Which Pens Have Easily Swappable Nibs?

[melissa59]

One of the things that I love about my Lamy Safari and vintage Esterbrook pens are the ease in which I can swap out a nib. The Safari nib just slides off and onto the feed, making it easy-peasy to switch nibs on the fly, even when the converter is full of ink. The Esterbrook nibs are a nib/feed assembly that screws in and out. It's not a nib I'd want to change when there's ink in the pen, but it's easy enough to switch when I want to try something different.

 

What other pens have interchangeable nibs?

 

I'm especially curious to know if the Sailor Pro-Gear Slim or the Pelikan M400 nibs are as easy to swap out.

I've seen photos of the Pelikan nibs and it looks like the nib unit should screw in and out fairly easily. But I've not seen any nibs for my Sailor pen.

[OCArt]

All of the Pelikan line of "M" pens like the M200, M400, M600... have easily changed nibs. The M200 and M400 use the same size nib unit, the M600 has the same threads and will take the nib from its smaller siblings but comes with a slightly larger nib. The M800 and M1000 use separately sized nib units.

[inkstainedruth]

Another vote for Pelikan. Not sure about Sailor Pro-Gear Slim -- I have one, but it's one of the more exotic nibs (a zoom nib), which I ordered special.

Modern Parker Vectors also have interchangeable nib units.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[ItsMeDave]

I don't have any of the smaller Sailor pens, but I regularly swap nib units between a Sailor 1911L and a PG Classic.

I don't swap between my 1911L's because I don't have pens of matching colour.

[OCArt]

Oh, how could I forget the Esterbrook vintage pens!

[thx1138]

Parker Insignia and Sonnet.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Vintage Osmiroid 65 lever-fillers. Their nibs MAY be swapped for Esterbrook nibs; both thread into the section, but I can't recall offhand which is the slightly more difficult swap fit.

[jmnav]

All of the Pelikan line of "M" pens like the M200, M400, M600... have easily changed nibs. The M200 and M400 use the same size nib unit, the M600 has the same threads and will take the nib from its smaller siblings but comes with a slightly larger nib. The M800 and M1000 use separately sized nib units.

 

Aaaand... M400/600 will also take vintage nibs from the 50's 400/N/NN (it also works the other way around, but who would want to do something like that?)

 

Another ones with easily swappable nibs are Parker Duofold Centennial/International: friction fitted but with very low pressure due to the way they "fix" the nib to the feed.

[Olya]

Sailor nibs swap out easily, you just pull them out. You have to stay within their sizes, i.e. Young Profit/ Somiko and ProColor/ Shikiori; Pro Gear Slim/ Sapporo and 1911 Standard are the same; and Pro Gear and 1911 Large are the same. The larger models must be re-inserted carefully, as they have a certain fit. The smaller sizes can be just pulled out and back in without special care.

 

The Pilot Prera, CH 91 and 74 are also very easily pulled in and out without much care, like the smaller Sailors.

 

Parker Sonnets and Frontiers have easily swappable nibs, they screw in and out.

 

With all these you must be careful to not separate nib from feed or accurately re-set (not difficult).

 

Pelikan nibs and feeds are held together by a collar.

[sansenri]

Ranga pens use Jowo nib/feed/collar groups which will just unscrew out, much like the Pelikan system.

That of course applies only to Ranga pens with converter.

(Ranga pens in eyedropper configuration are a tad more complex to swap nibs, but in reality if you just pull on the nib+feed they will slide out usually quite easily.)

 

Ranga often gives you the possibility also to choose a Bock nib/feed/collar group. This will unscrew out too.

The Jowo and Bock threading are not compatible with each other, however.

Edited November 27, 2019 by sansenri

[sansenri]

Several other pen makers use the Jowo nib/feed/collar group, so they are threaded accordingly.

Franklin Christoph and Edison Pens for example. Nibs are interchangeable among these and also Jowo threaded Rangas.

 

Later Bexley models also use Jowo groups and are threaded accordingly.

Edited November 27, 2019 by sansenri

[sansenri]

Visconti nibs also use a screw in collar.
There are two sizes, #5 and #6, here is a size 6

[kpong11]

May I add Parker 45 and 75

[Karmachanic]

The majority of pens have nibs that are easily swappable; either friction fit, or screw in housing.

So you may want to change the question to; what pens have nibs that are not easily swapped.

