Adding To The Flock

[mana]

23 hours ago, stoen said:

Hi, 

it’s been a while since my last visit to the thread.

Here’s a little brown pen I’ve found in rather poor condition (warped cap, shattered binde, “shaved” captop, broken feed, rotten piston). It took me months of minute work and patience to restore it (especially the celluloid parts) to full form and function - all parts are original…

Some times one has to wait for weeks until the celluloid “settles”.

Hope you’ll like it.

That looks amazing!

[inkstainedruth]

On 10/1/2024 at 5:30 PM, stoen said:

Hi, 

it’s been a while since my last visit to the thread.

Here’s a little brown pen I’ve found in rather poor condition (warped cap, shattered binde, “shaved” captop, broken feed, rotten piston). It took me months of minute work and patience to restore it (especially the celluloid parts) to full form and function - all parts are original…

Some times one has to wait for weeks until the celluloid “settles”.

Hope you’ll like it.

OOOOH!  Pretty!  How does it write, now that you've gotten it restored?

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[stoen]

8 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

How does it write, now that you've gotten it restored?

Thanks for your compliment and question. Nib is unmarked - it looks and behaves much like ST, thin, springy, remarkable difference in line width pressure control. Effortless writing. I’ve “upgraded” the pen with a post-WWII “four-fin” feed with elaborate compensation chambers. Not that I wouldn’t put an original pre-war three-fin feed, I’ve tried it and just happend to prefer the four-fin feed with this particular pen - it 

makes the pen somewhat “drier”, which is good with ST nibs, at least to me.

[lamarax]

On 10/2/2024 at 12:30 AM, stoen said:

Hi, 

it’s been a while since my last visit to the thread.

Here’s a little brown pen I’ve found in rather poor condition (warped cap, shattered binde, “shaved” captop, broken feed, rotten piston). It took me months of minute work and patience to restore it (especially the celluloid parts) to full form and function - all parts are original…

Some times one has to wait for weeks until the celluloid “settles”.

Hope you’ll like it.

 

Yeah, I think a thread detailing the process in Repair Q&A is in order!

[stoen]

7 hours ago, lamarax said:

I think a thread detailing the process in Repair Q&A is in order

Definitely so. Methods, tools and materials are well known, described in detail and properly shared within this forum. To me it is a true strength of FPN.

I’ve contributed a few posts already.

 

 

[Merrick]

I have been looking to add an upper tier Pelikan m series to my collection. I prefer softer nibs so I was looking at the m1000 until I read about the softer 14c nibs on the old production m800s.

 

Using this article as a guide: https://thepelikansperch.com/2020/11/15/pelikan-m800-history-explored/ I have searched for a good condition 1987-1990 m800 and today I finally found one! It's a 14c nib with the medallion on the bottom of the piston knob and the medallion on the top finial, and W. Germany on the cap band. The logo on the top finial appears to be the thicker logo used only for the 1987/1988 runs of m800.

 

To top it all off, it comes with all the original packaging and according to the seller, a fountain pen dealer, it appears to never have been inked! I am beyond thrilled to have what appears to be a NOS first production run m800.

 

 

It's not in hand yet but here are some pictures from the listing where you can see the top logo, 14c nib, and more: 

https://ptpimg.me/kpwti6.jpg

https://ptpimg.me/41t042.jpg

https://ptpimg.me/64aau4.jpg

https://ptpimg.me/wm8t2m.jpg

https://ptpimg.me/5489kh.jpg

 

[yubaprof]

1 hour ago, Merrick said:

I have been looking to add an upper tier Pelikan m series to my collection. I prefer softer nibs so I was looking at the m1000 until I read about the softer 14c nibs on the old production m800s.

 

Using this article as a guide: https://thepelikansperch.com/2020/11/15/pelikan-m800-history-explored/ I have searched for a good condition 1987-1990 m800 and today I finally found one! It's a 14c nib with the medallion on the bottom of the piston knob and the medallion on the top finial, and W. Germany on the cap band. The logo on the top finial appears to be the thicker logo used only for the 1987/1988 runs of m800.

 

To top it all off, it comes with all the original packaging and according to the seller, a fountain pen dealer, it appears to never have been inked! I am beyond thrilled to have what appears to be a NOS first production run m800.

