What model is this?

[Asteris]

Hi, I recently found this pen, but i do not remember what model, nor i have its box. Can you help me? It has a piston mechanism and a Fine gold nib (not sure if it's gold or gold coated).

[senzen]

Pelikan 400NN, gold nib. https://www.pelikan-collectibles.com/en/Pelikan/Models/Revised-Piston-Fillers/400NN-Basis/index.html

[carola]

Yup. Built between 1956 and 1965.

 

Not a rare pen but a very nice one. They are reliable writers with great nibs and a huge ink capacity. This nib should provide some amount of flex and if you don´t like F nibs you will easily find something different to swap (which you can do very easily yourself). The nibs of the 400/400N/400NN series are all the same and interchangeable, you just screw the nib unit (nib and feed) out and put it in a different pen. There exists a rather broad variety of nibs, the B and BB variants being somewhat stubby in a very nice way. As I don´t know where you are from - the F variant is what I would call a true European F which is a little broader than the Japanese F.

 

If the piston doesn´t move easily the pen needs some loving care and attention or else you might break the mechanism. Just remember you hold a roundabout 60 years old bird in your hands that might or might not have received a service in the 6 decades of its existence. If you handle it the way it deserves, it will probably still be capable to surprise someone with its excellent quality in another 60 years' time.

 

Personally, I own about 50 pens of various brands, 2 of them being Pelikan 400NNs, and one of those two is my favourite writer among all of them.

[Bo Bo Olson]

It, the 400NN and the previous 400 both hold @ 2.0ml or I've seen it stated as 1.95 ml ink.

The modern '82-97...'98-now 400/200 holds @ 1.25/27ml.

 

The torpedo/cigar shaped pens were real popular in the '50's. Swan, the new MB 146/9, Pelikan Ibis, 140/120, some Geha's and Osmia's were at least partially cigar/torpedo shaped.

 

The medium-long 400nn has an extended torpedo shaped piston knob over the standard sized 400. That is the only difference. As far as I know.

It requires very little to make a difference between very good balance and great balance. The fractions of an inch or CM on the 400nn makes that difference.....posted of course as all those pens were designed for best balance.

The '50-60 MB 146 was/is a medium large pen with much better balance than the later '70-now Large 146. The pen body and cap of the medium large pen is 1 cm, or @ 1/3 of an inch shorter than the later longer 146. The earlier one is also a tad thinner.

All such stuff like that make a difference in balance.

 

If back in the day of One Man, One Pen and an 8 hour day of writing (not today's conference table notes) ; if a pen didn't have superb nimble balance, one committed heresy and bought another brand.  Back in the One Man One Pen days one bought a new pen once a decade. 

 

Well, it took me some two years of dithering to say the 400nn, has a slight bit better balance than the 400.

 

Factory stubbed semi-flex was outside of Tropen, Lamy, Herlitz was the normal nib of the other main brands of the '50-70 era.

 

'82-97 on Pelikan, my that era MB's had springy comfortable riding regular flex nibs.

'98-now for the 400/600 is fat and blobby semi-nail nibs.

The 200's nib is great until the last 4 or so years. It had had the '82-97 tear drop tipping. Then they just ruined it by making it a double ball like the 400/600/800 nail, and the 1000 regular flex.

A double ball nib does not write with the clean line of a stub or the tear drop tipped nib.

 

From a bit before 1950-1972 I have 35 semi-flex and 15 maxi-semi-flex nibbed pens.

 

For line variation the '50-70 era ('65 by Pelikan) those stubbed semi-flex nibs are wonderful.

 

If you want to enjoy two toned shading inks, the semi-vintage '82-97 and the until recent 200's have great springy regular flex nibs with tear drop tipping is good to have.

Semi-flex is naturally a wet nib because of ease of tine spread, so often unless perfectly matched with a dry ink on a slick paper too wet to show the shading of two toned inks. Regular flex does that well, in it's not quite so wet a writer.

 

I always recommend, chase the nib..........which ones don't you yet have.

I personally don't see any reason to have just a flock of F nibs, when there is good fun to be had also in wide nibs. One should of course have a BB or OBB nib, but I find I use more B or OB's than the BB or OBB's. I'm not into super thin, so only have a couple semi-flex EF's. One needs one, or two. And never forget the great M nibs....many do.

