Doomed I Tell You, Doomed

[Bo Bo Olson]

There I was just cruising along, with half a dozen 400's or 8 or 9, all vintage and semi-vintage, a small and large 600, a couple Celebries, a 381 and a 1005....Not counting the five 200's and a 215. No big deal. Often I don't count the couple 150's or the 151 from Italy.

Just a handful or two of Pelikans.

 

I just won a four Pelikans at a live auction.............I was going to sell one of those two marbled blue 200's....but one is pre and the other post '97....na-ja......they are different you know....one has a single band on the cap and a piston ring cap, the other has a wide and narrow cap band.............different.

Have you ever been to Pelikan Perch and seen all the 200's????????

 

A brushed steel Silvexa 28....1969-75. I bet there is a whole lot of them.

 

A Pelikan Pen Collect One, one with Dolphins from '92-93.....A Pelkikano. and 6-8 of that year's only collection.

All with regular flex nibs....I'd feared a nail on the last two.

 

When looking to see what that brushed Steel pen was I found out there is a mdl 60 and 476 and I bet a whole slew of others I'm happily ignorant of. ....doomed, I stepped over the line between normal and off the wall.

 

doomed....it wasn't all that long ago I got my first 200( a 215 in I didn't want a 200!!!) .... Then a semitransparent pen of the year, then a W.Germany one (the OB nib the most springy of my regular flex nibs....didn't quite reach basic semi-flex oblique , and another200 pen of the year, and then another 200 crawled into the nest when I wasn't looking.

8? 200's.

 

Silverxa impressed me more than expected.

 

I don't need any Pelikanos.......I said that often enough, and now I have one!!!!!!! They are not very classy, but they are colorful.

Doomed!!!!

I'm sure someone will point out the classical Pelikano's.

Doomed.................

Sigh, I can't even sell that Pelikano....my wife likes it.......................doomed!!!

[PAKMAN]

Doomed indeed! They keep multiplying !!

[Carrau]

Of all people, I thought you'd have known better! No hope for the rest of us then.

[BaronWulfraed]

Strangely, we never see Pelikan eggs... They must have developed live birth -- and even more, practice parthenogenesis (since we only see nesting females with chicks).

 

 

 

 

 

I keep resisting the urge to use a lot of Blu-Tack in order to submit to the "family portrait" thread. Use my two 600s as body/neck, two 400s as wings, spare nib as the beak, and my two 200s as the chicks...

Edited September 23, 2020 by BaronWulfraed

[Bo Bo Olson]

Of course I need a '30's full tortoise.......no Toledo, in I'd have to sell Pelikan's to get one.

A Sea-grass Green is on the lottery win list.

I Do Not Need the other 7 of that Collect Pen collection. But you know how our God Murphy is, some one will put two or three in their please take a book box in front of their house for my wife to find. Then it will be off to the races.

[inkstainedruth]

Strangely, we never see Pelikan eggs... They must have developed live birth -- and even more, practice parthenogenesis (since we only see nesting females with chicks).

 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: My favorite pens are Parkers. My EXPENSIVE pens (not counting repairs) are all Pelikans.... What does this say about me?

Edited September 23, 2020 by inkstainedruth

[sansenri]

I understand you Bo Bo.

my problem is I learnt to write with Pelikans...

First I had a 120, when I was very young and then I broke it...

So as a grown up I had to re-buy one... well, actually three... must have been a sort of punishment for breaking the first one...

After the 120, I had one of those you mention, a 476 or similar, possibly 474.

That lasted a very long time, but eventually I lost it...

So I had to re-buy one...

could not find it exactly as mine, so I settled for a similar 478 (same nib, this is a OM)

 

however I do recall that some of my mates at the time (early 70s) had a P30...which was a tad nicer

so I thought, suppose I find one...I did

 

but then I know there is a piston version... the M30...

 

that one I don't have... yet

[OMASsimo]

Get over it. The bad news is, there won’t be a vaccine against Pelikans, the good news is, they aren’t fatal. I wouldn’t collect Pelikanos but I still have mine from grammar school and it still works fine like 50 years ago. There are quite many underrated vintage Pelikans, which can be had for a bargain. The M30 that sansenri mentioned is just one of those. Just live with it that you’ll find and buy more of those funny birds.