 

 

It's not in hand yet but here are some pictures from the listing where you can see the top logo, 14c nib, and more: 

https://ptpimg.me/kpwti6.jpg

https://ptpimg.me/41t042.jpg

https://ptpimg.me/64aau4.jpg

https://ptpimg.me/wm8t2m.jpg

https://ptpimg.me/5489kh.jpg

 

A very nice find on your part. I think you will enjoy the 800 over a 1000. I have one 1000 and three 800s. The 800s are frequently used, but the 1000 hardly ever gets out of the pen case. 

[Merrick]

14 hours ago, yubaprof said:

A very nice find on your part. I think you will enjoy the 800 over a 1000. I have one 1000 and three 800s. The 800s are frequently used, but the 1000 hardly ever gets out of the pen case. 

Thanks! I do like larger pens in general, my favorite pen is a King of Pen, but I know the M1000 is not just bigger but also heavier and I don’t usually love very heavy pens (hoping the M800 is just the right balance). 
 

I also must have a Pelikan bug right now because I also ordered a post-97 black M600 with a painted two chick cap and a two chick nib and a spare M250 14c nib to play with and compare against the M600 nib AND an EF nib for my 400NN which came with an OM that was so scratchy as to be almost unusable. I had it ground to a stub by Thomas Ang and it still has a slight oblique tilt to it and it’s a much better writer now but because it’s nearly a stub it puts down such a thick line that I don’t get much benefit from the flexibility of the nib, so the EF nib will be perfect for showing off that sweet sweet line variation. 

[carola]

Today, two new birds found their way to my flock completely unexpectedly.

 

Pelikan 100N green marbled (looks grey in the pictures, but is indeed green):

 

This pen showed up at my grandmother´s house without anyone knowing for sure where it came from. My aunt inherited it and chose our meeting today to hand it over to me. The material is in great condition. No cracks, no brassing, easily moving piston. There are ink residues (possibly from the 1930s), the clip is a little bent, the cork seal is completely dried up and the flexy F nib is scratchy as hell (I suspect that one of the tines is a little bit bent), but nothing a simple service couldn´t deal with.

Now, where did it come from? Neither my great-grandparents nor my grandparents were known to be writing with a fountain pen like this. The only likely owner was my grandmother´s brother who received an education as an accountant before being sent off to World War 2, where he disappeared somewhere in Russia and probably drowned in a river while retreating under attack from the Soviet Army (this is where he was last seen). We have a lot of letters he wrote home from the war (usually with a pencil) I am working on deciphering as they are mainly written in Kurrent, a font no longer in use. And now I am owning what was probably his fountain pen.

 

With this pen she handed over to me a second one:

Pelikan M215 Rings, never inked, complete with box, papers and a glass of ink.

 

Someone presented it to her but she never ever used it. So... it´s mine now.

 

There was a third pen she offered to me, but it was a fairly modern Montblanc Meisterstück, rigid nib, c/c and extremely slim, to me very uncomfortable to hold. (Plus I don´t like the looks of the Meisterstück pens at all.) As I know it was a present from my deceased grandmother to her, I didn´t want to take it and then simply sell it off. As I wouldn´t want to keep it either, I asked her to please keep it herself, which she did.

 

[inkstainedruth]

How lucky you are to have what sound like family heirloom pens!  Especially the 100N.  Hope you can get it up and running.
I'm totally jealous, BTW....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[carola]

6 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

How lucky you are to have what sound like family heirloom pens!  Especially the 100N.  Hope you can get it up and running.
I'm totally jealous, BTW....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

Thank you, Ruth.

The 100N will be sent off to my repair guy and definitely receive the attention it needs. When it comes back, it should look and behave like a brand new pen fresh out of the factory.

[debraji]

9 hours ago, carola said:

We have a lot of letters he wrote home from the war (usually with a pencil) I am working on deciphering as they are mainly written in Kurrent, a font no longer in use.

I looked up Kurrent in Wikipedia, and I can imagine the challenge you're facing in deciphering those old letters. They must be fragile by now, too. Good luck with the project!

[mana]

10 hours ago, carola said:

Today, two new birds found their way to my flock completely unexpectedly.

 

Pelikan 100N green marbled (looks grey in the pictures, but is indeed green):

 

This pen showed up at my grandmother´s house without anyone knowing for sure where it came from. My aunt inherited it and chose our meeting today to hand it over to me. The material is in great condition. No cracks, no brassing, easily moving piston. There are ink residues (possibly from the 1930s), the clip is a little bent, the cork seal is completely dried up and the flexy F nib is scratchy as hell (I suspect that one of the tines is a little bit bent), but nothing a simple service couldn´t deal with.

