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A Question About Comparative Nib Output


tooloose-letrek

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I have purchased a few FPs recently online, sight-unseen. Nibs vary so much as there really are no standards. I purchased a Platinum 3776 F nib and it was closer to a XF. After writing with it, I would have been happier with the next size up. However, I do like the pen and won't be returning it. I also recently purchased a Pilot Custom 74 and found the F nib really finer than I would expect, comparing it to the E95S I own. I am aware that Asian pens tend to produce a finer line and that's a reason I prefer them. My Sailor F is perfect.

 

The problem is not being able to test the pen before purchase, or not being enthusiastic about the hassles of returning it.

 

I'm considering an Edison Collier or Pearlette pen and don't know what to expect. By default, I'd order a F nib.

 

What the world needs now is not love, love, love. What the world really needs is comprehensive data accurately documenting the line thickness of every fountain pen on the planet. Does one, or even one that lists most pens, exist?

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I'm on the side of the world needing more love myself.

 

Nib charts will have biases, too many variables to control to be universal, and the generality of asian nibs being finer than western nibs still holds true in your case, what matter of degree you need is subjective, and yeah a bit more expensive to figure out if your ability to try them before buying, and/or being able to return them easily is limited.

 

The world loving each other is far more easier, productive, and profitable in the end.....

 

 

P.S. Edison is always wiling to answer questions, they know what their nibs can do quite well after so many years of working with them....

Edited by JakobS

FP Ink Orphanage-Is an ink not working with your pens, not the color you're looking for, is never to see the light of day again?!! If this is you, and the ink is in fine condition otherwise, don't dump it down the sink, or throw it into the trash, send it to me (payment can be negotiated), and I will provide it a nice safe home with love, and a decent meal of paper! Please PM me!<span style='color: #000080'>For Sale:</span> TBA

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I agree it would be nice to know how nibs run, but even knowing some tested nibs like the list on nibs.com is just from a sample. Nibs are always going to have a +/- tolerance.

 

Heck everybody says Pelikan gold nibs run a grade wide for western nib, but not one of my M's writes like a B. The Pilot 823 B I have writes more like a Pilot M in my Custom 92 and VP.

 

The last pen I got from Franklin-Christoph with a M nib wrote thinner then their chart said and had to have the nib exchanged for a B. They said the last batch of nibs from Jowo ran fine. So it can come down to what batch your nib gets pulled from. It's best to buy from a company that will exchange and test the nib for you like F-C did. On the replacement they actually tested it and sent the test with the nib. I know they are one of the few companies that do such things.

 

When buying from a dealer most will change you a restocking fee if you ink the nib. So talk with the seller before ordering if it matters to you.

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I'm struggling with deciding between a M or a B nib on a Pilot Custom 823 because of this very issue. I like my nibs wet and usually default to a Euro medium, so I feel like I should get the Pilot 823 in B, but I've heard others say their Pilot 823 in medium wrote like a Euro medium, so...

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@ tooloose-letrek -- Asian nibs tend to run finer than their European equivalents. Modern pen nibs tend to run a bit wider than their vintage equivalents. Beyond that, it's pretty much a case of YMMV. I have a whole bunch of Parker Vectors, for instance. Nearly all are UK-made pens. And there is considerable difference between how they write -- even when the nibs are theoretically the same (i.e., when comparing F nibs to F nibs and M nibs to M nibs).

There are a lot of factors involved -- the "human" element being chief amongst them. I didn't like the F nib on a Pilot Metropolitan I tried, so I bought one with an M nib and was quite happy. I bought an EF nibbed Pelikan M405 and use it almost more than the M405 with the B nib I bought at the same time (which, while there's nothing *wrong* with it, I found I actually prefer the B nib on my TWSBI 580-AL). My first Lamy Safari has an F nib, and it's great. I tried an EF nib at a table at the Ohio Pen Show a year or two back and thought the EF was scratchy.

Like I said -- it's a case of YMMV. I know that when I'm making up batches of marzipan oranges for gift baskets or receptions, they're not 100% uniform in size; the only way for me to do that is to buy a mold, and frankly, it's just easier (and cheaper) to roll them by hand and have them be a little non-uniform in size....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: I have several Noodler's Konrads, including one of the ebonite ones. One pen writes much drier than the others. So I need to remember to put slightly wetter ink in that pen. [shrug]

Edited by inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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I, too, posted about this recently. Some responses suggest:

 

1. Standards wouldn't be feasible, because there's always going to be variability.

 

2. Standards would cause homogenisation.

 

These simply are not issues. Standards can *include* definitions of acceptable variability. And they don't compel conformation; they only invite reference to a common baseline. Standards are nothing more than an agreed language for expectations, shared across designers, suppliers, producers, consumers, etc.

