Broader vintage nibs

[BambinoFortunato]

So, I've been dipping a toe deeper into the waters of vintage pens. I've also been leaving my days as a fine nib only person behind and am really falling in love with broader, inkier nibs. I've noticed the vast majority of vintage pens available seem to be very fine. Were broad nibs less popular back then?

[gyasko]

It depends.  

 

Vintage American nibs are usually fine. So are Italian nibs.  English and Canadian nibs are often broader than American nibs.  Broad nibs are also more common  on German nibs.  You’ll find a lot of vintage German obliques, too.  

[bunnspecial]

Some of the finest nibs I've had have been vintage American. I sold a Parker 51 Vac that I otherwise like, but it had what was easily a true XXF or possibly finer nib-I suspect it may have been sold as an "accountant" point but I'm not totally sure. Looking at others, my Vacumatics and Duofolds have nibs in the range of a normal true F-XF, and are very nice writers. I have a special-to-me Oversized Balance that has what i'd probably call a wide F or maybe even an M, and a Snorkel with perhaps an even larger point.

 

The broader nibs are out there. They're not overly difficult to find on German pens, and especially in oblique grinds. Also, English made Parkers seem plentiful in larger sizes. I have an English made 61 c/c(with the original receipt where it was sold in England) with a B. There's an OB 51 in my pocket now, although I'm not sure exactly where or when it was made(I don't see imprints on it, so they're either weak or were never there.

[OMASsimo]

I’m telling you, you’re entering dangerous waters.😎 I can confirm that broader and especially oblique nibs were very common in Germany and those vintage nibs aren’t blobby but chisel shaped. Thus, broader  German vintage nibs are very likely to provide a lot of character by effortless  line variation. That’s what hooked me on vintage German piston fillers though their often very conservative and stark design doesn’t thrill me too much. But their writing performance seems to be unsurpassed in my experience.

[gyasko]

3 hours ago, OMASsimo said:

I’m telling you, you’re entering dangerous waters.😎 I can confirm that broader and especially oblique nibs were very common in Germany and those vintage nibs aren’t blobby but chisel shaped. Thus, broader  German vintage nibs are very likely to provide a lot of character by effortless  line variation. That’s what hooked me on vintage German piston fillers though their often very conservative and stark design doesn’t thrill me too much. But their writing performance seems to be unsurpassed in my experience.

 

 

Though they are fewer and farther between, vintage American stubs are every bit the equal of a Montblanc or Pelikan broad.  The English and Canadian ones can be great, too.  

[OMASsimo]

Might be true but good luck to find one. I wasn’t successful yet. I have some outstanding early Wahl and Waterman nibs in my collection, some nice Shaeffers and Parker’s, but nothing of the kind discussed here.

[Honeybadgers]

Look for pelikans. Vintage 400 series pens came with unbelievably outstanding broad italics. I have a BB italic semiflex 14k 400nn in tortiseshell and it's insane.

 

I also got to try a maxi sized wahl doric with an adjustable broad italic. Thing was heart meltingly glorious.

[gyasko]

16 hours ago, OMASsimo said:

Might be true but good luck to find one. I wasn’t successful yet. I have some outstanding early Wahl and Waterman nibs in my collection, some nice Shaeffers and Parker’s, but nothing of the kind discussed here.

 

US made vintage stubs are out there.  It’s easier to find them in the wild here in the US than it is to find vintage German pens.  In other words, it’s the difference between once in a while vs never.   I imagine the situation is reversed in Europe.  

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

I have a  Parker Canadian factory BB on a '38 Vac. As expected it's a nail.

An Australian Shaffer snorkel, with a factory BB stub; maxi-semi-flex. English or in this case Australian, nib run to more flex than US pens in Swan made a great range of nibs from nail, regular flex, semi-flex and superflex.

I have an English Jr. Duofold in semi-flex....Which shocked me when I tested the nib at a flea market.

 

One can find B nibs for vintage German nibs, but as Omasimo pointed out there are many Obliques. Do not waste your money on anything after 1970.

I have a very nice B on one of my '50-54 Pelikan 400's and a a few OBB's and OB's from other brands, like Osmia. If you buy an oblique Osmia, BL is left foot grind broad, a BR would be a broad right foot grind.

