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Pelikan M400 modern EF nib


coinlvr

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1 hour ago, N1003U said:

If my research is correct, a W. Germany M800 with an 18k nib was produced between 1990 (beginning of 18k nib production for M800 ) and 1992 (when they ran out of stock of rings marked "W GERMANY").

Thank you for dating my W. Germany 800.& my 600.

...Dam I've got to get a 14 K, W.Germany 800........sigh cubed.

 

The  modern post '97 400/600 nibs are semi-nails, the 800 a nail and the 1000 no longer Bock's semi-flex but regular flex.

 

I'm ok with regular flex.................in the 1005 I have.

A year and a half or so ago, There were two black Pelikans in a live auction. I was willing to get the 1000 if dirt cheap....had no 'use' for one.

 

There was a W.Germany OBB 600, and I really, really wanted.

To my dismay, the auction house had gone over to online bidding.

I was too cheap to give out E3.00 for a catalog in we only wanted four or five things we'd viewed in the online catalog. So I'd just marked down on a sheet of paper what we were interested in....some 4-5 items.

 I had been glad the pens were very near the end, folks would leave and not come back.

Online bidding....so much for cheap.:crybaby:

80 E start bid, that 600 kept going, up, up, and exceeded my max of @ 130, but I was stubborn..........and at E200, got my 600.

Three seconds later again with a start bid of 80, I realized, I was Now bidding on the 600.....which I won for my 130......but my first pen, went from being a super expensive 600 to being a cheap 1000.:lticaptd:

 

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Thank you for dating my W. Germany 800.& my 600.

...Dam I've got to get a 14 K, W.Germany 800........sigh cubed.

I think the 800 was introduced in 1987, at least according sargetalon's blog post (and he is usually very meticulous with his Pelikan history). So if the nib is 14k, and the pen is marked W GERMANY, that implies to me it was built between 1987 and 1989. Since 1990, I believe all (with a few unusual exceptions) M8xx nibs are 18k.

 

13 minutes ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Online bidding....so much for cheap.:crybaby:

80 E start bid, that 600 kept going, up, up, and exceeded my max of @ 130, but I was stubborn..........and at E200, got my 600.

Three seconds later again with a start bid of 80, I realized, I was Now bidding on the 600.....which I won for my 130......but my first pen, went from being a super expensive 600 to being a cheap 1000.:lticaptd:

 

That is a great story.

Better lucky than good sometimes.

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  • Will Montegrappa nib fit in my Pelikan m400? is it expensive?

It won’t. As other user wrote, you could try a Pelikan ef steel nib, it will probably give a thinner line. The best prices I have found for them are at CultPens. Other alternatives may be, as other said, to send the one you have for a custom grind (haven’t done that so I can’t recommend), or source an additional nib from someone that can customize it for you (fpnibs has competitive prices on the Pelikan nibs and customization, and I like very much an architect grind I got from them on a FC steel nibbed pen).

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31 minutes ago, Violet.Ink said:

Other alternatives may be, as other said, to send the one you have for a custom grind

 

Or do it oneself, if cost minimisation is a priority over ‘safety’ and quality of results.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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As I've sid often, the 200 is still vintage and semi-vintage width. So the steel or gold plated grand springy (soft if you want to use Japanese pen terminology) 200 is still a thin Euro EF nib.

 

Somewhere, I have an old nib chart....from before Japanese pens entered the world main line pen production. They were producing for local market only......out side of making a Shaffer or two....had one marked made in Japan, sold it in it was a nail.

Conway Stewart was real fat...(as fat as the modern out side the 200 Pelikan width?????)

Then came a lot thinner Parker, Shaffer, and two Pelikan widths....the 800 was it's own nib width, between regular Pelikan and the then 'Thinnest' of Waterman.

How ever, either of the then Pelikan EF was the thinnest of all EF's,  including Waterman!!!!:yikes:

 

Before the Japanese came in and took over the skinny nib market. Back in the day, all bragged their skinny Waterman nib in the flame wars with Waterman and Pelikan.

We Pelikan folk didn't know about the 200 EF.:rolleyes:

 

So do look at EF in the 200 nib, for a grand nib, with proper width.

......no it's not Japanese skinny (would be a F or Sailor EF?)....even they have variation between companies.....some good Japanese poster said, Sailor was the Fat Japanese nib.

 

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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8 hours ago, James-B said:

My brand new Pelikan M1000 with Pelikan 4001 ink and an extra fine nib looks like this. Perfect and nice line variation too. 

20210129_215228.jpg

PSFix_20210129_184633.jpeg

Beautiful pen, and nice handwriting. The ink looks like 4001 Turquoise. Is that correct?

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10 hours ago, N1003U said:

Beautiful pen, and nice handwriting. The ink looks like 4001 Turquoise. Is that correct?

Thank you. Yes it's 4001 Turquoise you have a keen eye. 

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21 hours ago, James-B said:

My brand new Pelikan M1000 with Pelikan 4001 ink and an extra fine nib looks like this. Perfect and nice line variation too. 