[whych]

Get over it. The bad news is, there won’t be a vaccine against Pelikans, the good news is, they aren’t fatal. I wouldn’t collect Pelikanos but I still have mine from grammar school and it still works fine like 50 years ago. There are quite many underrated vintage Pelikans, which can be had for a bargain. The M30 that sansenri mentioned is just one of those. Just live with it that you’ll find and buy more of those funny birds.

There are many Pelikan rabbit holes to fall down.

The Pelikano provides its own in that there is the Mk1, Mk2, Mk3, etc. The Mark 1 Pelikanos came as a Parker 51 style closed nib and in a piston or cartridge version.

In addition to this, there are the different colour they came in as well.

 

Collecting Pelikans may not be fatal, but can cause serious problems for your wallet!

 

BoBo

As you may have discovered already, the Silvexa came in various nib types, The first ones had a semi hooded nib and the later ones had the open nib. Like the Pelikano, they did both piston and cartridge fill.

Good luck collecting them! If you find one with a B or OB nib, get it. You will like the nib.

Edited September 27, 2020 by whych

[DilettanteG]

I have more Pelikans than I can comfortably use, despite that I’m still eyeing the Moonstone M205, the Stressman M1005, and I still want an M800 tortoise.

It looks like we’ll all be going to perdition in the same hand basket.

[inkstainedruth]

I have more Pelikans than I can comfortably use, despite that I’m still eyeing the Moonstone M205, the Stressman M1005, and I still want an M800 tortoise.

 

It looks like we’ll all be going to perdition in the same hand basket.

We'll just all change our names to Toto in the process.... (BTW, the emblem in religious paintings -- so you know which saint it is -- for St. Dorothea is... a laden basket....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Bo Bo Olson]

I don't even want to count how many Pelikans I have.

 

In my Pelikan double pen stand, I have a '54 transitional*** tortoise in it. It's a semi-flex B.

That nib width and flex does that new Moonstone Edelstein ink real justice. My regular flex M '91-96 Tortoise does well also (it's a toss-up which nib shades better, but I prefer the semi-flex.

I have two early '50's tortoise 400's, one is the rolled gold 500. That era's tortoise is lighter than my '90's one.

Strangely, the rolled gold cap makes the later one look murky.

 

*** I don't have an N, but on the whole the '50-54 Pelikans are pen marked, not nib marked. My 400nn is nib marked and I think...guess a 400n is nib marked also. Which is why I have to eyeball guess my 500 is a 30 degree OBBB.

My other Pelikan Obliques of that era are 15 degree grinds. (The '50-65 era obliques are the only ones worth buying for real line variation.......

I also have 3 semi-vintage and a 1000 all in regular flex that don't make the grade. Not even my two W.Germany ones. a 200 OM and a 600 OBB). I had great hopes on my W. Geramny 200 OM...sigh cubed.

 

Pen marked Pelikans can be upsetting. I had an OM 400, and the 400 I bought at a live auction was marked OB....and I couldn't understand why both wrote to the same width. :headsmack:Someone swapped nibs, so I ended up with two '50's 400 OM's.

Some day I'll have to rectify that problem..........but not today.

 

Oh my god, I only have 8 pens inked....6 are Pelikans.

Often I have 17 inked. It was my wish to get down to having only 5 pens inked; so I could use more ink.

Realistically; I don't have that type of will power.

 

One of the other two in my MB 234 1/2 Deluxe semi-flex KM, a pen (I didn't want.) that in the Pelikan lot I won at a live auction. It ended up my best pen for nib and balance; which was not expected; with the brass back weighting. It has the biggest jump in value of all my pens by far. If I ever have to save the ranch, it's the pen I'd sell.

 

The 400nn that I won with it, ended up #4 back when I was noobie enough to go through my only 20 pens to find which were best balanced. (Only took me some 2 or so years to judge the 400nn to have better balance than the 400.)

