Frustration At Current Pelikan Nibs

[jaytaylor]

I am sorry about your unlucky nib streak. Can't help but be intrigued with that beautiful brown ink color. Would you mind sharing which ink you've used for those writing samples, jaytaylor?

 

I can't deny the frustration at not using my M1005, with a good nib it has the potential to be brilliant which leads me onto the ink - Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Brown.

Edited October 14, 2019 by jaytaylor

[Gobblecup]

This is such a severe disappointment, I hope Pelikan will see this and work on the quality control process ASAP!

[Bo Bo Olson]

What to do with a (not the 200) fat and blobby Pelikan nib. The double ball/kugal, can be stubbed on the bottom, or made CI and made into a narrower nib on top....say if the bottom is a M that is stubbed the top could be made into a EF for small scribbled margin notes.

[pajaro]

I like the current nibs, at least the extra fines. I like small pens, though, and only really use an M300 extra fine, which is quite smooth.

[nibtip]

The best solution is to send it to a trusted nibmeister knowing that there may be a waiting list. Then you may get a nib that far exceeds any factory out of the box nib. (maybe on par with japanese nibs).

 

I like very much my M805s except for the nibs. I had many more than 5 flawed on a row.

And no more amazon super deals for me: twisted pyjama, defective feed, not aligned or badly polished nib.

Cheap often ends up more expensive as we all know.

Edited October 14, 2019 by nibtip

[Bo Bo Olson]

A reputable dealer....if one buys new....and is told to check the pen and nib.

 

Of course I'm too cheap to buy new......vintage first, semi-vintage second.........and very seldom modern. Just two...only one of them was new. ................not counting the 200's of course. They have the semi-vintage regular flex nib, so don't have the modern nib problems.

 

What I find is in 1998 Pelikan stopped making nibs in house..(except perhaps the 200's nibs?????) Everyone complained bitterly about the Bock nibs made to Pelikan's new specs.........when Pelikan took the nibs back In-House............the very same complaints continued.

It wasn't Bock, it was Pelikan's new specs........with their new fat blobby stiffer nibs.

Bock made the 1000's as semi-flex.....Pelikan's 1000's nibs are regular flex.

 

I really like the nice springy regular flex classic tear drop shaped 200's nib shape. It is just as good as the '82-97 steel and gold regular flex nibs of that era. Those give a nice clean line.

[Seney724]

I think it is fair to say that most of us have experienced the same issues with Pelikan's "modern" nibs. In reflecting upon my own experience I think it began sometime around 2010-2012. Interestingly, some time around then Pelikan had a huge price drop (at least in the USA) and I have often wondered if there was not a cause & effect relationship between their pricing and their declining quality control.

 

For a while ChartPak was able to help but given the root cause is a Factory "QC" issue, there was only so much they could do.

 

It has now been years since I have acquired any of the modern Pelikans. I have acquired and been much happier with their vintage pens. I find the 100N/101N and 400 pens to be exquisite in both their beauty and their performance. I stick with the pre-1956 nibs (pre-logo imprint) and find that virtually all of them write wonderfully. Some (but not all) have needed a minor adjustment but nothing complicated. The old Pelikan nibs simply run circles around the newer ones.....and increasingly so over time.

 

Just my opinion but, in my experience, it is not hard to make this problem with the modern nibs become a non-issue!!

[jaytaylor]

Not having a good experience with the seller, they are not offering to replace the nib for a third time.

I’ve been offered a refund on the pen only. No compensation for the inconvenience or for the multiple times I’ve paid for shipping.

 

My options are to accept a shoddy nib or not own an M1005 at all with a $50 deficit for the experience.

 

The wording from the dealership leans toward me being a difficult customer and the common factor?!?

 

All I want is a correctly finished nib which isn’t ruined as per my photos yet it appears unachievable via a large UK offical Pelikan dealer.

 

I’m not going to accept the most recent nib, whilst I could salvage its writing ability by investing time and expense in grinding it, the cosmetic defects will continually bother me.

 

Of course I could also escalate this beyond the dealer, try contacting Pelikan directly.

 

I have to bear in mind this isn’t a cheap pen, it should meet the expectations of a premium writing instrument.

 

I may have to walk away from this though, I have enough going on in my life already and don’t need the headache but I’m in dismay at Pelikan and my thus far abysmal experience.

[Gobblecup]

I suggest you contact Pelikan, on behalf of everyone who has come to expect quality from their brand. You could be the bearer of the news that they have put out badly crafted nibs. Now, I understand that you have a lot going on and it might not be a priority. But, I and many others can benefit from Pelikan being informed in detail of their mistakes.

[sirgilbert357]

Not having a good experience with the seller, they are not offering to replace the nib for a third time.

I’ve been offered a refund on the pen only. No compensation for the inconvenience or for the multiple times I’ve paid for shipping.

 

My options are to accept a shoddy nib or not own an M1005 at all with a $50 deficit for the experience.