20210129_215228.jpg

PSFix_20210129_184633.jpeg

A very beautiful pen. And the ef is real ef. Thank you for sharing. My ef is still medium for me. I am going for a steel ef now. All nibs are not created equal but their iridium points are equal or so? I am learning at a high cost. I think that steel nib will meet my limited budget. 

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Modern 400/600/800/1000 are all fat and blobby double ball nibs, so those who want to continue writing with a ball point can do so with a fountain pen. They are stiffer than they once were for less pretzel mending from the ham fisted nib abusers.

 

The 200, has the same nib geometry as the '82-97, so you get a half a width to some say a full width thinner line.

The 200 writes with a clean line like the semi-vintage. The Vintage semi-flex writes also with a nice clean line.

Tipping was perfected in WW2.

IMO, the golden age of fountain pens died by '97 with Pelikan....sometime in the '80's the Golden Age of Paper died, and no one noticed in they were all using ball points.We are though living in the Golden age of inks.

 

A dry ink, Pelikan 4001, will make a nib write @ 1/2 a width narrower.

 A slick paper, Clairefontaine Triumphe, or Rhoda will write  @ 1/2 a width narrower.

So with a dry ink and slick paper you nib should write close to a width narrower.

 

Every company has it's very own width standards....not the same even if they have a numbered nib. a 1.0 could be a 1.1 or wider, or a 0.9 or narrower just like the lettered nibs.

There is no perfection of nib width....you have tolerance/slop. From the same production line in any and all one nib could be a fat F, which exactly =''s a skinny M..............

If you want, I'll use Ron Zorns chart that shows how much slop in in normal nibs.

 

If one starts of with Japanese pens, all western nibs will be too fat, just like those who start with western pens think Japanese are too skinny for size marked.

For spiderweb and baby spiderweb widths go Japanese. Or if one prints; as the Japanese do with a very tiny script.

Western nibs were designed for a wider flowing cursive script. 

 

 

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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I use this from Ron  to explain why with nibs with luck one is only horseshoe near in width.

And each company has it's very own standards, so overlap of width between companies are also a factor.

Ron Zorn tolerance

Sheaffer used a dial indicator nib gauge for measuring nib sizes. The nib was inserted into the gauge, and the size read off of the dial. A given size being nibs that fell within a given range. What is listed below were the ranges given on a gauge that I saw in the Sheaffer service center prior to being closed in March 2008.

Measurements are in thousandths of an inch.

XXF = 0.010 - 0.013
XF = 0.013 - 0.018
F = 0.018 - 0.025
M = 0.025 - 0.031
Broad* = 0.031 - 0.050
Stub = 0.038 - 0.050

*there was some overlap on the gauge. May be 0.035 - 0.050

 

 

Even Lamy's steel nibs made totally by machine has tolerance.

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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30 minutes ago, coinlvr said:

A very beautiful pen. And the ef is real ef. Thank you for sharing. My ef is still medium for me. I am going for a steel ef now. All nibs are not created equal but their iridium points are equal or so? I am learning at a high cost. I think that steel nib will meet my limited budget. 

Best of luck. I have noticed that Cult Pens in the UK sells Pelikan pens at great prices. This hobby is addictive and expensive. 

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11 minutes ago, James-B said:

This hobby is addictive and expensive.

Your liver will thank you, no more wasting money in bars, and Single Malt is past tense. The bottle is worthless for putting ink into it.

 

Don't forget good to better paper and both shading and supersaturated inks. suggest getting a ream or box of good to better paper with every three inks ordered.

 

Word of warning, the Grail Pen Euphoria lasts a day, then number 2 on the waiting list becomes the Grail Pen.

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, coinlvr said:

All nibs are not created equal but their iridium points are equal or so? I am learning at a high cost.

 

Not all iridium points are equal, either. The geometry (or, in analogy with diamonds, the cut) and finish of the tipping are more important, than the physical and chemical properties of the metal, to the writing experience and outcomes using the pen fitted with the nib onto which the tipping material is welded or fused. When people pay good money to nibmeisters to regrind nibs, they aren't paying for the iridium's properties to be altered, but for the geometry and finish of the tipping to be changed with expert skill.

 

6 hours ago, coinlvr said:

My ef is still medium for me.

 

Ink flow matters to the resultant line width on the page as well, so you need to take into account the choice of ink as well as the material of the feed, whether the curvature of the top of the feed is conformant with that of the underside of the nib, width of the tine gap (which may be affected by elastic deformation of the nib body's material) when writing, etc.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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^— Agreed. Line width = nib width + tine pressure at tip of nib + properties of feed + properties of ink + properties of paper + how someone writes. There’s no silver bullet.

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7 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:


Measurements are in thousandths of an inch.

