What color is this Pelikan 400nn?

[Aiolox]

Several months ago (because of my procrastination, I always delay the posting time...), I got this pelikan 400 nn in an auction. There is no text description for the pen in the auction, only pictures. I bid on it thinking it was green-striped stained with brown ink, or tortoise brown striped with half of its color faded by the sun.

But once I received it, what is the real color of it seems to be more confused to me. I first took some photos of it with my sheaffer balances to distinguish the color :

brown-striped sheaffer balance, this strange pelikan 400nn, grey-striped sheaffer balance

 

brown-striped sheaffer balance, this strange pelikan 400nn, green-striped sheaffer balance

brown-striped sheaffer balance, this strange pelikan 400nn, green-striped sheaffer balance, grey-striped sheaffer balance

 

To me its color seems like to be more like brown-grey than brown green. But I'm still not sure if it's a dyed grey-striped or a faded tortoise brown striped.

 

And I just got another pelikan 400nn tortoise brown striped(I may post another post of its nib) this week, and I think, the old one may not be a tortoise brown striped (or maybe?).

Here are the photos of the two 400nn

 

The real tortoise brown striped have a more brown like cap and filling knob, but the strange one has black ones.

 

the pen facing the light source

Through the light, the inside of the pen does have some blue staining. And we can see that under the light, the color of the pen changes gradually.

 

So what do you think is its original color?🤔 And what is the cause of it? Or could this be a manufacturing defect? (Just like Lego bricks get strange color gradients when there is not enough pigment.)

[mana]

Looks like the barrel was from a Tortoise, but severely UV-faded. I’ve seen that on the green ones too, but the transformation of color is towards a less saturated version of green.

[purplecloud]

in my opinion the pen is gray, the black section is a dead giveaway - the cap and the filling knob can be easily swapped in a 400NN but not the section that is likely original

I have a gray 400 that is yellowed in a similar manner of your pen, the more yellowish part is near the section while at the other end the pen is definitely gray

 

[Aiolox]

6 hours ago, mana said:

Looks like the barrel was from a Tortoise, but severely UV-faded. I’ve seen that on the green ones too, but the transformation of color is towards a less saturated version of green.

I thought like you too before, but everything changed since I received the real tortoise which has brown cap and brown filling knob...Or did they also have a strange version of tortoise?

And for the green striped, there is another rare version too, with a lighter green and the cap and filling knob in dark green rather than the normal black.

[Aiolox]

31 minutes ago, purplecloud said:

in my opinion the pen is gray, the black section is a dead giveaway - the cap and the filling knob can be easily swapped in a 400NN but not the section that is likely original

I have a gray 400 that is yellowed in a similar manner of your pen, the more yellowish part is near the section while at the other end the pen is definitely gray

 

Thanks for your reply, you seems to be right, but I'd like to know what cause the color change, as in this strange pen, all the brown part is under the cap(while you screw the cap of cause).

I once thought it was caused by ink, maybe the owner before uses brown ink and it remains in the cap to stain the stripes slowly, (as it's too brown, not only simply yellowish) the color is almost like the brown striped Sheaffer as in the photo before.

[mana]

3 hours ago, Aiolox said:

I thought like you too before, but everything changed since I received the real tortoise which has brown cap and brown filling knob...Or did they also have a strange version of tortoise?

And for the green striped, there is another rare version too, with a lighter green and the cap and filling knob in dark green rather than the normal black.

Since the barrels are interchangeable between the 400-series models, I would not read too much into the cap and filling knob being a different color as they can be and were swapped as replacements.
 

Also, dark green cap tube and piston filling knob can also be attributed to a lot of things, they never appeared in the official catalogs, just the green striped, tortoise, and black striped variants and their luxury 5XX-series models.

[Aiolox]

8 hours ago, mana said:

Since the barrels are interchangeable between the 400-series models, I would not read too much into the cap and filling knob being a different color as they can be and were swapped as replacements.
 

Also, dark green cap tube and piston filling knob can also be attributed to a lot of things, they never appeared in the official catalogs, just the green striped, tortoise, and black striped variants and their luxury 5XX-series models.

Thanks for your reply.

But I have to confirm that the strange one has a black grip section(not brown) which is the same color as its cap and filling knob. As it seems impossible to change the grip section, I think black are their original color, and I don't think the cap and the filling knob were changed.

Another thing is that I personally think the brown part of this one is a little different from the real tortoise brown, as the tortoise brown seems to have a more golden brown and this has a more grayish brown.

I also want to know if light tortoise(without stripes) appeared in the official catalogs? As this model cannot be misidentificated in any other models, if they haven't appeared in any official catalog, that may means some models are maybe missed?

[joss]

Colour fading on these pens happens, but in this case the fading would be remarkably even along the whole barrel. An alternative possibility is that brown ink has crept between the barrel and the sleeve/binde. That can happen if the barrel has micro-cracks, which may be visually hidden by the sleeve. Or when ink leaks into the cap when the pen is left unused for a while, allowing the ink to creep from the cap under the sleeve. Did you find remnants of brown ink inside the cap?

[Gris Nuage]

It looks nice, whatever the cause.  

[PJohnP]

There is a nominally "grey" 400NN, but the ones I've seen and handled have a significant green tone to the grey.  See :

 

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

 

I have a grey-green 400N of my own.  It has a similar brownish discoloration zone, but much lighter than the one shown in your photographs.  The grey-green colour on the exposed areas of the pen is uniform, which makes sun damage or fading unlikely.  It's also clearly not the "sea-green" 400NN which is a truly vibrant colour.