 

Montblanc, for instance, require a special tool.

[Mech-for-i]

well any pen with a screw in nib unit qualify , so do some like the Lamy Safari which had indexed nib positioning and its just as simple as pulling off the old and pushing in the new

[inkstainedruth]

May I add Parker 45 and 75

 

Duh -- I forgot about 45s, even though I have five or six of them.

Good to know about the 75s. I don't have one of those, but after passing on one at an estate sale last winter because I didn't know if it was a good price or not (turned out it wasn't bad, considering ) I now know how nice the ciselé finish looks -- and 75s turn out to be a good size and weight for me as well. So now it's pretty high on the "want, must have" list.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[sansenri]

not a silly question though

I had always thought that Stipula pens have a friction fit nib.

I've swapped many Stipula nibs around always pulling nib and feed out and replacing the nib

until I run into this Stipula nib group

[como]

And Conid, Onoto, Opus 88 ..., or any pen that uses a Bock or Jowo screw-in unit would do.

[Safari_Camo]

Swapped my original F nib size Faber Castell and for a TWSBI, now it's my favorite

[A Smug Dill]

What other pens have interchangeable nibs?

 

I'm especially curious to know if the Sailor Pro-Gear Slim or the Pelikan M400 nibs are as easy to swap out.

I've seen photos of the Pelikan nibs and it looks like the nib unit should screw in and out fairly easily. But I've not seen any nibs for my Sailor pen.

I'm afraid you're conflating two logically different things there with "swap":

• physically removing a nib from the gripping section of a pen (i.e. "swap out") and installing another nib in its place for use; versus
• acquiring additional/spare/replacement nibs (cf. "seen any nibs") for a particular pen, on which to perform the aforementioned operation, in order to have more options as a pen owner or user.

The ease of the former is premised on whether it could be accomplished without requiring special tools, uncommon technique or an inordinate amount of force. The "ease" of the latter is more of a matter of market availability and financial expense.

 

If a new screw-in nib unit for a Pelikan M800 costs €185 to buy from a retailer (which is the cheapest I can find for the moment, at a glance), but a new Sailor Pro Gear Slim Red Supernova, from which the friction-fit nib can be harvested with a firm pull, costs only €98.51, is it then easier to swap out a nib for the Pelikan M800 or a Sailor PGS?

 

Don't like pulling out friction-fit nibs, voiding product warranty in the process and running the risk of damaging the nib or feed? No problem, the gripping section – with the nib and feed as fitted in the factory — of a Sailor PGS Red Supernova will screw easily the barrel of a Sailor PGS Ocean or metallic purple Sailor PGS. Or one could just swap the ink converter across, when writing with a different nib in a particular ink is called for, but the user doesn't want to fill two pens with that ink.

 

Wait! New Pelikan M400 nib units are cheaper than that, and you could fit M200 nib units into an M400 pen body!

 

Wait! You can fit the gripping sections of a number of different Sailor pen models — including the 21K gold- and 14K gold-nibbed Profit Standard, 14K gold-nibbed Promenade, steel-nibbed Procolor 500, steel-nibbed Lecoule and steel-nibbed Profit Junior — straight onto the barrel of a Sailor PGS (and it will cap). For the avoidance of doubt, I just tried all of that with my Sailor PGS Ocean.

 

So, what counts as "easy" when it comes to swapping nibs on a pen? Best not to couch it in implicit terms of particular outcomes you had in mind, such as preserving the looks of a metallic purple Sailor PGS pen in all ways while minimising the personal expense and risk, but still availing yourself to different nib width grades on the "same" pen without purchasing multiples of it.

 

So you may want to change the question to; what pens have nibs that are not easily swapped.

Or just change the question altogether, if simply physically replacing one nib without another compatible nib, irrespective of what it takes to acquire and have a replacement nib at hand, is not really the thing the O.P. had in mind.

 

---

 

For what it's worth, I've just made a bunch of screw-in nib units for PenBBS 308 and 309 pens, that have Nemosine #6 steel EF, F, 0.6mm Stub and 0.8mm Stub nibs (and one with a Jinhao nib, too) in them. Switching to the use of a different nib on my PenBBS 309 piston-filler is now easy as pie, but the prep work that got me there wasn't as easy or as clicking on a "Buy Now" button.

Edited December 2, 2019 by A Smug Dill