Original Pen Models/designs: It Ruins It!

[peroride]

Name your best and brightest originals be they designs or specific models

 

Could be the usual suspects of long running models: Montblanc 149, Parker 51 Aerometric, Pilot Capless, etc

 

Or

 

Are there any original pen models where things should have stayed the same and not ruined by evolution in design (material changes are ok)?

 

 

Kinda like this lotr gollum meme: "it ruins it"

 

[rickap]

Original Cross Century. Century II and Classic are nice but just don't do it like the original.

[SoulSamurai]

Personally I prefer the sleek design of the Sheaffer PFM to the stepped body of the Legacy series.

[Estycollector]

Post 1960 and later Esterbrooks don't interesting me at all. Really, I prefer 1955 back.

[JulieParadise]

The Pelikan Pelikano. The original design was sleek and suited for school children, teenagers and adults alike with its simple form and the silver cap. I used one in grades 1-4 (1987-1990) myself and loved it.

 

What is called Pelikano now ... well, it ... it ... it ruins it!

[sansenri]

Omas Paragon

Many swear by the new version for being a great pen.

Possibly it is, by itself.

But I stick to the original 557-F design, size, weight

[Mercian]

Parker Urban

 

The original design was all lovely curves, and the pen’s body was ‘waisted’ - like the classic glass Coca Cola bottle.

 

The re-design that was launched in 2016 has abandoned the lovely curves that were the Urban’s unique-selling-point, and has reduced the distinctiveness of the model by making its nib-feed-grip section identical to that of the IM. The re-designed version has a body that tapers from the grip section to a narrower end, and so has a very noticeable difference between the width of the pen’s cap and that of the back of its body. To me it looks ‘wrong’ if one posts the cap.
And its retail price has been increased, despite Newellco having reduced the cost of its manufacture by standardising the most-complex components with those of the IM.

 

Worse yet than all of the above, my objections to which are after all mostly a matter of personal æsthetic tastes, I understand that the re-design suffers from the same ink-evaporation/drying-out problem that blights the Sonnet. The original model did NOT suffer from that problem.

 

Subjectively, I think that the re-design is less-pretty than the original, but objectively it is more-expensive and less-practical.

 

I have two of the original design, and I may well buy some more, but I have never bought the ‘updated’ re-design.

Edited February 17, 2020 by Mercian

[Mercian]

And, in answer to the first part of the original question, I nominate the Pelikan Souverän series of pens, in particular the M800/805.

Although many think that the more-flexible nibs from the period up to the late 1990s are far superior to the current, stiffer, offerings, at least the new pens retain the interoperability with the older nibs (i.e. one can replace a modern nib unit with one of the older ones if one so wishes).

 

High ink capacity, reliable function, useful features such as an ink window, various sizes of pen and of nib...

 

...as long as the visual design doesn’t put you off, what’s not to love?

 

Edit: I would also nominate the aerometric Parker “51” as being a pen design that ‘just got everything right’, being well-designed and sturdily-built for long-term reliability - but it has been out of production for decades.

Edited February 17, 2020 by Mercian

[Anderglan]

The Pelikan Pelikano. The original design was sleek and suited for school children, teenagers and adults alike with its simple form and the silver cap. I used one in grades 1-4 (1987-1990) myself and loved it.

 

What is called Pelikano now ... well, it ... it ... it ruins it!

Goodness, yes!

 

I did recall my own elementary and junior high school Pelikano FP of the 1970s/80s being a fine instrument, and thus a couple of years ago, I bought the recent "Pelikano", one right hand version for daughter C, one left hand version for daughter A.

 

Huge, huge, huuuuuge disappointment quality-wise.

 

(Meanwhile, both my -- meanwhile -- highschoolkid-daughters use LAMY Nexx, Safari, AL star -- and just a couple of days ago, my son S got a LAMY abc, right from the beginning.)

[SchaumburgSwan]

The Pelikan Pelikano. The original design was sleek and suited for school children, teenagers and adults alike with its simple form and the silver cap. I used one in grades 1-4 (1987-1990) myself and loved it.

 

What is called Pelikano now ... well, it ... it ... it ruins it!

 

Yes, Sina!

 

my father gave me his Pelikano 1 after my 1980s Pelikano broke under a whibbeling school chair...

I was 10 years old then...

My first good pen. Nice design, a far better writer the the later ones - it's designer obviously liked the Parker 51!

 

Best wishes

Jens