 

I don't have photos of my pens at hand, but the reference above has better photos than I might take of these pens.

 

 

 

John P.

[jungkind]

I have 400, 400N and 400NN that I consider genuine grey striped, but that have a brownish tint in the area covered by the cap, although not as strong as in your photo. 

 

On the other hand I have a 400 that looks capped genuinely and uniformly grey striped, but removing the cap shows unmistakably a green striped barrel.

 

It could well be that yours is a genuine grey striped pen with the brownish tint more pronounced.

 

 

[DerMarsianer]

Hi everyone, 

hard to guess if it's a grey or green striped pen just by looking at these pictures. Especially without a grey pen for comparison. But I tend to go for a faded green.

I would bet the colored stripes at the section are caused by a dirty, ink stained inner cap. If you store the pen a couple of time with a dirty cap, the celloloid stripes soak up the ink and become colored. I also have seen Pelikan 400s with blue colored stripes at the section in the internet some time ago.

Note that the inner barrel of this pen is green (especially at the piston). The tortois pen has a yellow inner barrel. So I think it can't be a faded tortoisshell brown pen.

 

best regards
Thorsten

[Aiolox]

On 5/25/2025 at 3:43 PM, joss said:

Colour fading on these pens happens, but in this case the fading would be remarkably even along the whole barrel. An alternative possibility is that brown ink has crept between the barrel and the sleeve/binde. That can happen if the barrel has micro-cracks, which may be visually hidden by the sleeve. Or when ink leaks into the cap when the pen is left unused for a while, allowing the ink to creep from the cap under the sleeve. Did you find remnants of brown ink inside the cap?

Thanks for your reply.

I've checked the cap and the barrel more carefully yesterday, and I don't observe visible cracks. And for the ink, I've cleaned it with other pens once several months ago once I received it, and I didn't pay attention to it, but there remains some black or blue(or blue black) sediment.

 

On the other hand, I've checked the other 400nn too. In fact, I observe the change of color on it too, but more lightly and more negligible(because of its original yellow-brown color). And the interesting thing is the border of the color changing is also the border of the cap. And inside the cap, this zone has a metal lining.

So now I have another conjecture, that the metal or its oxide might be the real cause of the color change of the barrel.

[carola]

I wouldn´t dismiss UV fading just because the fading is remarkably even. I used to own a faded barrel (I have swapped it for a non-faded since) that looked like halfway between a green- and a grey-striped barrel - until you unscrewed the cap, showing it to be a regular green one. It was clearly UV fading but the faded part was so evenly discoloured, it looked almost intentional. So yours could be almost any colour in a state of severe discolouration.

 

Also, as mana stated, cap and piston knob can easily be exchanged. But I have never heard about a tortoise-striped 400 (also N or NN) with a black section. While I had favoured the "discoloured tortoise" version when I was looking at the pictures, the section being black says this should either be a green or a grey one.

 

While a green one would have to have suffered two discolourations at once and probably independently from each other, a grey one seems to be the more likely version. But here, I have never seen a Pelikan turn brown like that inside the cap and nowhere else.

 

Pretty little riddle, you have there.

[Bo Bo Olson]

On 5/24/2025 at 2:47 AM, Aiolox said:

black grip section(not brown)

I have a '50's 400, that it took my wife's sharp eyes to confirm it was a black-brown and not black, cap and piston knob.

[carola]

Update: I asked someone who should know, as he earns his livelihood with stuff like that. 

According to him, the pen is green. The discolouration was probably caused by iron vitriol and the brown stain under the cap comes from ink residues that accumulated there.

There is about a 50 % chance that the pen can be polished and brought back to its original colour. The other 50 %? The pen is done for.

[dhanks]

22 hours ago, carola said:

Update: I asked someone who should know, as he earns his livelihood with stuff like that. 

According to him, the pen is green. The discolouration was probably caused by iron vitriol and the brown stain under the cap comes from ink residues that accumulated there.

There is about a 50 % chance that the pen can be polished and brought back to its original colour. The other 50 %? The pen is done for.

The pen isn't "done for" under any circumstance.  If it can't be polished to its original color, it's still a nice Pelikan that probably writes better than 90% of today's modern pens.  Enjoy it no matter what.

 

Rumpole

[Bo Bo Olson]

A 400nn, or even 400 of the semi-flex era, holds 1.95/2.00ml of ink. A modern 400 holds 1.25. 600/800 1.35. A 1000, only 1.45....... MB 149 1.60, like a long Shaffer cartridge. 

Took me some two years of dithering to find the 400nn balanced a tad better than the 400.

 

Back when I was a 20 pen noobie, I did a balance test. The 400nn finished 4th.

I would never dream of doing a balance test again, owning over 120 pens. Doing 20 took me forever. 

Would it still be my 4th best balanced pen? I doubt it, but it is still in my top ten best balanced pens, which is 20, or is that 30.

[carola]

In any case I would closely investigate how it was possible that a significant amount of ink leaked into the cap and discoloured the material there. Because this might for example mean a cracked section or a damaged feed. Or maybe a damaged piston seal. And I would want to know whether it is any of that before I put the filled pen into my bag or my pocket.

[Aiolox]

On 5/31/2025 at 4:36 AM, Bo Bo Olson said:

I have a '50's 400, that it took my wife's sharp eyes to confirm it was a black-brown and not black, cap and piston knob.

Yes, I know that, the tortoise brown do have a really dark brown, I didn't really realize it is brown until I compare it with the strange one.  So at least these two, I can say, do have different color.

By the way, for the tortoise brown, if you shine light on the pen in a relatively dark environment, you will find that those three parts are not black more easier.