Gold Nibs Vs. Steel Nibs

January 31, 2012

Wow! Thanks everyone again for the advice!!!

It's going to take a while for me to read through all the opinions.

February 1, 2012

The shape, and thickness (the physics) of the nib has more to do with flex than gold vs steel. There are gold nibs that flex less than steel nibs. Gold may be a little more pliable than steel, but dimension and thickness are bigger factors when it comes to flex. Maybe a rigid gold nib is easier for a nibmeister to customize for flex than steel because gold is softer and more pliable, but that is the only real benefit. A steel nib that is taken proper care of is not going to corrode in your lifetime or many lifetimes. A lot of modern steel nibs are stainless steel. You have to realize manufacturers prefer to sell their pens with gold nibs because they can get away charging a lot more for it compared to steel nibs.

February 1, 2012

Good steel nibs have a coating on them such as rhodium to make them smooth writers, though some gold nib pens are coated with rhodium too. Pure gold nibs do not require a coating to write smoothly. Pure steel nibs are susceptible to corrosion unless they are alloyed. Gold nibs do not corrode.
Hmmm.... this is contrary to everything I thought I knew about nibs. Where did you get this information? I'd like to read/see it for myself.
I'd always heard that the coatings (plating), rhodium or otherwise, found on many stainless steel nibs and on some gold nibs, is strictly decorative.
I'd also heard that most nibs are tipped with iridium (or an alloy with similar properties) and that the gold, steel or plating material don't actually contact the paper. If this were true, why would a coating over the steel or gold make a difference in how smoothly a nib can lay down a line of ink on paper?
While it's true that steel will corrode, aren't modern FP nibs made of stainless steel and therefore somewhat resistant to corrosion?
IMHO
A bad gold nib is better than a bad steel nib.
A good steel nib is better than a bad gold nib.
A good gold nib is better than a bad steel nib.
A good gold nib is better than a good steel nib.

It is my experience that bad is bad and that good is good. Could you explain why one bad nib is worse than another bad nib based only on the material from which it is made and why a good nib is automatically better than another good nib, again, based only on the material from which it is made? It is my opinion that a nib that writes well is a good nib, and that a nib that writes poorly is a bad nib. You obviously feel differently and while that makes no sense to me, I'd like to hear the reasoning behind this opinion.

There was nothing confused in Glen's statement, at least as I understand it. His claim (I'll just take the last of the four) was that a good gold nib is a better nib than a good steel nib. The implication is that the steel nib that satisfies the standards of its kind is not as good by the standards of nibs in general as is a gold nib that satisfies the standards of its kind. It is analogous to noting that a tall Dutchman is taller than a tall Vietnamese man: each is, by hypothesis, tall, but by different standards. I don't know if Glen's claim is true, but it is not incoherent. You are taking him to task for having made the claim that a good nib that happens to be made of gold is a better nib than an equally good nib that happens to be made of steel. That is certainly incoherent, but it is not at all the same claim.
Your analogy seems to be based based on the idea that the average Dutchman is taller than the average Vietnamese man. While there may be statistics to suppport this idea, there are no statistics that support the idea that standards for gold nibs and steel nibs are different. I see Glenn's statement as being closer to "a 6' tall Dutchman is taller than a 6' tall Vietnamese man." Glenn's statement makes sense if you assume that gold is an inherently better material than stainless steel when it comes to nib construction. I take the question posed by the OP as an inquiry into the validity of this assumption, answering the question only by restating the assumption is not very helpful. I would still like to hear Glenn's explanation of "why gold is better" rather than restate "because it's gold."

Aloha, Dave:

The idea that rhodium is decorative is true. It's commonly used on jewelry, and that's why it's generally thought of that way. However, rhodium has many other properties to recommend it. "Rhodium metal is inert against corrosion and most aggressive chemicals ...". Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodium . In the case of nibs, nibs are "plated" with rhodium that has those properties of being inert against corrosion and most aggressive chemicals. Plating adds the following characteristics: "Plating is used to decorate objects, for corrosion inhibition, to improve solderability, to harden, to improve wearability, to reduce friction, to improve paint adhesion, to alter conductivity, for radiation shielding, and for other purposes". Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plating .

I hope that helps elucidate the usefulness of rhodium to nibs owing to the unique properties of rhodium and to characteristics of rhodium when it is applied as a plating. Rhodium is more valuable than gold: "At $2,350 an ounce, rhodium is the most valuable of the precious metals, compared to gold (GLD) ($1542), platinum (PPLT) ($1,812), palladium (PALL) ($769), and silver (SLV) ($36). During the hard asset squeeze in 2008, rhodium reached an incredible $10,000 an ounce." Reference: http://oilprice.com/Metals/Commodities/Here-Comes-the-Rhodium-ETF.html

Edited February 1, 2012 by Lalique