Sailor Nibs - What Does The "h" Mean?

[Leftytoo]

1) I have a Sailor Professonal Gear with a medium nib marked "H-M". So what does the letter "H" denote - is it Japanese for medium, an intermediate size, or what? I've seen "H-F" nibs.

 

2) Whatever, this nib width is identical to my Sapporo extra-fine "EF", that is both are 0.22 mm measured with an optical comparitor (same paper & ink of course). I'm somewhat disappointed and wonder if the nib is easily swapped, or if a nibmeister could magically make it wider?

 

Thanks, Bob

[hari317]

H indicates "hard" IIRC.

[Chris Chalmers]

Right Hari!!! Hard rather than soft (or flexy)

[anderl]

H indicates "hard" IIRC.

 

That's what I read, too.

 

Did anyone ever come across a Sailor nib labeled "soft"?

[tanalasta]

No. But I have come across 'N' which stands for naginata (one of the speciality nibs) which in the example of my naginata togi MF has N-MF on the side.

[jde]

H indicates "hard" IIRC.

 

That's what I read, too.

 

Did anyone ever come across a Sailor nib labeled "soft"?

 

Current nib choices were presented here very recently in this post. No current soft nibs.

 

although that list does not include the specialty nibs.

Edited October 27, 2011 by jde

[Jezza]

H indicates "hard" IIRC.

 

That's what I read, too.

 

Did anyone ever come across a Sailor nib labeled "soft"?

 

Current nib choices were presented here very recently in this post. No current soft nibs.

 

although that list does not include the specialty nibs.

 

I wonder if it's even possible for Sailor to make "soft" or "flexible" nibs on the large Professional Gear and 1911 pens since switching over to 21k nibs years ago. I would think that if they didn't make the 21k nibs extremely rigid, the tines would splay. I would be willing to pay the same price for a large Sailor nib in 14k if they would make a soft or flex version.

[Limenweim]

H means Hard as far as I know. I read somewhere that they used to make Soft nibs, but no longer do now. The 'H' still remains to distinguish from the Naginata nibs.

[anderl]

Thank you for all the responses and the useful weblinks.

 

One reason I asked was that (thanks to Bartimaeus) I got a Sailor 1911 with a H-MF nib that feels pleasantly soft (without being really flexible), while the H-EF nib on my Sapporo is a (wonderfully precise and rather smooth) nail-needle. So there's already quite some variation in softness among the H-nibs, and I was just curious how far this would go with S-nibs. Pity those aren't currently made.

 

 

In response to Bob's question 2): My H-MF nib already is much much wider than the H-EF, and from tables and links I get the impression that Sailor is proud of their range of nib widths -- so perhaps they'd be prepared to exchange your (mislabeled?) H-M nib.

[Leftytoo]

Thanks for all the good information.

 

I will send an e-mail to Sailor (their site is 1 page only, shows addresses for Japan and London). I bought this pen from Hong Kong.

 

I had a Pelikan whose nib I was unhappy with; it was replaced no questions asked. And Parker has a nib exchange program.

 

Bob