Now, where did it come from? Neither my great-grandparents nor my grandparents were known to be writing with a fountain pen like this. The only likely owner was my grandmother´s brother who received an education as an accountant before being sent off to World War 2, where he disappeared somewhere in Russia and probably drowned in a river while retreating under attack from the Soviet Army (this is where he was last seen). We have a lot of letters he wrote home from the war (usually with a pencil) I am working on deciphering as they are mainly written in Kurrent, a font no longer in use. And now I am owning what was probably his fountain pen.

Interesting story but unfortunately that 100N is a later one and made during the last few years of production (1949-1951) of 100N. They changed the barrel material to that green injection molded acrylic in 1940, and got rid of the step in the section in 1949. Gold nibs became available again around that time also (the use of gold in nibs was banned during the war years as gold was considered a critical war material). It should also have a rubber or plastic piston seal, if it is one of the earlier black rubber ones it has most likely shrunk over time (have had to replace quite a few of those). More info via the following link:

https://www.pelikan-collectibles.com/en/Pelikan/Models/Historic-Pens/100N/index.html

[Carrau]

14 hours ago, carola said:

Today, two new birds found their way to my flock completely unexpectedly.

 

Pelikan 100N green marbled (looks grey in the pictures, but is indeed green):

 

This pen showed up at my grandmother´s house without anyone knowing for sure where it came from. My aunt inherited it and chose our meeting today to hand it over to me. The material is in great condition. No cracks, no brassing, easily moving piston. There are ink residues (possibly from the 1930s), the clip is a little bent, the cork seal is completely dried up and the flexy F nib is scratchy as hell (I suspect that one of the tines is a little bit bent), but nothing a simple service couldn´t deal with.

Now, where did it come from? Neither my great-grandparents nor my grandparents were known to be writing with a fountain pen like this. The only likely owner was my grandmother´s brother who received an education as an accountant before being sent off to World War 2, where he disappeared somewhere in Russia and probably drowned in a river while retreating under attack from the Soviet Army (this is where he was last seen). We have a lot of letters he wrote home from the war (usually with a pencil) I am working on deciphering as they are mainly written in Kurrent, a font no longer in use. And now I am owning what was probably his fountain pen.

 

With this pen she handed over to me a second one:

Pelikan M215 Rings, never inked, complete with box, papers and a glass of ink.

 

Someone presented it to her but she never ever used it. So... it´s mine now.

 

There was a third pen she offered to me, but it was a fairly modern Montblanc Meisterstück, rigid nib, c/c and extremely slim, to me very uncomfortable to hold. (Plus I don´t like the looks of the Meisterstück pens at all.) As I know it was a present from my deceased grandmother to her, I didn´t want to take it and then simply sell it off. As I wouldn´t want to keep it either, I asked her to please keep it herself, which she did.

 

Like poster debraji, I looked at the Kurrent alphabet.  So many of the lower case letters are similar, I can see why reading his letters is “ deciphering,” and requires discipline.

[carola]

11 hours ago, mana said:

Interesting story but unfortunately that 100N is a later one and made during the last few years of production (1949-1951) of 100N. They changed the barrel material to that green injection molded acrylic in 1940, and got rid of the step in the section in 1949. Gold nibs became available again around that time also (the use of gold in nibs was banned during the war years as gold was considered a critical war material). It should also have a rubber or plastic piston seal, if it is one of the earlier black rubber ones it has most likely shrunk over time (have had to replace quite a few of those). More info via the following link:

https://www.pelikan-collectibles.com/en/Pelikan/Models/Historic-Pens/100N/index.html

 

Okay? I don't really know enough about 100/100N pens to even try to question what I just read. But I was pretty sure I had seen a cork seal inside that ink window, which made me think it was from the 1930s. I might be mistaken of course, there is quite a bit of ink residue left and the cork like appearance might be due to debris.

 

If this is a later pen, I am even more at a loss where it came from and who was the original owner. My grandmother's brother was the only plausible option, but as he died during the war, he couldn't be the owner of a later pen.

 

I am curious what this pen will yield once it is disassembled.

[carola]

@debraji

@Carrau

 

Kurrent is in some ways a beautiful font but difficult to read and I am glad my grandmother's brother's writing was quite decent. Nothing fancy, but clear and very readable. He obviously was enough of an accountant to care for the readability of his handwriting.