"""""""""an old post of mine........

Most of my shading inks will work well with a regular flex F nib, the ink will not be so dark as a wider nib. 90g or better laser paper.

Ie. MB Toffee:

F was light with dark trails.

M was 50-50. Breaking the M prejudice I picked up on this com.

B was dark with light trails.""""""""""""""""""""

 

So it all depends on what you want the nib to do....and having the nibs to do so.

 

[stoen]

To be more precise, it is the 400NN between 1956 and 1963. You can exclude the 1964/65 (last production year) because of the shape od the nib chevron pattern - the engraved lines do meet at the slit.

🙂

[carola]

23 minutes ago, stoen said:

To be more precise, it is the 400NN between 1956 and 1963. You can exclude the 1964/65 (last production year) because of the shape od the nib chevron pattern - the engraved lines do meet at the slit.

🙂

 

... if the nib hasn´t already been changed, which you will probably never know. ☝️

One of the most remarkable design elements of Pelikan pens is that changing nib units is deliberately made very easy.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Only to a collector would that matter....and then be 'rare' eh?

 

I was here in Germany at the end of the 400nn, at that time, but could no more afford it, nor wanted too, than I could afford an adult pen like a Snorkel or P-51. Which I did want.

((Couldn't understand the need for a rough surface and the big Snorkel money Lamy wanted for it's 2000 in '66. Still don't have one.))

 

I was a typical arrogant American ignoramus....there was lots of that going around before the net. (could be some things never change) I had thought if that Piston stuff was any good, they'd make them in the States (How was I to know Soennecken (just died) and MB had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern piston age.)....................cost....not invented here, and look at the fortune to be made with cartridges.

 

 

Cost, lack of German pen advertising telling them there were better pens to be had than the Imperial.

Pen advertising was normal around Christmas and Father's Day on TV, and in the top mags.

(I have a few old ones...60's in part of my historical section of my library-den. It makes me smile; them wasting bonus money on advertising back when stock options was the bonus instead of cash. )

 

About that time I was using an ugly metal capped Esterbrook or Wearevers....or some sort of cartridge pen ....until it would get stolen....every year. Along with the beginning of the school year Jotter.

 

The Jr & Sr High was some 5-600 kids. 66 Seniors.

One girl in 8th grade had a Pelikan. Some Col's son a 146. Dammed few kids had an adult pen, Snorkel or P-51....a P-45 was considered almost high classed.

 

If you Hunt a week or three.

On German Ebay, a tortoise 400nn don't cost any more than the green stripped ones (E-90-120) as long as one stays away from being ripped off at the Buy Now Idiot Section.

 

Important if looking at an old 400/400nn is the four longitudinal combs/rills that date it to vintage are in perfect order. They are fragile.

 

[stoen]

48 minutes ago, carola said:

 

... if the nib hasn´t already been changed, which you will probably never know. ☝️

It is unlikely that someone would replace a newer nib with an older one.

🙂

In my experience and knowledge the pre-64 400NN nibs are springier, which is the quality I personally prefer.

 

[carola]

58 minutes ago, stoen said:

It is unlikely that someone would replace a newer nib with an older one.

🙂

In my experience and knowledge the pre-64 400NN nibs are springier, which is the quality I personally prefer.

 

 

Which might exactly be the reason to replace it. 😁

My point is not that it HAS been done. My point is, that with Pelikans you just never know.

[Bo Bo Olson]

2 hours ago, stoen said:

In my experience and knowledge the pre-64 400NN nibs are springier, which is the quality I personally prefer.

 

Mine is a maxi-semi-flex OF.

I tend to doubt in Degussa was making the gold ribbon wheels, that it was 'just before '64.

Since the thirties before and when Degussa took over Osmia's nib factory for debt, Degussa was making both semi-flex and maxi-semi-flex nibs for Oamia.

Not toltally but much of the time, a small diamond Osmia/OFC nib was semi-flex; those with the Big Diamond and Supra or just Supra were often the 'more springy' maxi-semi-flex.

