*edit* It looks like I have a 400NN rather than a M400.

Earlier in the week I was in an antique shop looking for Parker 51's and I spotted a Pelikan 400NN. I didn't think much of them based on the photos I had seen but was impressed with the real thing.

*edit* http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...showtopic=69098 link to my post about the Sonnet in case anyone is interested.

I went back there today and looked through all of the shops pens and kept going back to the Pelikan. I used a magnifying glass and looked all over the 400NN and knew it was what I wanted. The price on the tag was $120 NZD (£45, $90 USD) but the store owner sold it to me for $100 NZD (£38, $75 USD).

The only problem I have noticed (apart from minor scratches that I am not worried about) is that the feed does not quite line up with the middle of the nib. I am not sure if this matters or not.

I haven't tried fulling it yet, I want to give it a good clean first but I need to read up on the best way to do so. I did dip it however in my pot of Lamy blue. Wow! Is all I can say!!! It writes smother than my fine nibed Al-Star with a very similar line with. It feels like butter gliding across the page! I was really surprised as I have not used anything nicer than my Al-Star before. That shows you my limited experience with FP's I think!

I shall try and date it now just out of interest. I have posted a pic of the cap in case it helps anyone narrow things down a bit.

Now I think I want to find a M800, M600, M350...

Congrats! Looks like a great buy.

Concerning alignment of the feed and nib, I am a rank newbie, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I have been meaning to post about my own "adventure" with a M200 nib, which through dumb luck and the help of John Mottishaw of Nibs.com I was able to get writing from initially kind of scratchy to butter smooth. Again, I'm calling it dumb luck mostly -- and a tribute to the clarity of Mottishaw's site. One of the things I needed to do, though, was align the center line of the nib with the center of the feed. I really took my time doing it, too, as Mottishaw/Nibs.com suggests. In the following excerpt, I believe that the "this" that appears as the second word refers to one of the tips being higher than the other. Perhaps that tip issue not the case with your nib, but here it what he says about the center alignment, and all I can say is the info. helped me:

<<OK, if this is the case, look to see if the nib is centered on the feed. If it is pushed off to one side, the cure could be simple. Gently push the nib back to center on the feed. Push from the middle of the curve of the tine, not from the shoulder and not from the tip. If you have gone too far, gently push again from the other side, this time taking care to move the nib only a small amount. Repeat this process until the slit lines up with the center of the feed. (There are some nibs and feeds that write best when they are not lined up, but that discussion is for another time.)>>

http://www.nibs.com/Article6SmoothingAdjusting.htm

I accomplished the above task with my kids' magnifying glass, but have since bought a jeweler's loupe. I read elsewhere on FPN that a 30X is the best, but I could only get 25X -- and, while that's pretty good, I can see that 30X might really be significantly better. With regard to the function of aligning nib and feed, I believe their alignment helps with the flow.

Others might have additional thoughts. Please use or reject my own as you will.

Again, great buy! I have just one, but everything about it brings great joy each day... Smooth, pleasurable writing; perfect, light weight; a gold pelican bill for a clip (how cool is that?!!); the little pelikan at the top of the cap; all the quiet elegance of design and color -- wow!!

Enjoy!! :0)

UsFour

Thanks UsFour. This photo shows what I mean.

The middle of the feed does not line up with the middle of the nib. I have the pen soaking in cold water at the moment so I don't know if it will affect the pens performance in anyway. Fingers crossed that it wont!

Again, I claim no expertise -- just dumb luck. That said, your photo looks similar to what I saw with my own nib, and I followed Matthishaw's advice, and now the alignement is fine, as is the flow. Not sure if this is related, but the wings of the nib also look aligned when I look at the nib head-on -- that is, each falls to about the same point on the feed, one side or the other. Such was always not the case.

Part of my problem was also the tips -- and there came a moment when I actually felt/heard them click back into place, following gentle manipulation, following Mattishaw's directions -- emphasis on the "gentle."

I may have started some of the problems myself by first following Mattishaw's advice to separate the two halves of the nib (described later on the same page I linked earlier) in order to increase flow. That was the first thing I tried, although in retrospect, I probably first should have just inspected the nib for alignment with feed, alignment of tips, etc. Perhaps I knocked some of it out of line in the process of doing that separation step first. So, perhaps a little chicken and egg stuff going on here, although I've read often enough on this page that Pelikan nibs aren't always as they should be, out of the box. Whatever the case, in the end, after widening that center gap a bit, then aligning the nib with the feed and also getting the tips even with each other, I have a pleasurably writing nib. All processes were done slowly, gently, patiently...

