Pelikan M600

[DeusImperator]

I have been using Pelikan pens since 1994 and have some expectations of what a Pelikan pen is supposed to be.  In December I purchased a Pelikan M600 with a medium nib and was quite disappointed.  I had come to expect a oval grind to the nib but this was a round grind and more like a medium.  But when I began to write with the pen I was surprised to hear a clicking of the nib tines every time the nib was placed on the paper and a late start when the pen begins to actually write.  Did Pelikan change their nib grind?  Also, since December I have tried to contact Pelikan but their website is broken and while the contact form seems to submit it actually does nothing.  Does anyone have a customer support email for Pelikan.  I contacted the only name I could find for Pelikan and she replied with a rather curious email to include a photo but the email with a attachment would be sent to spam without a keyprint.  What going on at Pelikan?  You cannot even find a M600 in their current website and the website itself is broken for over a month (since Dec. 17 when I checked it).

[Mercian]

If you have a look in FPN’s sub-forum dedicated to Pelikan pens you will find two or three threads that discuss the industrial-relations/cashflow problems at Pelikan that have been happening since last summer.

 

I also emailed Pelikan late last year and have not received a reply.

 

Wrt the nib grind, FPN member Bo Bo Olson often bemoans the changes in the shape/flexibility of Pelikan’s nibs since the late 1980s. They did apparently go from making their own nibs, to outsourcing production, to taking it back in-house.

That said, although the nibs are now reputed to have more-rounded tips than previously, they should still write reliably, and the tines should not click together. E.g. my only Souverän is an M805 that I bought in early 2020, and it has always written perfectly for me.

 

I suggest that you post a new thread within the FPN Pelikan sub-forum to ask about your experience with the nib of your M600, and how you might be able to fix it.

 

Good luck 

[DeusImperator]

1 hour ago, Mercian said:

Wrt the nib grind, FPN member Bo Bo Olson often bemoans the changes in the shape/flexibility of Pelikan’s nibs since the late 1980s. They did apparently go from making their own nibs, to outsourcing production, to taking it back in-house.

That said, although the nibs are now reputed to have more-rounded tips than previously, they should still write reliably, and the tines should not click together. E.g. my only Souverän is an M805 that I bought in early 2020, and it has always written perfectly for me.

I email Pelikan through their submission form on their contact page thrice since December and have yet to hear from them.

 

I have used Pelikans since only 94, and so I am unfamiliar with the pens prior to the 80s.  I have used M600s with a medium nib for a long time and lost many of these over the years.  I lost my M600 which I purchased in 2014 in November and purchased a replacement.  The replacement and I am very disappointed with the nib, it is not what I expected.  The M600 medium wrote with a broad stubby stroke.  This one is just a round nib and a thin stroke.

 

[A Smug Dill]

2 hours ago, DeusImperator said:

You cannot even find a M600 in their current website and the website itself is broken for over a month (since Dec. 17 when I checked it).

 

See https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/364070-pelikan-website-no-fine-pens/.

 

2 hours ago, DeusImperator said:

I had come to expect a oval grind to the nib but this was a round grind and more like a medium.  But when I began to write with the pen I was surprised to hear a clicking of the nib tines every time the nib was placed on the paper and a late start when the pen begins to actually write.

 

For as long as I've been active in the hobby — that's about four years — I don't think I've heard or read a single comment that attest to Pelikan nibs having any sort of consistency, even within one particular nib width grade, or that close attention is paid by the manufacturer to the nibs on pens that end up in retail customers' hands will write well out of the box, although after having bought 18 or so pens (and ten standalone nibs besides) I still rate Pelikan's nib QC above Leonardo Officina Italiana's (and I have no personal experience with Visconti pens). That has kept me for years from buying my first Pelikan pen, which I end up doing when the opportunity to get it from Dan Smith, with nib work included in the listed price for the product, because I've been ‘taught’ to expect not to have any confidence in the line width or precision of the writing experience otherwise.

 

[N1003U]

I agree this topic might get better pickup in the Pelikan sub-forum, but seems not really out of place here. My experience is of course anecdotal, there will be others with various views on the subject.

 

I have a number of Pelikan pens, including in I think every post-1997 regular production model. While the writing performance in terms of consistency and useability has been generally excellent, the basic grind of most nibs is pretty boring (the description of “blobby-round” is not a bad one), and for most of my writing, that’s OK. If I want to be more expressive, to me, that is what special grinds are for. I suspect Pelikan is out for a more general writing audience, who may or may not appreciate a more vintage-style nib grind, and may or may not have come of age in a ballpoint world where contact angles and line expression are not a thing.

 

The exception to the boring nibs is, IME, the steel M2xx nibs, which seem to have a nice elliptical grind that shows some expression, AND some of them also have a nice springiness that feels very traditional. Your mileage may vary.

 

I have had a couple nibs that sometimes made such a clicking noise, and in each case, I traced the problem to 1.) the slit at the tip of the nib was very narrow, and 2.) I was applying (even very light) pressure that was not square to the nib slit. This caused the tips of the times to “click” together when writing. This bugged me for a long time until I discovered the issue (at least in my case is was that I was writing with the nib slightly rotated off center).