XXF = 0.010 - 0.013
XF = 0.013 - 0.018
F = 0.018 - 0.025
M = 0.025 - 0.031
Broad* = 0.031 - 0.050
Stub = 0.038 - 0.050

*there was some overlap on the gauge. May be 0.035 - 0.050


I am not usually pedantic, as it tends to irritate people, and the hate and discontent caused often far outweighs the value of the corrected information, but in this case, I am going to make an exception:

 

The measurements are (I certainly hope anyway) in full inches. Many of the interesting significant digits in the decimal shown happen to be about three to the right, in the region where thousandths of inches are indicated.

 

Why is this important?
 

1. Because for anyone who happens to speak more than one language, it might be handy to multiply the above values by 25.4 to convert them to millimeters, for which many people here will have a better mental image.

 

2. Because I think I would get a strange look from my nibmeisterin if I sent her a fine sewing needle and asked her to grind the tip into a crisp italic.


For those critical of the stubborn insistence by the residents of United States upon measuring distances in inches, feet, and yards, etc., I would point out that the US standards of length have been based on ISO standards of length since at least 1959 officially (according to sources I can find), and if you believe Wikipedia, informally since at least the 1930s (see “industrial inch”). The standard inch is, in fact exactly 25.4 mm, so conversion shouldn’t be extraordinarily difficult.

 

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It's immaterial if that old Shaffer measurement is in cm or inches....that it is measured to 1/1000'ths is be that inch or cm..........was more precise than I ever expected.

 

Those were a Shaffer only measurements, of that time, but it's not the exact width that was so startling to me so long ago, but that a M can be exactly a fat F or skinny B.....depending on one's luck.

Also the width with in the 'size' differed according to those sizes. Wasn't even steven.

 

Different era's matter, a Pelikan was once thinner than Parker and Shaffer, which I doubt is now the case.

 

In companies and eras overlap, what ever is marked 1.0 or B don't matter enough.....unless you buy only one company, and even then you will have tolerance/slop.

 

One companies F may be a M in another company, not even factoring in Japanese nibs, which I've read Sailor is the fat one; which is still skinny for size marked to western eyes.

 

So is the nib real skinny, skinny, fairly skinny, middling, wide or wider to very wide..............to your eyes only........if you were looking for thinner which oddly is often the case (very seldom my B is not fat enough), then sell it or grind it to your and no one else's very own, in it will be your very own standard, no one else's standard.....................or just live with it.

 

Then as mentioned being Heavy Handed using a wet ink on PP paper can make EF look M...or vice versa.....my M writes too thin, got to get a wet ink and cheap paper to make it the M I want.....

 

If I started out with thinner than marked Japanese pens, my Mark 2 Eyeball is calibrated thin. If I started out with Euro/American pens, my Mark 1 Eyeball is calibrated wider.

 

Then every once in a while a fat nib ends up in the thin box and is stamped wrong.

 

One can accept it, and put that pen in the corresponding width pen cup, sell it or send it in to be put on a diet.............but the main thing is does the nib write well...........at least IMO.

 

Having come back into fountain pens and went wide instead of narrow, I'm not so OCD on nib width.....why I bet I don't have but one B that writes like a M...............sadly getting that nib completely re-tipped to my very own standard of B, is not economical.......... nor do I worry about it actually.

I am not in the Thin Brigade.

The Wide Brigade seldom complains my B is too Fat, or not Fat enough.

 

Nib sizes with luck are only horseshoe close.

With bad luck, which is really seldom, it's hand grenade close...............then that nib and pen should be sent back immediately, when one gets an EF when ordering a B.. :unsure:

 

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Nib sizes with luck are only horseshoe close.

With bad luck, which is really seldom, it's hand grenade close...............then that nib and pen should be sent back immediately, when one gets an EF when ordering a B.. :unsure:

This is a great point (and possibly a bad pun, on my part).

 

What is clear (or should be) is that nib tip size descriptions are at best relative and at worst subjective. I does seem to take a bit of research and also not an insignificant amount of luck to get exactly the tip desired, especially from multiple manufacturers.

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Order wide and have the nib grinder either grind the nib to your exact measurements, or to the width of line you want, using Richard Binder's chart....in the feed also effects nib width line.

 

One has to factor in what flex rate will do to the width wished......could be one would be forced to use only nails........and not a soft riding regular flex.

You can not of course ever use but the ink and paper that particular width your nibmeister designed to lay down...........seems rather boring or limiting.....10 bottles of just one certain ink, six reams of only one paper..............well once could have that paper in other shades or huse if the maker does  lively paper also.

 

The same for every other pen one owns.....That's one way to keep one's pen collection tiny.

 

We have a real observant Japanese poster, and he tested various marked ball point cartridges....:P and they are also not often exactly as marked to line width...........I must say........:lticaptd:That observation came up when some just ex-ball point user was complaining about fountain pen widths not being as precise as on a ball point cartridge.

 

 

A good bartender (mixologist as they call us now) is precise...few other things in the world are as precise as a perfectly made cocktail.......after 5 you won't really care as you scribble on the bar napkin.

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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