M200 Cafe Creme

[BillH]

Write a good book... get famous... engrave pens... sell pens

 

I see two income sources here. The perfect retirement plan

[Inkedinker]

As one

Write a good book... get famous... engrave pens... sell pens

 

I see two income sources here. The perfect retirement plan

As one who is in the ever sinking boat of aspiring authors, I can say it is a labor of love. Out of the millions of authors out there, less than 1.5% make it big. The other 98.5% should sell pens

[Bo Bo Olson]

Look at how many golf balls I no longer lose.

Rain or sun don't matter now as a scribbler....well, it seldom really mattered back when I was addicted to golf.

Scribbling keeps me out of bad bars.....collecting pens keeps me out of good bars.

 

Famous ....ie I think I know that name....is famous enough...I bought a book of his...is real famous.....out side it was rated buy at the airport and leave at the next airport.

 

Being retired means I don't have to make a living at it....just make enough to take tax breaks for going on vacations.

.....can't go to Venice, with out drowning someone in a polluted canal, or getting arrested for being over heard muttering in English.....where can I hide the body?

Why I can even take the 12E cup of coffee off my taxes because I had it in St. Marks square than having a 3 E cup around the corner half a block.

Nope....food and drink are not tax write offs......so much for plan A.

 

I got to learn weird things like blogging and show up in every town I mention in the book....to sign a book.

Can't quite do that on-line yet. .

Edited November 13, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson

[Runnin_Ute]

I was poking around on Amazon last night, saw some Cafe Creme's. Problem is they were all pushing $250. I paid $100 from a Japanese Amazon seller a year ago for a Cognac (F) . Not all of the Cognac's had the Italic nib.

 

I will shortly be having a Platinum 3776 Century in Bougogne with a B nib on the way. (Christmas gift). Japanese Amazon seller.

[Inkedinker]

Yeah I have my eye on a few eBay pens. I have a bid in on a lesser valued M200 I and hoping to have the nib off of and resell it. My local shop said they would swing me one (in stock) for 200 after tax and a bottle of ink. eBay is 160 and I can buy my own ink! Lol

[Bo Bo Olson]

??? 200's nibs go for @ 25-7 E here in Germany.

 

Unless it's gold plated then it costs the hand up to the wrist.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson

[Mister5]

Yeah I think they hit a home run in terms of style with the Cafe Creme. Even though I'm not a coffee drinker, I think it is elegant and timeless compared with, say Aquamarine or Amethyst.

 

I just wish the nibs would be gauged a little better. The M200 F writes like a M, and the M215 EF writes like a M. I like how they write so I'm cool with it - a little bit springy with a touch of feedback, and on the wet side.

[Inkedinker]

The more I hear about these little gems, the more I want to own one.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Mister 5....did you start with Japanese pens?

My 200/215 M's write M as it should. My W.Germany OM....M also. It is only modern Pelikan 400/600 that are real, real fat and blobby. The semi-vintage pre' 98 400 nibs are not so. They are the same width as the 200......a 1/2 a width narrower than the modern 400/600.

 

There is a part of a post by Ron Zorn of his visit to Ft. Madison as Sheaffer's factory was closing down....that shows it is quite possible to have a skinny M that is exactly the same as a fat F and still be with in tolerance.....And if a nib is 1/100th of an inch inside of tolerance....you can't see the difference....nor the difference if the M and F were both 1/100's inch inside of tolerance.

If you want I can try to find and post that again.

 

That is so with every company; and every company has it's very own standards of what a width is to be....depending on what ink they make.

.....including Pilot or the Fat Sailor nibs. Sailor is the fat Japanese nib, Pilot the skinny one.

Pelikan having the dry ink, makes a wider nib to bring the width into the middle.....back before Noodlers, when Waterman was considered a wet ink....they had two nib sets, one skinny; again to bring the ink/nib into a middle.

 

So if you find your Pelikan nib fat....try skinny Pelikan 4001 ink. The Edelstein is reputed to be wetter and therefore a wider ink.

 

(I did make a big mistake when I had my MB Woolf's nib exchanged.....I should have told them on the skinny side of B....or in the middle of Tolerance......I got a Fat B=BB nib. ) hummm, I've not tried 4001 ink in it.....mostly MB inks.

Part of the problem is I have basically vintage and semi-vintage pens, so the nibs are thinner, and I expect a B to be a writing nib.........Not a Signature nib.

[Mister5]

Mister 5....did you start with Japanese pens?

...

 

So if you find your Pelikan nib fat....try skinny Pelikan 4001 ink. The Edelstein is reputed to be wetter and therefore a wider ink.

