Pelikan 400, Fine Nib. Review.

[pe2dave]

2010-10-23T09:21:58Z

 

Pelikan 400, Green, Fine nib.

Tested with Noodlers black, Clairfontaine Paper.

 

Ordered from forum member PrintHardCopy, Singapore, 124 UK pounds,

thirteen days order to delivery. From which, if you are impatient, pay

the full price and buy locally! I'm a little impatient, probably less than some.

He can delivery within a couple of days using Fedex, see his pages.

Your choice.

 

Declaration: This pen arrived after two (very nearly) full days

writing with a Lamy CP1, which is both heavy and slim (by my

judgement), so that's the bias with which I'm arriving at this review.

 

First impressions. Very light. I have a mental image of a good pen

being heavy. The plastic piston filler probably takes most of the

weight away, leaving a pen that feels very light. Looks... pretty? Good?

Impressive?

 

Appearance: Positive impression. The black and green (stripes) with

gold trim, chunky cap and clip make for a big pen look, but it

isn't. The cap is 12.7mm diameter, half an inch, which is 'big' in my

books. The body is (average) 11.5mm diameter with a 9.4mm neck at the

grip just above the nib. 9/10

 

Design: I'm not in a position to judge. Can I take it apart? I haven't

tried as yet. Pelikan has a good reputation and solid warranty, which

speaks volumes for their confidence in the quality of the pen. As far

as a tool goes, the design has a weakness IMHO. The narrow finger

grip, the waist just above the nib, is small, and necessarily wedged

between the inky nib and the threads for the cap. I felt obligued to

hold this waist (which is why it is narrowed I guess), yet it felt too

small (in length) for my medium sized hand, with medium thickness

fingers. Diameter of that grip is fine by me. As with many pens the

end of the cap rests on the knuckle of my hand, a minor irritation. I

think I'm going to have trouble with the screw cap. Only a single

turn, but all the pens I've ever had have been fitted with push fit

caps. This leaves me with an inbuilt 'yank' reaction when I pick up a

pen. Any pen. I just hope the engineers noted this when deciding on

the strength of the thread and cap thickness. 7/10

 

Weight and dimensions: 16.3 grammes, fully inked. 126mm capped, 122mm

uncapped, 152mm posted. Pure prejudice, but it feels lightweight. Note

my bias after using a (relatively) heavy Lamy CP1 at 19.5gms. The

other aspect which may skew my judgement, the Lamy is very slim

compared to the Pelikan, so logic says the 'fatter' pen should be

heavier? I agree, there is little if any logic in this. Size wise I'm

happy, weight wise (noting my prejudices), only 7/10

 

Nib and performance: I ordered a fine. I do believe I've read that

Pelikan nib sizes are larger than others. I'd match the Pelikan fine

with my Lamy medium. The nib looks, quite simply, large and

ostentatious. Pretty with its two tone patternation, but darned

big. It skips a little, when used to write fast, long lines. More so

side to side than down the page. In normal writing I only noted it

skipping once. I had flushed the pen with water prior to using

it. I'll take a closer look but I'm reasonably happy with that

aspect. Writing is (as has been said in this forum) like

aquaplaning. Very smooth on the paper. On cheaper paper it felt

smooth, the scratch sound was raised from near nothing to slight. A

nice benefit that it works well on cheap paper IMHO. A partial

negative aspect to such nib smoothness. A little resistance to a nibs

progress across the page I find useful in stopping the nib running

away with me. Not sure if 'slippy' is the right adjective, but such a

smooth nib does seem to lead to less control in in the written line.

9/10

 

Filling system: First time with a piston filler. No choice but to dunk

the entire nib and part of the body into the ink. It works. The slop

on the mechanism amounts to some 30 or 40 degrees which is not

good. It works in summary. I can't tell if the piston/reservoir is full or

only half full to judge its efficiency. 7/10

 

Cost and value: As above, 124 UK pounds which I believe is about as

good as you can get for a new pen. Value? I guess I'm paying for the

name. Is it four times better than the Lamy? No. Will it last four

times longer than the Lamy? Doubtful but I'm not in a position to

judge that. Cost: 10/10, Value 5/10.

 

Conclusion: My first (and probably last) expensive pen. I'll amend

this review after I've used the pen for more than a few pages of

writing if anything changes. As a tool for writing it works, but so

does my Lamy Safari. Does it give me more pleasure to use than a

Safari? No, to be honest. And since I have no opportunity (or desire)

to flash the pen when signing something extraordinary, it seems to

have been an expensive experiment.

 

Dave

Edited October 23, 2010 by pe2dave

[Ondina]

A very detailed and well done review. Thank you for the honesty as well. As in so may other things, price is not correlated to quailty.

[atypical]

Hi,

 

An interesting and well done review.

 

Sorry to hear that you're not all that happy with your Pelikan.

To turn the expensive experiment into a reasonably priced experiment, you might consider selling or trading the pen.

 

The price of 124 GBP is indeed about as good as it gets.

The best I could find in the UK is 130 GBP with RRP being a whopping 195 GBP.

It makes you wonder what the markup on this type of pens is.

 

Being used to screw-on caps myself, I have a tendency to unscrew barrels on pens with push fit caps.

 

I believe the slop in the mechanism is by design.

It prevents movement of the piston if you accidentally turn the piston filler knob a bit.

 

In my opinion, a Pelikan nib should not skip.

You could try a different ink or have a look a tine alignment, spacing and baby-bottoming with a 10x or better loupe.

A good loupe will be a worthwhile or even indispensable investment as your collection of pens grows.

[ssmui]

Does your Lamy Safari allow for nib swaps, just like tne Pelikans ?

[Ondina]

Does your Lamy Safari allow for nib swaps, just like tne Pelikans ?

 

All the Safari/AllStar/Studio allow easy and quite unexpensive nib swaps.

[pe2dave]

Does your Lamy Safari allow for nib swaps, just like tne Pelikans ?

 

yes, I have a range from EF through to 1.9 italic.

 

Dave

[pe2dave]

Does your Lamy Safari allow for nib swaps, just like tne Pelikans ?

 

All the Safari/AllStar/Studio allow easy and quite unexpensive nib swaps.

 

Hey Ordina, don't forget my (favourite) CP1! I think that is in the same camp?

I.e. I could put my 1.9 italic in the CP1. Not that I'd want to ...

but just saying.

 

Dave

[sannidh]

Hello FPNers,

 

I received my Pelikan M400 with Fine nib last week.

And to my utter dismay the tines were quite unaligned. Thanks to a loupe and my 2 hour long effort , I could align the tines. Now it writes quite smoothly.

 

However, one major concern for people like me, is that the line width is quite thick (perhaps > 0.6 mm) for a Fine nib.

It is closer to a European Medium rather than a Japanese medium.

 

For the Pelikan steel nibs (200/205), they are quite representative of Japanese (pilot) mediums.

 

Below is a writing comparison on a print/copy paper:

1) Pelikan M400 - Fine - 14K Gold nib (Two tone, modern)

2) Faber Castell Ambition - Medium - Steel Nib

3) Pilot Custom 74 - Medium - 14K Gold nib

http://s16.postimg.org/dixlvoqx1/IMG_2481.jpg

[TheLacOperon]

Great review! They seem to have gained in popularity right now.