Worst case scenario is you might need to buy a new nib. Everyone appears to believe Richardspens.com is the best source there, as one can be assured that a nib from Richard does not have these problems. I've not traded with him myself, but should I buy another Pelikan, I may decide to do so then. I don't know if I can count on my luck every time. :0)

Best of luck to you. One of my favorite ex-students is now in New Zealand -- and loves it. Perhaps my family and I will make it out there some day. Congratulations on the beautiful place to live!

Are you sure that's an M400, it looks more like a 400nn to me.

It is a 400nn, from the 50's or so.

George

Nice 400nn, I have one in Tortoise and it's a great pen.

Oh wow! Awesome. I am really pleased with that. I shall have to take extra good care of it now.

Thanks all!

*edit* I manged to get the nib off and cleaned the pen. Was able to realign the feed when I put the nib back in and now the pen writes. It isn't as smooth as it was yesterday. I might even order a new nib from Richard Binder in a couple of weeks.

Oops! I was about to suggest that if the pen wrote well not to fix it. How does that go, if it ain't broke . . .

You do not need a new nib, what you need is to have someone realign your nib properly.

It does write ok but no better than my Lamy Al-Star so I think I will get it looked at. I rang the local pen restorer this afternoon and they said that they can have a look at it and should be able to make it write smoother. I'll probably drop it off tomorrow.

The more I look at and hold it the more I like it!

Wow! A "local pen restorer" -- now I know I'm going to check out New Zealand!

Going to be hard, though, leaving the local Office Depot behind...

We do have a couple of good golf club shops, though, and one of the top 100 clubmakers in the world -- so ranked by KZG Golf Products.

Smoked mullet too...

Oh, the trade-off's...

Congratulation, the pen looks very nice!

Is the nib stiff or springy?

UsFour: I have found possibly the only pen restorer in the entire country! The only other thing to keep in mind is shipping costs. Other than that I think NZ is great!

JFT: The nib seems to have some spring in it. I can't wait to get the nib writing nicely!

This is exactly what I do if nibs are only slightly misaligned and write well: leave them alone and use them the way they are .... or send them to Pelikan to get them realigned.

Can you send an vintage model like this to Pelikan for nib work? What does it cost?

I just acquired a 400NN. The pen is gorgeous! However, the nib is in need of a bit of work.

It writes very, very nicely at some angles, OK at others. At some of the smooth-feeling angles it emits a loud squeaking sound, like that of a Sharpie/Magic Marker being pressed a bit hard. This is evident more on some papers- the smoother the louder, especially Apica. I've read some about squeaky nibs and it sounds like it needs someone to take a look at it. I've done some tine work, and can consistently improve some angles while making others scratchy, but I can't get them all in sync.

Thoughts?

Thanks!
Aaron

I emailed Pelikan Artline New Zealand last week asking them if they repair vintage Pelikan pens. They have not got back to me yet.

I also have a Pelkan with a misaligned NIB but it writes so well I chose to leave it alone for now. I think, after a couple fortunate purchases on ebay and locally, that I am so taken with Vintage Pelikans I will probably dedicate myself to collecting them for a while.

An update for my situation- I got it aligned pretty well, and the squeak is gone. I think there was some pitting from age on the nib, in addition to some misalignment- but a lot of it was the ink. I ended up using a mix of Noodler's Polar Blue and it writes incredibly now- by far the smoothest pen I have. There are still some angles that scratch a bit, but overall it is doing quite well. The problem inks were Pelikan Black and Blue-Black and Lamy Blue-Black, all of which are quite dry and can definitely cause some squeak.

Aaron

Aaron, Pelikan Germany does not do any repair of vintage pens ("no spares any more, sorry") but they do nibwork if the nib does not perform correctly. I had two vintage nibs worked on where the nib and feeder had been extremely misaligned. Think they will take care of bad performance as well since this is nothing spares are needed. They took care of serious squeaking and flowing problems of M200/400 nibs that I could not fix myself as well. They charged me 5 Euros once (think that was a vintage), other readjustment had been for free. Have to emphasize that is was realignment and improvement of performance and nothing serious like straightening the tines I had asked for.



PrawnBoy you might explain to Pelikan Artline that you are asking for a realignment of the 400NN nib and not any repair of the pen itself. They might - as Pelikan Germany - do some nibwork but nothing to the pen itself.