Clip For A 400 - Where To Find?

[Centopar]

I was working in Copenhagen this week, and had a very lucky find at a flea market about an hour before I had to leave for the airport. There was a box of cracked, very dirty and broken pens - most nothing special, and some with such bad damage they weren't salvageable (the grubby and unidentified Montblanc with no cap and the dirty great crack all the way along the barrel up into the section made me very sad). But I found a tortoise shell Pelikan 400 in there, stumped up 350 krone (pretty much exactly £40) and took it home hoping the piston mechanism was still working.

 

Got it home, and it was in surprisingly good nick, especially given it's 60 years old and seems to have been in a box most of that time: it just needed a quick clean to get rid of some dried ink, and it turns out to be a GORGEOUS writer. Glassy-smooth, soft M nib with a little flex, and, of course, it's a lovely weight and balance in the hand; it's a really beautiful, wonderfully useable pen and I'm thrilled I found it.

 

But you may have noticed that I said the box was full of cracked and broken pens. This pen has escaped any damage, but someone, some time, yanked the clip off the cap, leaving most of the ring attached and two ends, where the clip was, sticking out untidily.

 

I can just remove the whole ring and have the thing clipless, but I would prefer to replace the clip if possible. But I'm buggered if I can find any source for a Pelikan clip (outside eBay, where people are asking downright offensive prices for the *lid alone*, presumably where a pen has been destroyed, from much more recent M400s).

[gmax]

Niche pens offer clips for the M400 series

 

http://pelikanpens.co.uk/acatalog/Pelikan-Spare-Clips-.html

 

Not sure if it's compatible with the older 400, but hope this may help.

[Centopar]

Good grief - and in the UK, too! Thank you so much; my Google-foo is clearly not as strong as I thought it was.

 

Anybody got an M400 and a 400 they can compare clip ring circumference on? This pen is, as far as I can make out, one of the 1954-55 ones they made when transitioning between the 400 and the 400N (imprint says 400 but appears around the bottom at the post *and* on the cap band; the bottom imprint says "Germany", not "W Germany") - I'd be really grateful if someone with a collection of Pelikans could have a look.

 

Ak - actually, don't bother. I note that Niche Pens will not allow me to do the fix myself, but require customers to send pens in to be done by them! I'm in Wales quite soon for work, so I may try to drop it by in person when I'm there.

Edited September 2, 2013 by Centopar

[JOEPLK]

Dear Centopar

If you are sure what you got is a 400 pen, I can supply a 400 clip, for about Euro 25.00. Pelikan 400N looks like that, but the clip will be loss, if it comes from a 400. The opposite, does not work too, the 400N clip hole is smaller, it does not fit on 400 cap. I call your attention about this, because the difference is very small, but big enough to not work . Less than 1m/m

in Diameter, and 2m/m on length. Let me know if threads on top are good and top ring too. Regards, Joe PLK