 

I have in mixed brands some 35 semi-flex and 15  (had 16) maxi-semi-flex nibs.

 

I'm not even sure the main brands knew or cared they were sporadically making semi-flex nibs with more spring than normal (maxi-semi-flex) ...like Osmia knew....otherwise Osmia'd not had two gold nib sets....They had maxi-semi-flex in Steel also..............would have to dig to see if they also had regular semi-flex in steel.

 

I WAG that 1 in 5 of the semi-flex nibs are maxi-semi-flex.

I do have more Osmia/-OFC maxi-semi-flex than my other brands in that era. Why, Because Degussa would take which ever gold ribbon wheel had been sitting around the longest, and ship it out.

In Osmia was always on shaky legs, nib wheels originally made for their now owned Degussa nib factory ...with Osmia's maxi-semi-flex nibs in mind was sold to the first comer. Be that MB, Geha, Pelikan or Mercedes or which ever.

Off the top of my head for What I have....others might have more maxi's of one model than me....ie a couple earlier 400nns.

1 in three for MB. 2 in 5 for Geha, 2 in 6-7, (The 400OF and 500 OBBB )  of that era for Pelikan.

 

 Later than that era, I have a spade nib pen from Mutschler' Original Reform, (not a 1745 or the P10-12 or such) ...dirt cheaply made, 'gold' covered metal cap, 'gold' covered plastic body.

That pen has been kept in it is a maxi-semi-flex.........shocked me in it was a spade nib....in the middle of the '70's  or even later, and not what I thought of as a semi-flex nib form....nor time.

 

I don't blame the original owener of the Original Reform pens for such cheap junk, that is Mutschler's specialty and always was. Sort of like a Wearever in the States......made lots of cheap pens for everyone and his brother.

 

So I think one could run into a later 400nn maxi-semi-flex  also....how ever I didn't even know the last two years had a different nib stamp.

 

The real problem is how many have maxi-semi-flex nibs of the '50-65 era??

....I think the semi-flex era on the whole stopped in '72 with Geha and it's end pen the 725.

I don't read MB enough to know when they stopped making semi-flex.....I have an impression it was 1970 when they came out with the Large 146.

I was only chasing at a snail's pace early '50's MB's getting a semi-flex a semi-flex + (the only one I have that lays in the middle between semi&maxi) and lucked into that maxi-semi-flex medium-large 146 that Francis so finely repaired for me.

 

I'm sort of OCD on 'springy' having even developed my own subjunctive flex system that works for me.

Maxi-semi-flex term was invented by me, when I ran into a Rupp nib that is still the most flexi of my 15 or so maxi-semi-flex nibs.

 

Grumble cubed, Sometime soon I got to ink that Blue Clipper with the Rupp nib.

 

I have two of these. Someone gave me one with out a nib. That Rupp nib screwed right in. One blue one with the original semi-flex nib and one with the Rupp maxi-semi-flex nib.

 

Two of these Clipper pens do have a nib with a three tailed 'Clipper' stamped in it.

The Clipper pen and it's nibs I put towards the '60's in the nib has that American Style, bump under tear drop tipping instead of factory stubs.

[stoen]

16 hours ago, carola said:

My point is, that with Pelikans you just never know.

It is a strong statement, nevertheless.

 

My point is that the *probability* for such a possible nib replacement is rather low in this case. With a fairly common vintage pen, which looks intact, one would not boost its market value by doing possible but tricky nib replacements, which still require some experience, knowledge, tools, skills and work.

Unless inspecting a strange looking or a very rare and valuable pen, I wouldn’t find a good motive for becoming forensically susipcious.

 

It is true, nevertheless, that one can take apart 10 piece of a Pelikan pen of the same type, mix up the parts and randomly reassemble 10 functonally equal pens. This is however far from implying that Pelikan is notorious for the fact that “you just never know”.

 

Pelikans are built to such high manufacturing standards that dimensions of the parts technically allow for such interchangeability, even after 50+ years, which makes them by no means more suspect in terms of dating or inferior in quality to any other major pen brand.

 

Thanks for reading this.

[carola]

4 hours ago, stoen said:

It is a strong statement, nevertheless.

