Difference Between Steel, Gold And Titanium Nibs

[Tweel]

I'll add a user opinion that I've not detected any mush or camel hair in a titanium nib. It's fairly stiff with a little spring. "Snap-back" doesn't make any sense unless you are trying to flex the nib.

[Timotheus]

For those who still don't know Brian Gray's famous article "In praise of steel nibs", here's the link: http://edisonpen.com/in-praise-of-steel-nibs-2 . And for those who don't have time to read it, a very brief summary: "unless you want / need flex, steel is perfect".

 

My own experience: in recent times, I have bought four (new) pens with gold nibs, two of which have created me serious problems. In the same period, I have bought far more than four pens with steel nibs, all of which wrote perfectly out of the box.

 

And personally, when writing I don't feel any difference between steel and gold (I have no flex nibs).

Edited April 25, 2019 by Timotheus

[Bo Bo Olson]

I have read of 'noobie's clipping the 'iridium' off a gold nib and calling it a stub. But a stub has tipping left....it is just flatter, with rounded corners..........not taking it down to bare metal.

Do look nibs up in Richard Binder's site.

 

There are still Chinese steel nibs that are rolled tipped, like the old 2xxx Esterbrook. Esterbrook did offer a more expensive tipped 9xxx nib also. But the rolled steel nib was to be good for 1 1/2-2 years of 8 hour a day work.

 

German vintage (always broke) Osmia often was just a whisper of tipping in rare earth was more expensive than gold then....and now. One does have to look a little harder with Osmia but the tipping is there. I have a OBB with just a pad of tipping in the middle.

However Pelikan or MB from that era, '50-70's are a bit thicker in their flatness than say a Geha. But with the Geha there was enough tipping.

Semi/maxi-semi-flex from that era was all factory stubs. I got some 45 of them.

 

I also have a factory nail BB Stub Vac, and Snorkel (Australian), BB stub in maxi-semi-flex.....with enough tipping.