 

I learned to read Kurrent when I was about 5 years old, from being sent to the grocery with my great-grandmother's handwritten notes. She was born in 1904 and never had learned to use a different font during her lifetime. When reading her son's letters, I am struggling quite a bit at first, but after a few letters it slowly comes back to me.

 

Yes, the paper is a bit fragile, also due to the bad quality during WW2, and reading something that was written with pencil on cheap, greyish paper in a tent about 80 years ago... well, yes, patience is required. I came up with the solution of scanning the letters with high resolution. I can zoom in on the writing if I need to and I don't damage the paper any further by constantly handling it. There are already enough fat and water stains on it as it is, also some scribbling here and there, not counting creases and missing bits. But overall the letters are in fairly good condition, seeing what they have been through. I hope to get a lot of them transcribed this winter, because I simply don't get around to stuff like that during the other seasons.

[lamarax]

 

I mean, it's not bad a modern rendition...

[inkstainedruth]

15 hours ago, debraji said:

I looked up Kurrent in Wikipedia, and I can imagine the challenge you're facing in deciphering those old letters. They must be fragile by now, too. Good luck with the project!

I just looked the font up and found a link to some meme of the 18th Century Kurrent font, and I was surprised to see how close lower case "e" and "n" look to each other -- and how the lower case "h" looks like a cross between a cursive "f" and a cursive "l' (or uppercase "J").  And the lower case "o" looks like a lower case "v".  

https://fontmeme.com/fonts/18th-century-kurrent-font/

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Merrick]

I got in a black M600 today. Two chick cap and nib. I was hopeful that a post-97 two chick nib would be less rounded than a more recent version but alas the tip of the nib was clearly rounded and wrote with the expected lack of character, along with some scratchiness. I swapped in my pre-97 M250 M nib which was immediately smoother and far less rounded and it wrote better, although I plan on getting both nibs ground at some point. 
 

The pen itself is my first modern Pelikan, my other two both being vintage. I love my 400NN in particular and was hoping I’d find the M600 to be even more comfortable as it’s thicker and longer, but for some reason the grip is less comfortable for me. I have to use it posted for proper balance, otherwise my fingers inch toward the nib. Posted is better, but still not as comfortable in my hand as the 400NN. 

 

The black body looks wrong to me, I feel like Pelikan pens deserve some color. I will say the translucent green tinted ink window is spectacular, easier to see than looking through the striations of the color models and larger than the ink windows on most of my other pens. The painted two chick logo on the top looks wonderful. 
 

I certainly don’t regret getting the pen but I won’t seek out other M600s (I had my eye on the art collection limited edition but won’t bother now). I was hopeful the size of this model would be a sweet spot for me but it feels more like a no man’s land. 
 

I’m awaiting an early production M800 and my response to that will determine if I will split my Pelikan focus between vintage and pre-97 M800s (and maybe the M1000) or stick solely to vintage from now on. 

[Driften]

2 hours ago, Merrick said:

I got in a black M600 today. Two chick cap and nib. I was hopeful that a post-97 two chick nib would be less rounded than a more recent version but alas the tip of the nib was clearly rounded and wrote with the expected lack of character, along with some scratchiness. I swapped in my pre-97 M250 M nib which was immediately smoother and far less rounded and it wrote better, although I plan on getting both nibs ground at some point. 
 

The pen itself is my first modern Pelikan, my other two both being vintage. I love my 400NN in particular and was hoping I’d find the M600 to be even more comfortable as it’s thicker and longer, but for some reason the grip is less comfortable for me. I have to use it posted for proper balance, otherwise my fingers inch toward the nib. Posted is better, but still not as comfortable in my hand as the 400NN. 

 

The black body looks wrong to me, I feel like Pelikan pens deserve some color. I will say the translucent green tinted ink window is spectacular, easier to see than looking through the striations of the color models and larger than the ink windows on most of my other pens. The painted two chick logo on the top looks wonderful. 
 

I certainly don’t regret getting the pen but I won’t seek out other M600s (I had my eye on the art collection limited edition but won’t bother now). I was hopeful the size of this model would be a sweet spot for me but it feels more like a no man’s land. 
 

I’m awaiting an early production M800 and my response to that will determine if I will split my Pelikan focus between vintage and pre-97 M800s (and maybe the M1000) or stick solely to vintage from now on. 

 

For a while I like my m605 Blue better than my m200/m400 series pens, but now I actually like the smaller pens posted better.  I do like my m805s best though for longer writing sessions.