Pelikan: steel vs gold nib

[alvarez57]

Having read this thread, today I went to the B&M shop I get pens from and I bought the Psychedellic shocking yellow M200 Demonstrator with a few changes: nope, no broad nib for me nor that yellow ink which I swapped for an Electric DC Blue. The nib is a M steel. I tweaked it a bit to make it wetter and aligned it (Dave had used this nib and he's a bit rough on them). I had intentions of grinding it to an Italic but it writes so nice, that I've decided to leave it as is -I have other gold Pel nibs which I ground to italics. To my surprise, this nib has a decent degree of flexibility, although not to the degree of line variation like the vintage gold and some modern ones, of course. In short, I like it to my surprise.

Edited March 20, 2011 by alvarez57

[Bo Bo Olson]

One could buy a gold '50'-65 nib or a '80's nib...that would be worth an 'upgrade'.

[DougS]

One could buy a gold '50'-65 nib or a '80's nib...that would be worth an 'upgrade'.

 

Exactly what I was thinking while reading this thread! Modern wouldn't be much of an upgrade in my opinion, but vintage would be.

[beginnersmind]

Despite being very happy with a recent Pelikan M200 purchase (steel nib, gold plated), I am (of course) wondering whether it's worth upgrading to the M400 nib (gold). Pelikans do after all allow for very easy nib changing...

 

How much difference do you find the gold nib makes to the writing? I assume a little more care goes into the making of these units, so they're likely to be even smoother, but are there other noticeable benefits?

 

Edit: apologies if this should be under "Pelikan". It just occurred to me that maybe it should. Administrators please just move this if I've got it wrong.

I had some Pelikan steel nibs from the 80's that had great tips and fantastic springiness. Gold is not always an upgrade as far as performance goes. If you can go to a pen show and try some nib out that would be great. There usually are some people just selling nibs by themselves. and then you know before you buy.

[alvarez57]

This is the nib, for a steel nib.

 

 

http://inlinethumb62.webshots.com/47549/2528540330105226730S600x600Q85.jpg

 

 

A writing sample. Although it does not give a striking line variation, it is pretty much "elastic".

 

 

http://inlinethumb54.webshots.com/37685/2666816650105226730S600x600Q85.jpg

 

 

So I would say it is much more flexible than the Pelikan gold nibs that I own.

Edited March 22, 2011 by alvarez57