Opinions On Untipped Gold Stub Nibs And There Durability?

[The Blue Knight]

I've got a few pens with nibs where one of the sides of the tipping material has been flicked off. I got these either in job lots or cases where I complained and the person said keep the pen.

 

I'm hesitant to sell gold nibs for only there gold content as even in there not great condition it seems a shame. As the other parts of the pen were OK I was thinking of grinding them to untipped stub nibs. And sell them as such.

 

I realise untipped steel Stubs are generally regarded as OK but not much gets said about gold nibs. Are they too easy to wear out whereby it would be "I'll practise" to sell them or could they last a good amount of time?

 

The nibs that fall into this camp are a 51 nib, a Slimfold nib and a Lady 17. A 51 nib can be found around £20 and he other two around £10. So they wouldn't be worth getting re-tipped.

[zaddick]

How much use will they see. Metal is still harder than paper so they can be used just fine. The wear most people refer to is not going to happen at a noticeable rate with casual or infrequent use. So duration will depend on frequency of use and the quality of the paper. If you sell them with proper identification of the issue then I don't see any dilemma. Better than scrapping more usable pens.

 

Steel is harder than gold so it will last longer untipped. Really most people have more than a few pens so they will move on from the pen before lack of tipping is an issue.

 

These are general observations. i am sure there is anecdotal evidence of nibs wearing out with heavy use. But we are not talking about aluminum foil here.

[makas]

Hello

 

If you want to sell them I would just replace the nibs because I think you will get a better price that way. The gold value for just 3 nibs isn’t enough for me to deal with and you never know if you could use it later. The pens can always be used for parts and if you are going to sell pens in the future you will always need parts. How long they will last or if the person that buys them will be happy with how you did it is a big question I can’t answer but I can say I have a few drawers of parts and I am always surprised at what all I find I need.

 

Good luck

Mark

[txomsy]

Not to mention that a worn out stub or italic simply becomes a slightly wider stub or italic. Not much to lose there from my point of view.

[awa54]

I'm a fan of hard tipping... as mentioned, you'll probably have fine performance for a a long time if the pen is only used occasionally (assuming the grind is done well), but an every day use pen will show wear fairly quickly and need to be re-smoothed regularly to keep the edges from getting sharp.

 

In the case of hooded nibs, completely removing the tipping may create a situation where the nib doesn't project far enough past the hood to be a functional writer.

 

On the subject of selling a "stub" that is not tipped, I'd say that as long as you make sure that the buyer knows this, it's all good. However I can say from experience that buying a pen where the seller made no mention that the "stub" nib was just a hack-job on a broken nib was a major let-down and if the seller hadn't offered to replace it with an undamaged nib (which they did, Thank you!), I would have requested a full refund.