 

The other pen in my Pelikan pen stand is a Lamy Joy with a 1.5 nib, that keeps trying to remind me to practice Italic writing. The nib is wide enough that I can easily see my mistakes.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Bo Bo Olson

[N1003U]

 

Oh my god, I only have 8 pens inked....6 are Pelikans.

Often I have 17 inked. It was my wish to get down to having only 5 pens inked; so I could use more ink.

Realistically; I don't have that type of will power.

 

I hear you. I just flushed, cleaned, and dried everything in my German office, and I carried 4 inked pens with me here to SW Pennsylvania. I resolve to keep less than 10 pens inked at any one time (with a goal of no more than 5), but I haven't even been here 24 hours, and I am already up to 6 inked pens (see my post in the "impulse buy" thread to give an idea of what is sitting here empty and tempting me).

 

I think perhaps I am doomed to have too many pens inked.

[basterma]

I can't have more than one pen inked at a time. I use one pen for the duration of a cartridge/piston/convertor fill, then flush the pen and move on to the next pen in my rotation. With regards to my flock, there are not many newer members. My gem is the P10 I have had since eighth grade. It has the right kind of styling to me Navy blue with green trim. The design is enough of a homage, while being modern. I long for them to make a piston version of it...The last Pelikan was a Twist I bought three years ago. Honestly, the brand has lost a bit of the appeal, as they all seem to me many variations of the same overpriced theme. They look great, but I just can't pay money knowing I am being fleeced in some respect. Same thing goes for a lot of other brands as well.

[chromantic]

Sure, it starts innocently enough, two or three Pelicanos maybe. But then you buy a "nice" one, say a black/burgundy M150, and a year later you've got 7 M150, 3 M200, 3 M300, 3 M4xx and a vintage 140. 'Cause, you know, they were "on sale" or "bargains".

[OMASsimo]

I can't have more than one pen inked at a time. I use one pen for the duration of a cartridge/piston/convertor fill, then flush the pen and move on to the next pen in my rotation. With regards to my flock, there are not many newer members. My gem is the P10 I have had since eighth grade. It has the right kind of styling to me Navy blue with green trim. The design is enough of a homage, while being modern. I long for them to make a piston version of it...The last Pelikan was a Twist I bought three years ago. Honestly, the brand has lost a bit of the appeal, as they all seem to me many variations of the same overpriced theme. They look great, but I just can't pay money knowing I am being fleeced in some respect. Same thing goes for a lot of other brands as well.

 

 

The P10 (or PK10 ?) was a rare export model around 1970. Is that really what you have? Maybe post pictures so that we can help you. The piston sister model would be the M10 or MK10 but more popular and easier to find is the M30 with 14k gold nib.

[Bo Bo Olson]

If one goes to Inky Thoughts or Ink Reviews..................One Inks.

It can't be helped when one has a few dozen or 70 inks.

 

One does have to see how much nib thickness makes on an ink. (Like I have Edelstein moonstone in a semi-flex B and a regular flex M. There is of course a difference...to those with educated eyes). Do look up the posts of our Ink Guru, Sandy1, to educate oneself on the effects of nib width and different papers.

 

Gee, I've not used that ink in a long time..............the next insidious thought is one needs to buy a 'new' ink, or think seriously about replacing a used-up ink.

In we are living in 'The Golden Age of Ink', one can't help one's self.

I had enough trouble getting the inks of the old companies; much less the slew of new ink companies.

[mana]

Meh, seems that the database problem removed my reply to this thread... oh well, let's write a new one.

On Pelikans being trouble... or well, not so much trouble but rather, capable of breeding even in captivity in most amazing ways.

 

That has so far lead me to the current total of 23 fine vintage Pelikan fountain pens (not counting the ones that had arrived broken or the ones that I have re-homed to good and deserving families) and one modern M200 plus a number of companion pieces (mechanical pencils) and other related and associated ephemera...

 

The critical mass was achieved long time ago and now they just keep on finding their way home here at a pretty steady rate of 2-3 pens a year and I see no reason to even try to change this (well, in the sense of attempting to reduce that rate).

 

There will always be room in the flock for one more fine feathered fellow of the vintage Pelikan kind.