 

The wording from the dealership leans toward me being a difficult customer and the common factor?!?

 

All I want is a correctly finished nib which isn’t ruined as per my photos yet it appears unachievable via a large UK offical Pelikan dealer.

 

I’m not going to accept the most recent nib, whilst I could salvage its writing ability by investing time and expense in grinding it, the cosmetic defects will continually bother me.

 

Of course I could also escalate this beyond the dealer, try contacting Pelikan directly.

 

I have to bear in mind this isn’t a cheap pen, it should meet the expectations of a premium writing instrument.

 

I may have to walk away from this though, I have enough going on in my life already and don’t need the headache but I’m in dismay at Pelikan and my thus far abysmal experience.

 

 

Really sorry to hear this. If it were me, I'd take the 50 dollar loss and just buy a different M1000 from a different vendor...maybe from one that will check it prior to shipping.

[TSherbs]

 

 

Really sorry to hear this. If it were me, I'd take the 50 dollar loss and just buy a different M1000 from a different vendor...maybe from one that will check it prior to shipping.

This.

 

Or not buy another Pelikan at all. You can do without it.

Edited October 14, 2019 by TSherbs

[Intensity]

I would definitely try to contact Pelikan DE directly, but... it might be difficult to write to the German office. There seems to be a policy in place to look at your country and forward any messages you send to your respective country's service center without really reading the messages and seeing if, in fact, they should go to Pelikan DE after all. If you use their contact form from the official website, you will be automatically re-routed to your local Pelikan repair center / distributor. I've encountered this issue multiple times when contacting Pelikan centers for discontinued nibs. Every time I attempted to contact Pelikan DE, my e-mails were forwarded to Chartpak in USA, which would then reply with the same answer ("No, we don't have those in stock anymore for USA"). It even happened once when I was finally in touch with a UK Pelikan service center directly (Stone Gift)--one of the in-between e-mails got manually forwarded to Chartpak USA, and I had to start over.

 

For this particular issue I would go to the source -- the German company center and manufacturer, not their contracted offices in other countries.

Edited October 15, 2019 by Intensity

[bizhe]

Unacceptable.

[jaytaylor]

I walked away from the M1005 for a few days, the email response from the dealer left me rather !@#$#$$##

 

To recap, My M1005 was sent with a shonky broad nib in appalling condition, the replacement EF nib, whilst cosmetically better does not write and requires grinding to get it functional, ignoring its cosmetic faults.

 

After informing the dealer of the defective EF nib which I did ask them to check before sending, this is the main body of the response as below, what do you make of it?

 

 

"Thank you for your email.

We are sorry to hear that you’re having problems with the nib again. However, we are not sure as to whether a third nib will help the situation. Therefore, you may return the pen back to us and we will issue you with a full refund instead."

Bear in mind that I detailed the issues with both nibs, fully macro photographed and linked to the dealer to demonstrate the issue, to which they agreed with the first nib, the response over the second nib as above.

Am I over reacting at the implication? I don't think I am. I have withheld the dealer from this thread, if anyone wants to know which dealer it is please PM me. They have now supplied me with a total of three shoddy nibs with the first being an M815 which I reground to CI to the best of the limitations of its original condition.

Edited October 20, 2019 by jaytaylor

[A Smug Dill]

the email response from the dealer left me rather !@#$#$$##

_...‹snip›...

Bear in mind that I detailed the issues with both nibs, fully macro photographed and linked to the dealer to demonstrate the issue, to which they agreed with the first nib, the response over the second nib as above.

 

Am I over reacting at the implication? I don't think I am.

Firstly, for the avoidance of doubt, I sympathise with how disappointing, frustrating and confronting the retailer's response must be to you as the customer; in your shoes, I'd be seeing red and throwing things at the wall in sheer annoyance while shouting curses.

 

That said, it's business fundamentally, first and foremost, "at the end of the day" and any other way you cut it. The retailer has a commercial obligation to you, and they are seeking to discharge it by giving you a full refund, after a couple of unsuccessful attempts at resolving the issue that involved non-trivial costs — just from shipping the "replacement" nibs to you at its expense, even if you assume there is no cost to them to obtain the nibs from the manufacturer or its regional distributor — so it is not shirking its responsibility. Your satisfaction is important to you of course, and no doubt important also to those you choose to buy from, as long as it remains presently or prospectively profitable to them. Once it stops being profitable and it looks like they aren't going to recoup the costs of dealing with a customer account to resolve issues, you "have to" allow (because the law allows) someone to just leave you hanging unsatisfied but cutting you off and undoing a transaction. They've lost money in the process, and you get no satisfaction at the end of the day; nobody wins, and certainly nobody has taken advantage of another. You paid money with a view to material gratification, and they accepted your order expecting it is "good" business; neither party's expectation panned out. I don't think you can demand that they persist to the bitter end until you're satisfied with no way of just quitting while they're behind.

