Pelikan Changing to Non-translucent Binde

[OCArt]

In case you missed it The Pelikan's Perch covered the change in THIS article.

[Ayami_109]

Yes, I was reading that earlier! I have a M400 back-ordered with them and will be so dissapointed if the binde is no longer translucent.

I also think this removes one the best and most iconic feature of the pen. What is Pelikan thinking? 

[Licue]

I don't like this change either 🙁

[A Smug Dill]

It's all good, if it means I'll be even slightly less tempted to look at buying more Pelikan piston-fillers in the future. Not that I have a problem with opaque, when most of my Pelikan pens are M200/M205/M215 models, and I find the see-through special editions (Smoky Quartz, Star Ruby, etc.) least attractive among them. My one M600 is a Vibrant Orange, and my M815 Metal-Striped does not have even a partially translucent barrel. However, if all that remains to be bought are the striped designs, and their point of distinction is now going to be eroded by the company's executive decision, then I'm not going to mourn what didn't tempt me enough to buy back when there were those attractive non-striped models to consider, but may actually be happy that there will be no credible second pass for Pelikan to take more of my money.

 

If anything, I hope Pelikan can focus on restoring some of the decline in value proposition by make better nibs with more consistent and skilfully shaped tipping, especially for the EF width grade, which it can't blame choosing not to do on difficulties in sourcing the necessary raw material.

 

[namrehsnoom]

That really is a bad design decision, made by suits that don’t understand that it’s basic functionality to see whether there’s ink in your pen. I have a non-transparent M405 Silver-White that is a mystery-filler. Sometimes, when you didn’t put the nib far enough in the bottle when drawing ink, there’s only a minuscule amount of ink in the barrel. But there is NO WAY to know this - only after half a page, when the pen writes empty do you notice… I just hate this!  Until now, only a few Pelikans suffered from this bad design, but if that becomes a trend, it’s just going in the wrong direction. What’s next? Ink windows down the drain?

[Karmachanic]

While I understand the consternation and sympathize, it's not the end of the world, and in my view, no reason to not purchase a new model going forward.  I have piston filler pens with no window, and no transparent binde and manage just fine (Conid and Santini).  With familiarity I can tell it's time to refill before they run dry.  Additionaly one can measure ink volume by weight.  So if I'm taking such a pen out and about,  I weigh it before leaving,  and know wether or not to fill.  Hold it up to the light, or pop it on a scale; 10 seconds difference?

[oregano]

It might not be the actual end of the world, but as an avid Pelikan fan, this is as close as it gets. What first drew me to the brand 9 years ago was the uniqueness of their transparent stripes. I was surprised when the pastel models went in this direction, and then seeing it spread to other special editions with the release of the non-transparent m600 red tortoise. It never occurred to me it would be a permanent thing. 
 

In my opinion they are ruining one of the best things Pelikan has going for it. What good is it to produce beautiful materials in stripes without the transparency? They may as well just come out with no stripe pens from now on. 
 

The alternating material also affects the quality of the color of the stripes. I was disappointed that the green-white edition had a metallic pallor, cast by the grey material in between.

[Mercian]

Ugh!

You can count me as ‘highly disappointed’ too.

 

If this decision has been taken in light of a temporary difficulty in obtaining materials for the lovely chatoyant stripes, if I were Pelikan I would instead have opted to use this year to produce a series of ‘limited production’ Souveräns in solid colours, but with ink windows near the grip section - like the black-bodied Souveräns and the M2xx pens all have.

This ‘solution’ is of course far less elegant than the translucent stripes are, but Pelikan have done it before, with their all-blue Souveräns for (iirc) Galeria Kaufhof.

 

The loss of ability to see one’s ink level in a piston-filler is a major reduction in ‘utility’ in my opinion!

 

One way around the problem of how to find out how much ink is inside one’s pen is to hold it with its nib upwards and to then turn the piston knob slowly until ink shows in the pen’s feed - but this is ‘a faff’ and ‘fiddly’; and the translucent stripes are a feature of Pelikan piston-fillers that have, imo, always represented ‘added value’ that is unique to Pelikan’s piston-fill pens.

Montblanc don’t offer it, and neither do Lamy.

 

I hope that the translucent stripes are brought back very soon (although my wallet doesn’t 😉 ).

[chromantic]

Disappointing news, indeed, though I've already pretty much moved on from Pelikan anyway, to Aurora - my last 9 pens were 7 Optimas, 1 Ferrari and a NOS Parker 50.

 

I'm hoping the rumored Black Tortoise will materialize but after the Red Tortoise I don't know if I'd bother if the Black is similarly opaque.

[sirgilbert357]

Is this also going to affect the classic black models? Will the ink viewing window on those go away too, or is this just the striped models? I have an M1000 on order that I've been waiting for since Nov 21...I really want the ink viewing window on that pen.

[I-am-not-really-here]

Ah well, pretend it's an eyedropper, unscrew the nib and have a look.  

[Uncial]

To be honest, I don't mind it. The green M1000 is the only one I notice the ink in apart from vintage models. The recent brown I found beautiful. It's one of my favourite Pelikans. 