 

Many industries producing goods with far more exacting tolerances than fountain pens successfully apply standards and maintain high levels of innovation, creativity, etc. Indeed, there's a strong argument that standards facilitate creativity in markets. The example I used in my post was USB standards catalysing an extraordinary diversity of peripherals.

 

The reason there are no nib standards is that the demand side of the market is small, collectively tolerant of idiosyncratic variability, and individually lacking in market power. Hence, there is no incentive for the industry to adopt a standard.

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I'm on the side of the world needing more love myself.

 

 

More love, more nib size charts... ? Nah, just more chocolate.

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."

 

B. Russell

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I, too, posted about this recently. Some responses suggest:

 

1. Standards wouldn't be feasible, because there's always going to be variability.

 

2. Standards would cause homogenisation.

 

These simply are not issues. Standards can *include* definitions of acceptable variability. And they don't compel conformation; they only invite reference to a common baseline. Standards are nothing more than an agreed language for expectations, shared across designers, suppliers, producers, consumers, etc.

 

Many industries producing goods with far more exacting tolerances than fountain pens successfully apply standards and maintain high levels of innovation, creativity, etc. Indeed, there's a strong argument that standards facilitate creativity in markets. The example I used in my post was USB standards catalysing an extraordinary diversity of peripherals.

 

The reason there are no nib standards is that the demand side of the market is small, collectively tolerant of idiosyncratic variability, and individually lacking in market power. Hence, there is no incentive for the industry to adopt a standard.

FPs vs. USB is not an apple to apple comparison though. Manufacturers can easily produce a computer and usb flash drive or other peripherals that connect to each other without much worry that any environmental factor will stop them from doing so. But, FP makers cannot easily control for the variables that define line width such as hand pressure, type of paper used, and qualities of the ink used that can either spread or shrink line width due to it being a wet/dry ink, or it acting within the pen as such. There is limitless combination of variables that makes it difficult to expect a nib to always meet a specific objective measured width. Edited by JakobS

FP Ink Orphanage-Is an ink not working with your pens, not the color you're looking for, is never to see the light of day again?!! If this is you, and the ink is in fine condition otherwise, don't dump it down the sink, or throw it into the trash, send it to me (payment can be negotiated), and I will provide it a nice safe home with love, and a decent meal of paper! Please PM me!<span style='color: #000080'>For Sale:</span> TBA

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I agree it would be nice to know how nibs run, but even knowing some tested nibs like the list on nibs.com is just from a sample. Nibs are always going to have a +/- tolerance.

 

{apologies for lack of attribution -- the normal

button was just hanging up in my browser}

 

I have two pens with Platinum "President" series nibs... One marked M and the other marked B -- and visually the B is much larger than the M.

 

The line width they produce? Practically identical 0.4mm (even using the same ink! so can't be blamed to wet vs dry ink)

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I purchased a Platinum 3776 F nib and it was closer to a XF.

I could — and have — make the line width coming from the F nib on my Platinum #3776 tortoiseshell celluloid pen shrink from 'Japanese fine' to 'Japanese extra fine' by changing the ink from Diamine Evergreen to Platinum Classic Ink Khaki Black. There is simply no fixed notion of, "this F nib should lay down a line width of exactly that, always!"

 

What the world really needs is comprehensive data accurately documenting the line thickness of every fountain pen on the planet.

I disagree. Of course I think it is a good thing to strive to be an informed consumer and do one's due diligence before making purchase decisions, and an even greater thing if more consumers subscribed to that mentality. However, there is no reason for me to believe (or champion) that relevant information and/or market intelligence ought (or 'need') to come readily and easily (or 'cheap') to interested consumers; and then, even less so side-by-side comparison tools to make analysis of multiple options less taxing on the user.

 

I cannot think of a single entity or party (including such things as industry consortia) that has an obligation to provide the sort of database or knowledge-base to which you alluded, and any commercial organisation that creates and maintains one will have vested interests that are not well served by making the information coverage as comprehensive as possible.

 

Does one, or even one that lists most pens, exist?

The one to which ENewton provided the URL so promptly is probably the one that is most widely known and used among the English-speaking fountain pen user 'community'.