 

 

My first successful introduction to a fountain pen was with a Parker 51. But I couple years ago I caught the bug with a Safari but moved onto Japanese pens, and after that I'm all over the place - German, Japanese, vintage American. I probably lean more towards vintage than modern simply because I like the sense of style.

 

I'm probably prejudiced in that from what I've seen in that those old American nibs seem to write pretty fine, like what might be a Japanese F / XF.

 

I'll have to take a look into what you say about the Pelikan 4001 inks, you have a good point. From what I've seen, I'm not particularly enamored of the colors though. I'll have to get a few samples and give them a go. (I do love Edelstein Tanzanite and will eventually get a bottle of that stuff.)

 

I have Scabiosa which being iron gall may be a little drier than a typical ink and I know from my experience that Noodler's Brown 41 is a little drier. I have a sample of Salix so I could try that as well. I mean to get a KWZ IG (one of these days I'll place an order from Vanness) or Diamine Registrar's Blue Black.

Edited November 15, 2016 by Mister5

[Bo Bo Olson]

4001 green is a shading ink...90 and better laser paper. I got half a bottle on sale, and it lead to a years 13-14 green ink binge.

Of the green-green inks, R&K's Verdura beat MB Irish Green by a nose and Pelikan 4001 green by a neck....I ended up testing all the green inks but 2 of the inks on Gmund fountain pen paper samples.

A whole lot of other inks ended up there too. It was 'the best' paper I could find.

 

The 4001 violet's not bad, the Turquoise is as good as Lamy. BB is hard to get in the States now. Black is just fine(don't use a EF on poor paper)...if you don't collect blacks...if so then Noodlers is it. The brown's a bit red....but that's OK....MB's been selling reds as browns lately with some of their Year inks.

 

I find Edelstein to be 'wetter' than 4001....or more lubricated. I could be making a mistake between wet and lubricated, in they could have/should have made that ink for their feed/nib like the 4001. I'll have to look up what Sandy1 says about them.

 

I do have five or six and have Aquamarine on order. I blew last years Amethyst, turning up way too late. I have that in three six packs.

I like Topaz best....Jade is a tad blaa....Aventurine feathers for me....a good color though. I have a bottle of Tanzanite I've not used yet. I'm not really into BB...I only have 8 bottles.

 

I can be more than a bit AR when it comes to feathering and woolly lines.

Both can be a paper problem. A modern fat and blobby nib can be a problem too. I do like the old clean lines of semi-vintage and vintage nibs.

 

I once had an old '60's Sheaffer that was Aurora or Japaneses narrow....in it was a nail, it found a new home.

 

Woolly lines are included in feathering for me.

 

BEF-bare eyed feathering....seen in sitting.

NEF- near eye feathering, brought close to the eye.

MagF...feathering seen under a Big Honking magnifying glass.....a real good ink...buy again.

NoMagF......buy a lot of that ink, in it don't feather under 2.8x/7D/250 in a Big Honking Magnifying glass. Buy again as soon as you open the last bottle.....or if limited....get a bank loan.

 

I don't like Diamine, and even though the Diamine made Akkerman is a better than Diamine, it feathers and or has a woolly line. Too bad, there is some nice Akkerman colors.

"Life is too short to use woolly lined inks." to paraphrase Goethe.

 

Good to better paper gives better results. Heaviest isn't best...it isn't the trick. I had special ordered Gmund sheets of paper, one for free, @$1.00 for each sheet more.

They make some 3-4 different fountain pen friendly papers. Do not buy their art or any ones art paper in it is not made for fountain pens. I got some in different colors too....at a dollar a sheet.

90g...not really expected anything, 100g, 110, 120, 150, & 170g. I expected the heavy paper to do best.

No paper was 'best'. It all depended on the pen and the ink.

 

I had 100g combo's that were better than the 150-170s' I would have bet on. the 90g paper was not bad...but the 100 or the 110 did better than the 120 often enough. Just as the 120 or the 100 did occasionally better than the 150-170.

Some of the Gmund was 50E for fifty, other was 35E for 50 sheets.

So I've been dithering on that for the last three years.....I can not make a decision...I'd have to buy too many papers and need to hit the lottery. I've becopme very good at dithering.

 

There are other German art paper makers of the same class who make fountain pen paper.

Some of the bond paper makers has better papers that I've not gotten around to asking.....got to check that out....As Soon As I Stop Buying Pens and Inks.

 

 

In Writing is 1/3 nib width&flex, 1/3 paper and 1/3 ink, and in that order.....

So don't do as I did; chase paper last.

