Curious About Sheaffer Palladium-Silver Nibs

[SoulSamurai]

I've recently come across across palladium-silver Sheaffer nibs being sold on their own on ebay. I was just wondering if these nibs have any predictable qualities? It's my understanding that titanium nibs tend to be soft but can spring easily, gold nibs can be stiff or soft, steel nibs are usually stiff, etc. Are palladium-silver nibs usually stiff or soft, or can they go either way?

[Bilbo_Swaggins]

They are good, flow is good with any ink I ever tried in my PFM. stiff, but not nail like, with little flex. Seems to have an anti feathering quality as any ink seems to work well in it.

[silverlifter]

I would say no flex. They are gloriously smooth, but firm. LIke most Sheaffer nibs, a delight to write with.

[SoulSamurai]

So it sounds like, while good nibs, they don't have any special character or anything? Fair enough, thanks for the info guys.

[inkstainedruth]

I would say no flex. They are gloriously smooth, but firm. LIke most Sheaffer nibs, a delight to write with.

 

I'll disagree with that statement. I have a Snorkel with a Palladium silver triumph nib, and it's got a tiny bit of flex (I'd call it semi-flex; it is by NO stretch of the imagination a wet noodle...). I thought I had lucked out just finding a stub in the wild, and had the pen for OVER a year before I realized that the nib had some flex to it, and wasn't a nail like on my other Snorkels (even the 14K nibs). Ironically, the pen's original price tag was more than twenty bucks less than that of the green Snorkel with a 14K (but boring) F nib. And then the cashier came down even further, without me saying ANYTHING other than "I'd like to buy this...."

I will concede that they are probably extremely rare, though....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: Oh, and how does that pen write? Superbly.... I generally use vintage Skrip Peacock in that pen -- just because I can....

Edited September 10, 2019 by inkstainedruth

[Ron Z]

..but the flex is not a characteristic of the nib being palladium silver, but rather the way the nib was made. I really don't see much difference in the performance of gold VS palladium nibs. Sheaffer did make some flex Triumph and snorkel nibs, but not many compared to the number of manifold nibs made.

[Honeybadgers]

So it sounds like, while good nibs, they don't have any special character or anything? Fair enough, thanks for the info guys.

 

 

Think of them as fantastic steel nibs that don't corrode. So they're safe with iron gall inks. But they are nails, which kind of lends them towards being good everyday workplace pens. And the palladium silver does have a luster that regular rhodium or chrome plated steel/gold doesn't have.

 

They feel absolutely identical to the non-flex 14k triumph nibs. Blindfolded you'd never be able to tell.

 

The triumph nibs do tend to be on the smoother side compared to a more traditional design because they're slightly upswept into the slightest "waverly" shape. So I would say they do write uniquely enough to warrant owning a triumph nib of some sort, but not differently from the 14k versions (there are 14k flex triumph nibs but they are quite rare)

Edited September 11, 2019 by Honeybadgers

[sidthecat]

I asked an eBay seller if a nib was flexible. She wrote back that it was not, and I told her that that was useful. She asked why, and I told her that while firm nibs are not my thing, there are others who love them. This thread is a perfect example.

[Honeybadgers]

The only flexible triumph nibs you can tell because they don't have that inscribed "line" that follows the two tone on the 14k.