 

I agree it would be nice to know how nibs run, but even knowing some tested nibs like the list on nibs.com is just from a sample. Nibs are always going to have a +/- tolerance.

Exactly. The three Platinum #3776 Century pens fitted with 14K gold SF nibs in my household (all ordered from Japanese vendors) wrote differently out of the box; so which one(s) conformed to the supposed norm for that type of nib and which didn't? I couldn't really say.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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With luck....all nibs are with in @ 1/2 a width of any 'company' standard....because of slop/tolerance.

In each company has it's very own standards....and for a very good reason.

If the once fatter Parker made a skinnier nib like a once skinny Sheaffer.....someone could make a major mistake in the One Man, One Pen days, and bought a Sheaffer instead of a Parker.

:yikes:

Some good Japanese poster said Sailor was the fat Japanese nib, Pilot the skinnier....others said not so. :unsure:...oddly I'll take a Japanese fella's word over someone one with 6 pens.

 

Each company has it's very own standard even the skinny Japanese. Ford vs Chevy....brand loyalty. the Sailor/Parker customer expect a fatter nib.

 

I always find hilarious, is those who started with Japanese nibbed pens, who know Euro nibs are fat before they buy...complain about it.

Oddly few complains that the narrower than marked to Euro eyes are actually a size too skinny.....many more started with the much cheaper Metropolitan or what ever that cheap Japanese pen is.............I was chasing old vintage Euro pens, in those pens were not sold in Europe.

I was in the States some 8 years ago...and had planned to buy some of those cheap Japanese pens....but they were were a whole dollar or two more expensive than I expected....and I did not really need a super skinny nib. I was into wide nibs then.....still not into EEF or EF. Hell then Euro F were only bought as place holders of this and that make and model.

 

What I really find odd is those who buy a Japanese B don't complain but they know it is only a M.

 

I do remember my self back in the Dark Ages buying the thinnest Ball Point tip I could find.

In fountain pens I went wide, instead of narrow when I returned to fountain pens...........narrow is just skinny...one can not play with inks with such a nib.

 

It takes a while for that to penetrate......with very skinny nibs, one don't worry about papers either, in the ink don't do much.

 

Even ten years ago many were starting with the cheap skinny nibbed better than price Japanese pens.

Japan thinks 50 years in advance. Toyota is one. They pay their managment a fair price to the worker and plan a world war in advance in Business. Something they were forced to learn when the Americans conquered them and gave them the '30's years American Business plan...that died rapidly due to Bonus well over worth payments.

 

When one thinks the top 32 Toyota managers make 32 million............instead of 150 million in something like Ford...............they win, with less cost and more planning. What is the better car a Toyota or a Ford???

 

If one becomes use to a narrower than World standard. because it's a very good cheap nib....in Japan was but a nitch pen in the 1990's....then one keeps buying narrower than marked Japanese pens as 'normal' width.

Japanese pens are much, much more commonly written about than a decade or even a half a decade ago.

Edited by Bo Bo Olson

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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I always find hilarious, is those who started with Japanese nibbed pens, who know Euro nibs are fat before they buy...complain about it.

Oddly few complains that the narrower than marked to Euro eyes are actually a size too skinny.

"... to Euro eyes" just smacks of unnecessary us-and-them framing. Every man is an island when it comes to expectations in the absence of agreed and/or mandated standards put in place by some entity greater than himself.

 

I complain about Pelikan's EF nibs because it appears Pelikan has no ability to produce a nib that can write a very precise and narrow line consistently, however they choose to grade it on the inscription. Now, I could well be wrong and Pelikan actually has the capability to do so — both in terms of nib width and production consistency — but reserve it for the Make-a-Wish-Nib commercial offer for business reasons.

 

My Diplomat Aero and my Rotring 400, both also being German pens, came with what I deem to be fit-for-purpose EF nibs out of the box, so it's not simply a case of European versus Japanese views on what Fine and Extra Fine means. Whereas the steel EF nib on my Faber-Castell Ambition, another German pen, writes nowhere near as finely.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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I purchased a Platinum 3776 F nib and it was closer to a XF. After writing with it, I would have been happier with the next size up.

