right now.

The Esterbrook 2668 nib is listed "firm medium". The new one writes like a Sheaffer "F". So someone took the equivalent of an "F" nib and wrote enough to make it a "B". You would have to "eat a barrel of salt" to write that much with a pen.

Paddler

Nibs made of stainless steel are probably the most durable option. Maybe this thread here on FPN could be interesting too

By the way all, thanks for your replies.

The average hand written page is a little over 250 words.

I have personally never gotten close to wearing out a nib. Some of the vintage pens I have are badly worn, but they area 60 years old or more, and probably saw quite a bit of use.

With normal writing pressure, a medium nib should last as long as you want to use it. The higher the pressure used, and the finer the nib, the faster it will wear, but as I said, I've destroyed any number, but never felt any wear on any of mine, including the Sheaffer school pens floating around that are getting close to 50 years old.

One side note, I've found many more Parker nibs, particularly on "51"s, with wear than Sheaffer nibs with wear on similar age pens. Lots of bent over fine and extra fine Sheaffers, but no wear. They write almost perfectly once I get the nib aligned properly.

Peter

Just off the top of my head comments.

(1) I would imagine that it depends on the alloy used for the tipping material, the abrasiveness of the papers used, the pressure applied, and to some extent the lubrication provided by the inks used.

(2) I have a couple of Sheaffer Preludes and a Reform Student pen that have worn prominent "foots."

(3) I have other pens that I have used much more that do not show wear under my 22x loupe.

(4) Back when the costed out the "Lifetime Guarantee" for nibs they didn't mean 72 years for you. It was based on how long the average ORIGINAL buyer would retain the pen. I think this has misled most people into thinking that "a nib" they buy should last them out "their life." From louping all the points I've used over the years I currently think this would be a rather rare occurrence.

(5) Semi morbid thought..... Even if they nibs only last four or five years I am pretty sure that most of the members of this forum have more than enough pens to last out their mortality table estimated existence.

I do remember having Platignum cartridge pens at school (tooo long ago now) and they had steel nibs that were folded at the tip to give a little less scratchiness. They wore out in about a year when the folded part would drop off and leave you with a razor sharp point to write with. But, we had to write everything in fountain pen every (school)day - biro was invisible to our teachers!

I certainly wore out two or three before getting a Parker (and keeping it throughout the rest of school life).

Chris

From my own experience:-
Parker 61: 25 years of daily use (10-20 A4 sheets a day). Whole pen wore out at the same time, from the nib to the barrel to the hood.

Regards

Richard.

So far I have not worn a nib out.

Yet another reason to have many pens to rotate so nothing wears out

This is a good thread and the question makes a lot of sense.

H.P. Lovecraft did wear out pens, but he did one heck of a lot of writing and used his pens one at a time, if I have understood. He was also ultra particular (peculiar?) about how his pens wrote. Someone posted a great story about how Lovecraft selected a new FP, trying out 50 or 60 in one afternoon to find just the right one.

I will simply comment from personal experience. I have been using FP's for 50-years, and I have a few pens that are that old. I have many (FP's) that I bought new and are now decades old. Like a previous poster, I have had the tipping material fall out of a couple of old student pens, which in itself is not surprizing to me. Otherwise, I have had no nibs wear out. That includes my oldest good pen, which is a Parker "51" vac filler with a smooth yet razor sharp accounting nib. I inherited that pen from my father and it is at least 60-years old. It has never missed a beat.

Thanks for the details. Putting it another way and for this pen only, at an average of 15 pages a day, at 250 working day a year the millage is 15 pages x 250 days x 25 years equals 93750 pages. Assuming 250 words a page that works out to 23.5 million words. Now you are talking - or writing. I guess I don't need to worry about my nib fallowing off anytime soon.