Buy good (90 g laser) to better(Southworth level) paper every two bottles of ink. Every 10th....a real good paper.

 

I do have some 25-30 good papers including a fair selection of Southworth. G.Lalo Verge de France 170g and Velin pur Coton. 125g..25% rag. Some might think I have sufficient paper....but it's true, the more you have, the more you want, the more you ...... my god, you'd think I was talking about money.

 

I do find 50% and 100% cotton while sinful good to write on....it swallows the shading.

[Mister5]

I'll have to get a sample of the 4001 Pelikan Green. I haven't fallen in love with any greens yet, other than Noodlers Army Green. I think that looks good in a flex pen. Reminds me a bit of R&K Alt Gold Goldgrun.

 

Yeah, the Pelikan Blue Black is impossible to get in the US. I think there's some impermissible chemical under US law in it. If I place an order overseas I'll probably get it though, I've heard some good things about it.

 

Right now I'm really overloaded in blacks: I have a bottle of the old Sheaffer's Skrip with the little glass dipping shelf you were supposed to put the snorkel in... I think I got that back in law school, can't remember. Just got Noodlers Black (haven't tried), Aurora Black (like that one), and Sailor Nano/Pigment Black (I know that's not the real name for it but good enough). The Sailor can be a little odd at times, it can look like a graphite pencil.

 

Agree with you the vintage pens seem to write nice thin lines. A few weeks ago I got an Aurora 88K and after I fixed it (it was sold to me as a flex when the nib should really be treated as just as a nail) it writes a nice EF. Just got a MB 12 and this also writes a line that I don't think I'd get from a modern pen. (Japanese maybe.)

 

I didn't know that Diamine made some Akkerman inks. I like the look of those bottles.

 

I know what you're saying about different papers making a wild difference. The Aurora 88K is loaded with Scabiosa and on some cheap mini legal pads I have it feathers like crazy and practically writes like a broad-medium. But on cheap dollar store sugarcane notebook paper it behaves very well. Most of the time I use Rhodia or Japanese paper. I have far too much at the moment but will of course always end up getting more.

 

I'm not a fan of the crinkly thin Tomoe River paper. Don't like the feel, the insane dry times and the see through. The slightly thicker paper is a bit better though, I use that in my journal.

 

One odd thing I do is that I tend to use grid / sections / dots, and I write between the lines, so that's why I gravitate heavily towards finer nibs. I've been able to use a medium stub when writing in between the lines, but that's because I think the stub gives enough feedback that there's more control than a smooth nib. When I really want to challenge myself I try writing two lines of text on one grid line. When I return to using the full grid line its such a relief and feels so big!

 

Sorry to say I haven't heard of Gmund - might not be that available in the US.

 

I've used the G. Lalo for correspondence and was so glad when I was done. It just wasn't for me. It performed totally fine but the laid texture wasn't for me and I need some kind of lines or grid or dots ... I think it was the Champaigne Verge de France from G. Lalo. It was comparatively dark and thick paper so I don't think I could have put a heavy printout under it for some kind of guide. <Shudders>

 

Clairefontaine Triomphe - now that's good stuff, even if the line width is far more than I typically use. I used to use that a lot with correspondence. I'm overdue to load up on that. If they ever made that in B5 with 6 mm rule I'd probably buy a box.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I only have one black, Pelikan. Some day I'll get some Aurora black, just to have it. I use black on the 29th of February. Must still have half a bottle, and the day I got back to fountain pens, Pelikan blue and black were the very first bottles I bought....knowing them from school days. Pelikan was cheaper than Parker or Sheaffer back when a silver dime could buy a 8oz bottle of Coke.

 

One needs a M or even wider on laid, Verge de France. Defiantly not a paper for an Aurora, which is often toothy.

 

Buetten/Hammerschlagpapier....90 g hammered. 75 sheets

Marmorpapier...90g .marbled 60 sheets

Gripptes papier...90g...fine rippung...laid like the Verge de France. 60 sheets

Linenpapier...120g..linen. 60 sheets

 

I just could not come up with the names of those 4 basic kinds of paper in English. ....well, I never seen the paper in English....per say. So I had to reach into one of my two paper shelves in my den/library to come up with the names of basic papers.

 

Aldi is a huge German discount grocery store + a weekly change in 'household' & clothing....accent on the cheap. Then to my vast surprise I read in the weekly home delivered add sheet of good papers....???? There was the four classic types of paper that I had only read of....right there before my nose.

 

I had not expected much....getting them in it was the 4 basic papers....all in one place and affordable. Boy was I wrong....very good paper.