There is currently a good image comparing writing output from various Platinum #3776 nibs on Mitsukoshi Department Store's Fountain pen festival of the 20th world' event home page, even though no artefacts for objective scale of measurement are present in it.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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Back when Pelikan made regular flex(Japanese 'soft') nibs their EF was narrower than Parker, Sheaffer and the thinner Waterman......in other widths Pelikan was then narrower than Parker and Sheaffer....not as narrow as Waterman...but they went to the fat and blobby double kugal/ball tipped nibs, so ball point users would buy their fountain pens and not have to waste three minutes learning how to hold a fountain pen....made the nibs out side the 200 & 1000 stiffer so they would not have to do so many nib repairs, from the ham fisted 'noobies'..

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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I wonder if some of the discussion on this thread is either not considering the distinction between nibs versus nib "output", or is only implicitly considering it.

 

Standards can be codified for any engineered product. A nib is an engineered product. QED...

 

Nib tip widths -- and lots of other characteristics of nibs -- could fairly easily be standardised. I wish they were. Then we could compare nibs -- understand how they differ from one to another -- to a greater degree before having to appeal to subjective experience.

 

But it took me a moment to realise that what I'm talking about is different than what some others in this thread are talking about. It's right there in the thread title. My personal focus on the nib, as an input variable, is distinct from the OP's interest in the output variable -- namely, line width. And as many posters have said, there are, of course, many input variables -- including process variables -- that influence the output variable of line width. In other words, even if nibs were thoroughly standardised, you'd still get different line widths in different circumstances.

 

An academic point: It is entirely possible -- and frequently done -- to standardise use conditions. That is, a standard can include "normal" use-case conditions as part of the standard. In our case, these might include standardised paper, ink, writing pressure, etc. The point is to be able to say that a given input will result in a predictable output under standardised conditions.

 

Not that I'm suggesting this is desirable in the case of fountain pen line width. I'm merely suggesting that the argument that "there are too many variables" has been overcome in many industries. The IEEE, or the ITU, or whatever robust standards organisation one might choose, has established approaches to accounting for exogenous variables that affect outcomes. Two of the most common are (1) standardising some of the other input variables -- in our case, paper, ink, etc -- and (2) codifying nominally acceptable outcomes as a range of tolerances.

 

Again, just to be clear, I don't advocate doing this for fountain pens and line width. Heck, that would require controlling even the relative humidity at which the test paper is stored, not to mention removing the variable of the human writer by developing a mechanical device to apply specific pressure, angle, etc. (...which brings to mind LAMY's nib testing machine, but I digress.)

 

I would only advocate for standardising the definitions of nib grades -- literally the size of the tip. That would easily respond to the problem statement: How can we know how broad/fine a given nib is? (One input variable.) I believe this would solve the largest component of the problem that confronts us as pen/nib buyers -- ie, knowing what we're buying. It would not conclusively respond to the question implied in the thread title: How can we know the width of the line that given nib will put down. (The output variable.)

 

All that having been said, we see among our fellow FPN enthusiasts some valiant attempts to control as many variables as possible. Over on the ink boards, several of our most esteemed ink reviewers go to great lengths to use the same tools, same approach, same testing materials, same paper, and same categories of assessment every time they review an ink, so that the reviews may be comparable over time. And there was recently a thread about how to optimise a qualitative taxonomy of pen characteristics to be applied in pen reviews.

 

I find this admirable. I also don't apply that level of rigour to my own assessments. I'm in this for pleasure. And I value subjective experience as highly as I value objective empiricism. However, with limited dollars to spend, I'm very grateful to the folks who put in the time and effort to be as exact as possible in their description of both the objective and the subjective elements of pens, inks and paper. It helps me get closer to what I think of as being a strong hypothesis on which to make a purchasing decision. But, then, I know there's still some room for surprise after I open the package and sit down to write. Sometimes the surprise delights, sometimes not.

 

But I still wish an F was an F, and a B was a B.

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FPs vs. USB is not an apple to apple comparison though. Manufacturers can easily produce a computer and usb flash drive or other peripherals that connect to each other without much worry that any environmental factor will stop them from doing so. But, FP makers cannot easily control for the variables that define line width such as hand pressure, type of paper used, and qualities of the ink used that can either spread or shrink line width due to it being a wet/dry ink, or it acting within the pen as such. There is limitless combination of variables that makes it difficult to expect a nib to always meet a specific objective measured width.

 

Quite right. And, also, that wasn't quite my intended point. Perhaps I wasn't clear that the analogy was meant only to illustrate my point about the dynamic between standards and homogenisation: ie, that standards and interoperability do not necessarily lead to lower diversity. Indeed, the opposite can be true.