 

My point is that the *probability* for such a possible nib replacement is rather low in this case. With a fairly common vintage pen, which looks intact, one would not boost its market value by doing possible but tricky nib replacements, which still require some experience, knowledge, tools, skills and work.

Unless inspecting a strange looking or a very rare and valuable pen, I wouldn’t find a good motive for becoming forensically susipcious.

 

It is true, nevertheless, that one can take apart 10 piece of a Pelikan pen of the same type, mix up the parts and randomly reassemble 10 functonally equal pens. This is however far from implying that Pelikan is notorious for the fact that “you just never know”.

 

Pelikans are built to such high manufacturing standards that dimensions of the parts technically allow for such interchangeability, even after 50+ years, which makes them by no means more suspect to date or inferior to any other pen brand.

 

Thanks for reading this.

 

I had absolutely no intention of calling Pelikans suspect or inferior and I don´t think it´s fair to imply that I did.

 

I love Pelikans. They are my favourite brand. And one of my favourite features is exactly this easy interchangeability of nib units where absolutely no tools are required. To me, this is some kind of customer service. I also had no attempt of "value boost" in mind, just that it is so easy to tune Pelikans to one´s own liking and still have a real Pelikan pen.

When I was writing "you just never know" I basically had Parker pens in mind that carry a very detailed date code, giving you not only the year of production but also the quarter. This is something you simply can´t tell in that detail with Pelikans, probably because it was never seen as necessary or else they would have done it. Is that good? Is that bad? Personally I would second the opinion that it just isn´t that important.

[stoen]

52 minutes ago, carola said:

To me, this is some kind of customer service.

Thanks for elaborating your opinion, @carola. By no means did I want to imply anything unfair.

Some time ago my opinion about customer service was quite close to yours.

Meanwhile, with help of some professionals far more experienced than myself, and having disassembled and reassembled hundreds of Pelikan pens, I learned that some tools and considerations are better to have.

I also got some strong reactions from FP gurus such as Rick Propas, that stressing interchangeability equals advocating inexpert user repairs, and that Pelikan nib units were never meant to be interchangeable, to which I don’t agree. All these discussions are well documented in other FPN threads. Therefore, with all due respect to your knowledge and expertise in Pelikan pens, I hope my comments won’t get perceived as pushing the thread off-topic.

🙂

[DvdRiet]

- deleted -

[sansenri]

whatever you do, don't get rid of that nib.

That is one of the early nibs with the arrow lines touching the tines slit, and in general they are very nice flexy nibs.

If you like to swap another nib in, just to enjoy a different type, you can, as it should screw out.

As I mentioned however, don't get rid of it, it's more likely that you will grow to like it, while you may regret giving it away...

Be careful if you wish to swap it out that 400NNs often were equipped with nibs which were held together with the feed by the dreaded polystyrene collar, which tends to crack inside the pen and is not easy to get out. 

All in all if you like the nib as it is don't tinker with it if the pen writes well... my 2 cents.

[Bo Bo Olson]

6 hours ago, sansenri said:

which were held together with the feed by the dreaded polystyrene collar, which tends to crack inside the pen and is not easy to get out. 

I had thought my 400nn one of the mythological early '56 ones that were friction feed.............Christopher told me, no such animal. Only early '50.

Well I've not wiggled my maxi-semi-flex OF out of my 400nn since then. Works fine.

I have enough fine pens of that era in semi&maxi and widths and obliques I don't have to change nibs.

 

I tend to think Rick wrong about nib changing. I do have a couple of '50-54 green stripped, piston capped sized marked OM&OB....and that OB wrote exactly like my OM. Someone changed nibs....and back in the day in both are semi-flex.

 

I have a D+M nib in a '50-54 400 marked B. And of course someone in a shop decided he wanted a D nib over a semi-flex. A D nib is truly a nail's nail.

I don't have an H nor care to have one.

 

I don't know if there were any pens marked with D or H nibs.

I've only a good hand full of @ '50's-65 pens. Including one non marked 100n k-nib, an Ibis (both the 100n & Ibis were made until '54.) and 5-6 400's, one an nn, and now only one 140's...had two and a 120.

Stoen would know more of that...D or H marked pens,  than me, having hundreds or so go through his hands.