 

If it was on a platform such as eBay, Amazon Marketplace or AliExpress, I'd say leave them bad seller rating; I would. But I think you can't reasonably demand that they put your satisfaction ahead of their business concerns, and do what is best for them within the confines of the law, the terms of your commercial agreement with them (including how each party can back out), and any applicable published policies of eBay and the like.

 

You can't stop retailers putting you in the "too-hard" basket, any more than they can stop you from blacklisting them as suppliers for future purchases.

[stephanos]

This is a very interesting thread, and it certainly chimes with my experience.

 

I'm quite happy to accept some variation in line width, but whatever the specific writing experience, the thing needs to work. Whilst I do understand that online retailers face commercial pressure, I am not prepared to spend extra money on returning a faulty nib when the fault is not mine. A retailer shouldn't have to suck up the cost either, but that is between them and the manufacturer.

For me, the lesson is therefore to buy vintage, and if I do buy new, then only in person or from an online retailer that will certify that it's checked the nib as being in full working order before sending it to me.

 

Germany (and much of western Europe) is famously experiencing severe skills shortages. I wonder whether this is at least one factor behind the well-documented ongoing troubles with Pelikan's gold nibs.

[entertainment]

I already posted this evaluation on the M1005 Streseamann thread, but thought I would add it here as well. I would generally agree with the negative comments about recent Pelikan nibs for the M800 series. Switching to a decent vintage nib from a variety of manufacturers shows the failings of the recent Pelikan nibs. But my M1005 Stresemann is better than the other recent Pelikan nibs I have acquired (mostly EFs). It even wrote quite nicely out of the box.

 

I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the F nib on mine is almost identical to the width of the EF on my M805 Ocean Swirl and just slightly wider than the EF of my Blue Dunes M805 (which may be due to the fact that the Blue Dunes writes rather on the dry side while the M1005 is pretty wet).

 

And the M1005 has some decent flex instead of being a nail. I can easily get some line variation.

 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

""""Germany (and much of western Europe) is famously experiencing severe skills shortages. I wonder whether this is at least one factor behind the well-documented ongoing troubles with Pelikan's gold nibs.""""

 

This problem started when Pelikan changed it's nibs it had Bock make in 1998....and has continued since moving back in house @ a decade or so ago had he exact same problems. . 20 years of the same problem is not a worker problem but a design problem......first make out side the 200, the nibs stiffer (for less pretzeled nibs by ham fisted ball point barbarians) , make the wide and blobby so the ball point or roller ball user will not have to waste three minutest of awkwardly learning how to hold a fountain pen.....he can hold the big and blobby nib upright just like his Pelikan Roller Ball and Pelikan Ball Point..............The double Kugal tip will let a ball point user never change.

Holding a fountain pen vertical even if it's got a big fat blob of a nib, puts stress on this or that tine...could also be part of the problem.

 

I was watching a video where some woman was testing Pelikan nibs, and was quite proud that the nib was as smooth as a baby's bottom.(showing off her English).............in no one told her we use that term for a skipping often over polished nib.

Poor paper will allow poor nibs to pass the hand test for baby bottom.

 

Rule number 7.....always take your own paper to a B&M to test drive a pen........makes a big difference. I thought my M MB wrote to the modern fat B of a M nib, but when I got home it wrote to a M!!!!

Rule number 8 always tell them you want the replacement nib in the middle of tolerance.....unless you want a thin B, or a fat B.....

I didn't tell anyone that so got a fat B=BB nib, that is almost unusable.

[dbs]

If you ever watched a young pretty sort of CEO woman from Pelikan jibba-jibba at Appelboon's interview, you will realize this brand is over. Though Montblanc has similar "severe skills shortages" as you said, they are more willing to solve your frustration. Pelikan's service is near to zero: You bought our pen, you owned it 100%. We have zero responsibility to it.

[Lam1]

If you ever watched a young pretty sort of CEO woman from Pelikan jibba-jibba at Appelboon's interview, you will realize this brand is over. Though Montblanc has similar "severe skills shortages" as you said, they are more willing to solve your frustration. Pelikan's service is near to zero: You bought our pen, you owned it 100%. We have zero responsibility to it.

 

Hmm... I cannot agree with this.

 

If you are in the EU, Pelikan is well known to service pens for free.

 

If you are in US, then Chartpak/Pelikan offer services for 3 years if the pen is bought in the US. If you buy your pen abroad, then they say you are on your own (which I think it is absurd) - but that is not entirely true. At the beginning of the year I had two pens bought in Europe sent to Pelikan/Germany to exchange the barrel. It did take a little while for communication with them to be established. But, in the end, both were serviced for free and both were outside the 3-year warranty. I didn't even pay (expedite) return postage and, for my troubles, they gave me a bottle of Edelstein of my choice (I chose Tanzanite, since mine was nearing the end ).