Pelikan ilo Füllhalter (Ilo P475) school pen or pen for the masses?

[Chandon]

I agree about Lamy and Asia.  I used to buy in the Lamy store in a mall in Singapore on Orchard Road, and it was always full. Same was true for their stall in the Milligram store in Melbourne. It is a good strategy and light years ahead of Pelikan. 

[N1003U]

16 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

I've heard Pelikan no longer does free repair after the warrentee is up. That leaves Lamy and Cross...

..and Twsbi.

 

I'll rant here (again) about the Pelikan direct factory repair service (unfortunately apparently valid only for customers inside Germany).

 

I just returned an M600 Turquoise with a cracked cap for repair via Pelikans internet repair request system (as far as I can tell, only valid for addresses within Germany). I needed to sign up for a user account, then on a simple web form describe the repair problem, and give them a return address to which to send the pen. The website generates a repair ticket and and return label (RMA) that one can print out (PDF format) and attach to the shipping box. Shipping TO Pelikan is at customer expense (insurance suggested). Pelikan also requests for warranty claims the customer include a copy of the dealer-stamped proof of purchase page from the warranty book, or a copy of the purchase invoice.

 

The website explains fairly clearly that the item will be examined, and if not covered under warranty, the customer will be contacted by e-mail or phone for a repair estimate. If under warranty, the item will be repaired and returned at Pelikan expense. Once the RMA is generated, when logged into the customer account, it is possible to track the status of the returned item (date and time of: RMA generated, item received, item inspected, item under repair, repair complete, item shipped (including return tracking number--my repair was shipped back from Peine via UPS and arrived next day).

 

Since my repair was a simple cap replacement, the repair was processed the day after the pen arrived at Pelikan, and the pen was back in my hands 6 days (4 business days) after I sent it in. I was impressed.

 

But yes, Pelikan is quite clear that non-warranty repairs are subject to fees.

 

[7is]

I think it's pretty. It does feel somehow cheap, I'd say more than Safari, but I still find it appealing, for many reasons. Time will tell how reliable the pen is.

 

Just to add few details I wasn't aware before the purchase.

 

I wouldn't call it black, it's more graphite to me. In my opinion, it works great with Pelikan blue/black ink.

 

Ilo is made in Germany which was a nice surprise. I expected its production to be outsourced.

 

No complaints regarding the nib, it's smooth and soft. Good overall ink flow, the wetter side of moderate, although I haven't try other inks yet.

 

Dimensions: open 126, closed 136, and posted ~149 mm, weight: 16 g.

 

(For comparison Lamy Safari, respectively, 129, 140 and 160 mm, weight: 15-16 g)

 

 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

Success invites copy....though they are not all that close. Pelikano made many pens over the generations.

 

N1003U

Thanks for the repair info in Germany in I do live in Germany....just that all my 25-30 Pelikans from vintage, semi and new work just fine.

But it's good to know.

[chromantic]

Oh, well, that's just hideous.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I can remember back in the day, thinking the 'new' Safari was Spot on Ugly, and I was still a Ball Point Barbarian then....but Ugly is Ugly....though the Safari functions well.

That new Pelicano is 5% less ugly. Hopefully cheaper.

 

I got given a Safari and eventually gave it away to hook someone into fountain pens...I still have a 1.5 Joy....that has nice balance.

[Ste_S]

I picked up an ilo today. I like the tactile nature of the dimples, the ink window and how it writes. However, it feels quite cheap. The play in the barrel/section interface with the notch, and also the play in the cap, when capped, especially makes it feel cheap in comparison to Pelikan's own Twist, Lamy Safari or Platinum Plaisir.

[Mercian]

On 4/16/2021 at 10:55 PM, Ste_S said:

On the subject of Pelikan C&C pens, do they use a slightly smaller 'nipple' than the international standard? I've got a Waterman cartridge on my Twist and it feels kinda loose.

No, Pelikan’s pens take (& the company makes) Standard International Cartridges (both short and long).

 

Your Waterman cartridge feels loose in your Twist because Waterman makes their pens with a feed nipple that is slightly too wide to accept anybody else’s SICs.

Waterman cartridges seem to be SICs, but their mouths are slightly wider (so that they will fit securely on Waterman’s pens).

 

Waterman is the Devil!

(& if you don’t want to take my word for that, just watch SBREBrown’s ‘Disassembly Line’ video for the Carène 😉).

[Ste_S]

44 minutes ago, Mercian said:

No, Pelikan’s pens take (& the company makes) Standard International Cartridges (both short and long).

 

Your Waterman cartridge feels loose in your Twist because Waterman makes their pens with a feed nipple that is slightly too wide to accept anybody else’s SICs.

Waterman cartridges seem to be SICs, but their mouths are slightly wider (so that they will fit securely on Waterman’s pens).

 

Waterman is the Devil!

(& if you don’t want to take my word for that, just watch SBREBrown’s ‘Disassembly Line’ video for the Carène 😉).

I don’t think it’s that. I think Pelikan’s nipple is slightly narrower than standard. I’ve had a Pelikan converter that’s fitted fine on the Twist, put the same converter on Visconti, and it’s now too loose to fit back on the Twist.

[Mercian]

On 8/22/2021 at 3:15 PM, Ste_S said:

I don’t think it’s that. I think Pelikan’s nipple is slightly narrower than standard. I’ve had a Pelikan converter that’s fitted fine on the Twist, put the same converter on Visconti, and it’s now too loose to fit back on the Twist.

Interesting that you should say that…
 

I ruined my first Pelikan converter by trying to use it in a cheap pen that I’d bought from a high-street store here.
I put my Pelikan converter into the cheap pen, but then found that I couldn’t screw the barrel fully on to the pen when I had the Pelikan converter in it (even though the barrel would close fully when the pen had an SIC loaded and a spare one inside the barrel).

 

I then found that the mouth of my Pelikan converter had now become too wide to fit securely in the P480 Pelikano for which I had bought it, so I had to buy another converter.

At the time I blamed the cheap high-street-store-branded pen, because I owned two of them, and both of them had horrible flow issues, and no way to get the nib-feed assembly out of the grip-section-unit to check/adjust the flow without destroying the whole unit ☹️ That, coupled with the fact that the barrel was too short to take a standard converter, put me right off those pens. I assumed that they had been constructed to slightly-off-standard dimensions.

 

Now that I come to think of it, I have always thought that my Pelikan-branded converter doesn’t really fit very securely in to my P480 Pelikano, so perhaps you are right after all, and the feed nipples on Pelikan c/c pens are slightly narrower than the ‘regulation’ dimensions of an SIC’s mouth.

 

But Waterman is still the Devil! 😉

 

Edit to add:

I was just looking for information about the Pura, and I found this thread from 2015.

So, it seems that you are right - Pelikan seems to have designed their c/c pens in such a way that their converters are intended to be held in place by the back of the pen’s barrel.
It would therefore make sense that the cartridge-piercing/mounting nipples are slightly narrower than those of other brands.

 

Cheers,
M.

 

 

 

[Ste_S]

I've grown to like this pen a lot, after a week-ish. Writing back to back with more premium steel nibbed pens (Pelikan M200, Visconti Mirage, PenBBS 456) it holds it's own pretty well. A really nice EDC pen.

[AceNinja]

Can anyone with the ILO gives an updated review on their ILO?  how does it fare so far? any problems?  the nib still great?  etc