 

I fondly remember coming upon an idea from Umberto Eco, when I was a younger man: (paraphrasing) Since all things are connected to all other things, no metaphor is intrinsically invalid. But that does not mean that all things are like all other things in the ways we might think.

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I also remember seeing a table somewhere indicating the range of widths for a Sailor nib of a given size, but I cannot find it right now.

 

I've never seen one for Sailor nibs, but the table of line width ranges for Platinum nibs, to which I often provide the link on FPN, is here:

http://www.platinum-pen.co.jp/about_fountain_pen_07.html

 

Sailor has a pictorial comparison of the output of the different nibs it makes. Pilot also has one for its nibs.

 

I wonder if some of the discussion on this thread is either not considering the distinction between nibs versus nib "output", or is only implicitly considering it.

 

Standards can be codified for any engineered product. A nib is an engineered product. QED...

 

Nib tip widths -- and lots of other characteristics of nibs -- could fairly easily be standardised.

...snip...

Again, just to be clear, I don't advocate doing this for fountain pens and line width. Heck, that would require controlling even the relative humidity at which the test paper is stored, not to mention removing the variable of the human writer by developing a mechanical device to apply specific pressure, angle, etc. (...which brings to mind LAMY's nib testing machine, but I digress.)

 

Platinum must also have a nib testing machine, in order to perform the testing and obtain the source data for produce the aforementioned table.

 

I would only advocate for standardising the definitions of nib grades -- literally the size of the tip. That would easily respond to the problem statement: How can we know how broad/fine a given nib is? (One input variable.)

I'm afraid it's not that simple. Fountain pen nibs aren't typically simple broad-edged nibs, but instead have somewhat round globs of iridium tipping on the business end. The tipping has a three-dimensional shape that need not be perfectly hemispherical below the plane of the top of the tines, and in fact may have facets by design. Measuring the widest distance on the tipping is largely meaningless, since the width of its contact surface that lays and spreads ink on the page (perpendicular to the direction of the pen stroke) will be lesser; how much lesser depends on the geometry of the tipping, as well as various angles such as that between the plane of the tines and the plane of the paper surface, and that between the plane of the slit and the motion of the pen stroke. If the definition of the Medium nib width grade was that the widest distance between opposite points on the tipping is [0.5,0.6) millimetres, and that of the Broad nib width grade was [0.6,0.7) millimetres, it still would not mean (much less guarantee) there is more volume of tipping material on the latter -- due to, say, a much flatter geometry -- or that the latter would produce thicker lines than the former if all else (outside of the nib's physical measurements and geometry) were equal.

 

I believe this would solve the largest component of the problem that confronts us as pen/nib buyers -- ie, knowing what we're buying.

...snip...

But I still wish an F was an F, and a B was a B.

 

But what exactly would you know then from the nib width grade, if such simplistic definitions (reducing everything to a single scalar measurement) were agreed upon? The volume of tipping material and its geometry? The thickness of the nib material (e.g. 14K gold) surrounded by the iridum tipping? The plethora of coefficients that inform the nib's response to a given amount of pressure -- how much the tines will bend elastically 'upwards' perpendicular to the plane of the tines in resting position, and how much the gap between the tines will spread, etc.?

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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I might have missed it in someone else's response, so I'm sorry if I'm repeating anyone here, but my two cents:

-Standardization across brands isn't going to happen. There is no good business driven reason for that if you are a pen manufacturer. Why should Lamy change their manufacturing processes to match Pilot's, or vice versa, etc?

-A higher degree of precision and quality control with nib production within respective brands would be more useful for the consumer. If a Pelikan B, for example, were literally always a consistent .8 mm line with a given standard Pelikan ink on a given paper, then there develops a sort of pattern that one can expect when buying a B Pelikan nib. Your line width might be different because you use a different ink or paper, but if literally every Pelikan B nib wrote exactly like the next, you'd know what to expect. Now imagine if every size of nib from every manufacturer had the same precision. We'd all know what to expect from a given brand's nib (after a bit of experience, collectively or individually).

-However, there is no good business reason that I can see to apply that level of quality control to the production of nibs and their tipping. The pen makers would have to charge far more than they already do if each nib grade were so precisely made that there were no discernable variances in how the nibs write.

 

ETA: In my example above, it doesn't even matter what ink or paper is used (it would only be necessary to standardize those things if Pelikan stated a given line width).

Edited by sirgilbert357
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