 

The rest don't differentiate between left and right foot grinds on the nib or pen. Once can still find right foot ones but they are rare.....in those semi-flex nibs which are push pull, and a left hander unless an underwrtier is pull-push. 

 

The '50-65 Pelikan and a bit later for MB&Geha are semi-flex and one gets the real oblique pattern, and don't have to pull out the magnifying glass to find it in later era's.

 

Really, don't waste your money on Obliques that are not semi-flex; I have enough of them, but don't think of them as oblique, in I am spoiled with semi-flex obliques.......

More pattern if one looks hard, than a nail oblique which has none, but nothing to write home with.

 

If looking at Pelikan for a B nib, get the 200's nice springy regular flex....it like the vintage and semi-vintage pens, @ 1/2 a size narrower than the fat and blobby modern nibs...Writes With a Clean Line, like semi-vintage and vintage.

 

All my vintage&semi-vintage B, OB are writing nibs. BB nibs, one can write with them, but they are a wider line......grumble; got to update my  nest pen list to get at least one of my two Osmia BBL's back into rotation.

[OMASsimo]

2 hours ago, gyasko said:

 

US made vintage stubs are out there.  It’s easier to find them in the wild here in the US than it is to find vintage German pens.  In other words, it’s the difference between once in a while vs never.   I imagine the situation is reversed in Europe.  

 

 

Sure, that’s certainly true that they exist and are easier to find on your side of the big pond. I used to go to estate sales, antique and thrift shops on the east coast quite a bit and none of the pens I found there had a broad/stub nib. I’m not checking US eBay where you might be more successful. So, what do you think is the percentage of such vintage nibs on the US market? My rough estimate for the percentage of broader German vintage nibs is about 20%, at least among first tier brands. But I hardly see such nibs in Italien, UK, or French vintage pens either. So, I have a feeling that It’s more of a German idiosyncrasy than a difference between the two sides of the pond.

[gyasko]

OMASsimo, I imagine the percentage of stubs on vintage US pens is between 0-5%.  I agree that it’s relatively easier to find German broads.   But absolute numbers are important: Parker made millions of 51s, so even if the percentage of stubs is low, there are still going to be a few out there.  

 

It gets easier to find American stubs as you go into the 1960s and on.  I think this is for two reasons: the decline of fountain pen use in business and the increasing popularity of italic hands.  

 

Of course, 51s and later pens aren’t going to write like a 1950s MB. but they can still be nice stubs.  The softer American stubs are usually on the pre-1940s pens.  

[bunnspecial]

The 51 OB I have is as sharp and stubby as my MB 144, my "reference" vintage German OB nib. In fact, I'd almost say that the "51" is a bit sharper and less forgiving than the 144. It's about like the MB 12 OBB I had, which is a 1960s pen but I find the 12/22 almost too small, and that one was also unforgiving enough that I'd get tired pretty quickly writing with it. The 24 oblique something(was sold to me as an OB, but writes skinny enough that I suspect it may well be an OM or even OF, but then the 2 digit MBs also run small) is a much more forgiving nib.

 

BTW, although I can appreciate a bit of flex in a B or OB, it's not mandatory for me. I enjoy all my oblique nibs, even my essentially new(bought second hand, but made in 2019) 149 OB, and all of them in my hand give me grind-induced line variation. The only sort of flexible one is on the 144-the 2 digit MB nibs as a whole are "springy" but I don't know how "flexible" I'd consider them(and I've had a bunch of them). My O-whatever 24 has the same sort of springiness I've had on other 14s and 24s(I notice very little difference in overall feel between the 18K model 14 nibs and 14K model 24 nibs).

[mizgeorge]

I have a number of vintage OBs (and OBBs) on Pelikans, but some of my favourite broader nibs are on English pens, including a couple of Watermans and Conway Stewarts, and perhaps my favourite on a really very old Swan. They're often cheaper at the moment as so many buyers pass over them in favour of fine and flexible (or at least described as such).  I think a lot of the wider nibs were seen as appropriate for signature pens, rather than everyday writers, so I've found they're often in pens that would have been a little more expensive at the time.