 

I'm not sure if this is the case,  but the recent bindes in non transparent Pels seem a lot sharper and have a much less 'ribbony' effect. I quite liked those ripples but many didn't  and there are a few threads where many complained and even returned pens. Perhaps this is an improvement for that issue (non-issue for me)

[AlexLeGrande]

New Coke!

 

[brokenclay]

1 hour ago, AlexLeGrande said:

New Coke!

 

Hahahahaha!!!

[Geert Jan]

This is going to happen in the next few weeks? If I look at the calendar I see a certain date coming up... Maybe check on the 2nd of April to see what's happening.
 

[oregano]

18 hours ago, Geert Jan said:

This is going to happen in the next few weeks? If I look at the calendar I see a certain date coming up... Maybe check on the 2nd of April to see what's happening.
 

 

It's already been happening with the last special editions (much to my chagrin), so not exactly new, but the fact that it is intentional and a permanent change is an unexpected surprise. According to Joshua Danley's post, it is not a joke unfortunately...

[sirgilbert357]

If it were an April Fool's joke, it would have been announced on April 1st. That's how those kinds of jokes work.

 

And oregano is right; Pelikan have already done this. My M800 Brown Black has opaque black stripes. There are others that have already been made this way too. Functionally, it doesn't really matter to me, as I can see the ink level through the brown stripes on my M800 Brown Black. And that brings me to my next point: is there ANY Pelikan that you can't see through the color striped portion? Because on all of mine (green, blue and brown) I can see the ink level through the colored stripes. I can even see the ink level through my Renaissance Brown - which is considered "opaque" too. The material between the colored stripes does not have to be translucent for the ink level to be discerned, although I will grant it is certainly easier if it is.

 

The only models I think this would seriously hurt are the classic black models -- removing THAT ink window would seriously alter the look of the pen, and quite possibly the functionality too. I don't have a classic black Pelikan of any kind, but I'm betting you can't see the ink level in the pen through the black part, even with a bright light held up to it.

[stoen]

Hello,

 

I hope I may feel free to share a thought here.

Nowadays, decades past the golden age of handwriting, I believe that fountain pens also have to do with cultivating the best of this tradition.

Back in 1929, “The Pelikan Transparent Fountain Pen” with its piston filler appeared as the single most inventive innovation in the pen world; its features and market success not only shaped their own production guidelines and industry standards for decades to come, but also strongly influenced re-thinking the engineering objectives of many other pen manufactureres.

 

If 97 years later Pelikan decides to completely drop one of these two basic features in a series of pens created with respect to their traditions, I can somehow understand the dissatisatisfaction of many of us.

 

It’s a manufacturer’s disregarding a feature of their pens’ functional identity.

[Uncial]

5 hours ago, sirgilbert357 said:

If it were an April Fool's joke, it would have been announced on April 1st. That's how those kinds of jokes work.

 

And oregano is right; Pelikan have already done this. My M800 Brown Black has opaque black stripes. There are others that have already been made this way too. Functionally, it doesn't really matter to me, as I can see the ink level through the brown stripes on my M800 Brown Black. And that brings me to my next point: is there ANY Pelikan that you can't see through the color striped portion? Because on all of mine (green, blue and brown) I can see the ink level through the colored stripes. I can even see the ink level through my Renaissance Brown - which is considered "opaque" too. The material between the colored stripes does not have to be translucent for the ink level to be discerned, although I will grant it is certainly easier if it is.

 

The only models I think this would seriously hurt are the classic black models -- removing THAT ink window would seriously alter the look of the pen, and quite possibly the functionality too. I don't have a classic black Pelikan of any kind, but I'm betting you can't see the ink level in the pen through the black part, even with a bright light held up to it.

 

The Burnt Orange, Stormy Sea (or whatever it was), some of the white ones, the Everest and all of that series, the cities series, the Brown strip and the latest Red Torty all didn't have any ink window or stripes with transparency. 

 

I own a blue stripe M800, a Stessemann M800 and M1000 and a green stripe M1000. The green stripe is the only one I can see the ink level fairly easily. I've never found it 'handy' or useful to be honest. If I hold the others up to a very, very strong light I can see the ink level, but if I'm heading out with pens I take more than one. If a pen runs out of ink, I refill it. I've never felt that the transparency has a genuine function, but I do like the appearance and feel it is a shame to lose it as it takes away something of that vintage deco vibe it had. Some of the striped pens look great without the transparency (such as the brown), but the green especially is rather good looking with the transparency.

[sansenri]

It's not a change I welcome, in general I found being able to check ink level through the stripes a useful feature.

On the other hand I do own a few Pelikans that don't have the stripes nor the ink window and don't find it's a huge let down.

I'm sort of wondering why they are doing it, they surely know it's a welcome feature, but there is some other reason that is stronger to take this direction. One could be they want to drop the acetate material they were using and go to full plastic, if I recall there is a transparent wall in the current striped models, which is then covered by the striped binde. They may be able to use one single layer if they use solid plastic, so cost? reliability on delivery of materials? not sure.