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Hi, This is not my first time using a flex fountain pen. I have a pilot 912 FA and a bluedew flex pen but this is my first experience a vintage flex fountain pen. I just received my a vintage waterman fountain pen (a 'new look' that is made between 1940-1950 by JIF-Waterman). According to the seller, this nib can go from EF to 2.0mm. I was experimenting the flex of the pen. And I was too stupid to actually flex it that hard and half of the tip came off from the nib. I still have the tip that is broken off. Is the pen can still be saved or is it only a piece of accessory now? 😭 Thanks in advance for any helpful suggestion.

I found it quite interesting to see research on how (even the major pen manufacturers) are labelling their nibs. (In particular "Iridium/Genius Iridium") which often only carries a trace amount of iridium). I own several fountain pens (rabbit hole after all) but only a couple of them have gold tips. First, as a South African (one of the largest miners of gold) I can tell you that most of the advertising about the " investment value" of gold nibs is plain bunkum. Second, ever since grade school I've had the habit of pressing too hard on my pens. It's now become my writing style and a gold nib has just too much flex to stand up to that style. Since there doesn't seem to be too much of disclosure on just what our nibs are made of, what I'd like to know is if anyone here had actually worn through a nib? If so would you say it was wholly/predominantly. the nib quality or was it (as I would suspect) a mixture of writing style, paper quality, general maintenance? Please share!

With the increased interest in flex nibs these days I've noticed sellers on an auction site eagerly demoing the abilities of their goods--with some concern on my part that things might be going too far. I was willing to concede that perhaps I was overreacting until I came across this: This was a new Pelikan M300, no mention of mods, sold as being flexy. Is anyone else uncomfortable seeing stuff like this?

I get FPN stuff pop up on my Facebook feed all the time, and sometimes the pictures involve users or sellers flexing the ever loving bejesus out of defenseless vintage nibs. And YouTube is filled with videos of the same. So when you see such abuses, do you ever mention it or call them out? Just curious. I used to comment on such pictures and videos, but don't usually anymore.