Chinese Nibs

[mke]

Are there really Chinese nibs with line sizes different from 0.38 and 0.5?

 

I think, all nibs that I have tested were either the obvious 0.38 mm (hooded nibs or fine, sometimes called EF) or 0.5 mm. Certainly, there is a quite large variation especially in the 0.5 nibs. How about finer or broad? Are there any?

 

[Seele]

Some brands produce italic nibs, same idea as the Sheaffer italic calligraphy pens. Golden Star (and one or two others) produced specialist nibs for writing in languages in the Arabic alphabet, where the nib is a long vertical slit giving fine vertical lines but very broad horizontal lines.

[Tefolim]

Usually, 0.5 was described as f, 0.38 means ef. But it is not accuracy.

 

What's more, in the standard using between 1996-2005, 0.38 is at the range of f, 0.5 at m.

 

And different brand and different series' line sizes are different.

 

财务专用/财会专用≈F or EF.

 

For example, Hero 359's ef and f are similar, boarder than Hero 266 ef.

 

SIPF(Guiguan)'s Guiguan 875 series ef特细(≤0.25mm) is more narrow than Hero 266 ef. And Guiguan 82(1990s-2004?) is described as 0.4mm, which means f is similar to Hero 266 ef特细. Golden Dragon(GD)'s Whitefeather 639 财会专用(ef

or f) is more narrow than another GD's another Model 财会专用(ef or f) and Hero 266 ef.

 

By the way, as SIPF's document said, Hero 100 ef特细 in is about 0.17mm.

 

And now, there is not official ef standard in China.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Tefolim

[Mech-for-i]

of course there are different width nibs , but these days you are probably seeing the F and EF mostly. They are typically referred to as 0.38 to 0.5 but its kind of misleading. As I've had so call 0.5 nib that write finer than a 0.38. In general though Its fair to say the EF is more like a Japanese fine and a 0.5 is more like a Japanese FM/M , that stated Chinese fountain pen nib always refer to the line width as only a loose reference and in fact in some more detailed documentation the nibs would be referred to write a 0.4-0.6mm for the EF and 0.5-0.7mm for the F.

 

Some specific vintage nibs can be had at M, B, or even wider. Say Fuliwan had M nib option on all their models. And there are some specialist grind for specific models.And of course for the need almost all the major brand had at least a couple of models that can be had with calligraphy nib and, well, not all of them are the same. There is a whole school of variation among the Fude / Calligraphy nibs

Edited October 15, 2017 by Mech-for-i

[Tefolim]

It is a 1990s Guiguan 220. Iridium Point Germany mark. Width is B.

The standard in 1996-2005, I do not remember well. It seems that ef≤0.28,f≤0.4,m≤0.6,b>0.6.

Art Pen can reach BB.