For two years in a row they had those German named papers at the start of school. I only picked up...what I needed, in I wrongly thought, I'd be getting better.

Very, Very good papers..................

So I had a few folks, I was going to buy them their choice of a pack of 60-75 pages for the @ 4 E and send it to them.....having sent them a few sample sheets of try these nice paper thing.

Sigh.....they stopped carrying those papers.

 

So I became a little skinny midget with a gold ring....keeping the now rare papers........ got to use them instead of just looking at them. Sigh, I'm a paper miser....my precious.

 

Gmund is a fine ancient German company. Much into the art papers. I 'wrote' them in their large pallet of paper was confusing, which was their fountain pen friendly papers. They told me. Some 4 sheets were free then it was a dollar a sheet per example. I had white, beige, ivory, in a number of weights from 90-170. That was where I discovered there is no 'best' paper, just best for that nib and ink.

They did not offer all four of the basic paper sorts.

 

Nice paper worth having....not great. Affordable and on line by some sellers.......M&K has three papers, two in pads....all three are good, not too expensive 4-5E if that, was 3.95 a few years ago. German postage is 1/5th of the US so it worth ordering a pad of each....one is embossed/watermark. One is 95g a 'typewriter' paper so one knows that is good paper, (not a pad but a 50 sheet fold over carton), one 90, the other not marked but writes as well as the other two.

M&K had been a real good paper company in the '50s.

It now belongs to Brunner.....out side of M&K avoid Brunner like the plague. It is not good paper, even the heavier or "better" papers .....were copy machine only, not fountain pen friendly.

 

 

Oxford Optic 90g (also used in Red & Black office notebooks like Moleskines, is only a tad .....and a very slight tad at that worse less good than Clairefontaine Veloute 90g. I have both in spiral notebooks.

I have no need for anything like the Red & Black or is that the Black & Red office notebook, but if so then that at least for the paper.

Veloute 90g is not as slick as Triumphe. It is good cheap fountain pen paper.

 

Southworth makes some decent papers. I stocked up the last time I was in the States with some 5-6 kinds.

 

I read often how good some of the almost unknown US papers are....and because we didn't go metric we can't sell international, where they are reputed to be as good as some of the better European fountain pen papers. They may not be in the class or cost of Gmund.....but there are hand made Italian paper that makes Gmund look cheap. If I save up enough, maybe they will sell me one sheet.

 

Mohawk...is a name that rings bells....there are other US papers as good. Craine has gone down hill....real bad, from my reading. It had been on my list to buy....no longer.

Edited November 16, 2016 by Bo Bo Olson

[Mangrove Jack]

Too many Cafe Creme's will kill y'all.

 

Edited December 4, 2016 by Mangrove Jack

[Misfit]

I thought about this pen today because I was at The Egg and I for brunch. The coffee carafe looked like the Pelikan Cafe Creme with brown lid, cream colored body and brown bottom.

 

Just goes to show I see pens and nibs in everyday items. My iPhone 5S is no longer reliable, or I'd have taken a photo. I don't even own this pen, but that carafe called it to mind.

[BT_Summers]

I think that they are a very nice looking pen.

[inkstainedruth]

I think that they are a very nice looking pen.

 

Oh absolutely -- and they look even better when you see one in person, rather than just looking at a photo.

Just catching up on this thread. I think it was Bo Bo who suggested engraving my name? Wouldn't have helped with the first one -- I called the hotel where I probably lost the pen case it was in, twice in as many days, and they claimed it hadn't been turned in.... There's a little part of me who still thinks that the second one got put down somewhere in my house (in a crate or something) and the once I straighten up/organize the living room I will find it, and it will reproaching me to no end for letting ink dry in it.... I mean, I found a Parker Vector that had fallen behind the chair I sit on. The downside of that particular chair is that there's a space between the seat and the back, and the cats like to push stuff (sometimes even on purpose...). And when that happens, said stuff doesn't fall straight down -- oh no, there will be a *trajectory* arc and stuff is a LOT further behind than might be expected....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstaineruth

[Misfit]

You have some frisky kitties. Being positive, when you do find it, post here please.

[Green Ink]

I purchased a Cafe Creme with a broad nib. It was a great nib. I sent it to Mike Masuyama for a cursive italic grind. This particular Cafe Creme is now my Cup of Tea!

[Oobly]

This is currently the only pen I really want to purchase.. except for one of my "grail" pens, a Doric. I agree that the design is classy and timeless.

 

But I know I'll want a vintage nib and feed for it, too, so the overall cost is over 200 euros currently, which I just can't quite justify.. yet.

 

It's great to have a forum to share with like-minded individuals.