Pelikan 100 nib

[Bo Bo Olson]

OK, I'd read on the com it was '36. And this is the first time it's been corrected.  No problem...been wrong before and might again be wrong this decade again....have to wait and see.

So Boehler just cheap'ed out....

[tacitus]

9 hours ago, mana said:

The N-nib is the one on the right.

Hello mana

atmospheric nibs😄

Are they all Pelikan 100? 

 

[mana]

32 minutes ago, tacitus said:

Hello mana

atmospheric nibs😄

Are they all Pelikan 100? 

 

 100? Nope, all arrived on 100N.

[OMASsimo]

The N marking might indicate a steno nib. I couldn’t find this marking in the usual references but it would make sense from how you describe the nibs and also from the Pelikan nomenclature logic. Steno nibs needed to be fine, flexible, and provide rapid ink flow.

The other, though I think less likely, possibility is that this mark refers to the material source like the circles, crosses, dashes and the likes frequently found on nibs and cap bands.

[OMASsimo]

4 hours ago, stoen said:

This must be a typo. Please be so kind to correct it. AFAIK and several reference sites can confirm, there was no gold nib restriction before September 38 when Palladium nibs were introduced...

🙂

That’s also what I read many times. But apparently, that was only a restriction for the gold delivery rather than for nib production. It appears that gold nibs still were produced till some time in 1939. The final restriction level was reached in 1941 when gold nibs could be seized. But of course that was more of a theoretical regulation and people found ways around it. I have a 1942 100 model in my collection with a pre-1937 gold nib.🙂

[tacitus]

10 minutes ago, OMASsimo said:

...But of course that was more of a theoretical regulation and people found ways around it...

 

Thank you OMASsimo

I learned much about gold nib of the era😄

[OMASsimo]

6 minutes ago, tacitus said:

 

Thank you OMASsimo

I learned much about gold nib of the era😄

👍 But keep in mind that all this is a lot of guess work because I assume none of us has been around. At least I had the opportunity to talk to eye witnesses of that dark period of history.

[stoen]

10 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

No problem...been wrong before and might again be wrong this decade again...

Please, pardon my possibly ambigous statement. I never said you were wrong. I only said that it must have been a typo, that dating a gold nib after mid-1936 (late pre war) was wrong, because too many such nibs still exist. Also, many relevant sources agree about gold nibs having been made by Pelikan until September 38. Maybe possible obligation of declaring millenial fineness (585) also had something to do wih this. Let’s bear in mind that even money value of that dark era was based on gold reserves owned by the issuer state.

 

To me it’s not a matter of being right or wrong. I’m only interested that we together try to find out the historical truth about those wonderful pens.

Too many times I’ve seen so-called “pre 1929” 100s or “pre-war” 100Ns with single-piece acrylic bodies selling for hundreds of $ and people buying such pens in good faith, unfortunately.

I humbly believe in a forum such as this one as a place where individual contributions to common knowledge base and discussion may be welcome and helpful. In spite of lots of inevitable “guesswork”

Thanks.

🙂

[tacitus]

 

5 hours ago, OMASsimo said:

👍 But keep in mind that all this is a lot of guess work because I assume none of us has been around. At least I had the opportunity to talk to eye witnesses of that dark period of history.

 

I agree.

 

Originally, Nethermark started this thread as to dating his 100.

Your comment may be the answer to it😃

 

[tacitus]

1 hour ago, stoen said:

... I’m only interested that we together try to find out the historical truth about those wonderful pens.

Too many times I’ve seen so-called “pre 1929” 100s or “pre-war” 100Ns with single-piece acrylic bodies selling for hundreds of $ and people buying such pens in good faith...

I completely agree with you.

It is one of the reason why I started dating thread.🙂

[Nethermark]

6 hours ago, stoen said:

I’m only interested that we together try to find out the historical truth about those wonderful pens.

I totally agree, that's also my interest here. And I'm very grateful for al the great replies to my initial question. If it then evolves into a more general discussion about dating Pelikan nibs would be great, for I'm very interested in that.

 

I would also expect gold nibs to be installed after 1936, judging by how many Pelikan 100's with gold nibs have survived. But off course we'll probably never know exactly when gold nib production stopped. I just thought that the nib in new Pelikan 100 was earlier than 1937. This combined with an injection moulded pen made me wonder. So again, thanks for the enlightening answers!

[Bo Bo Olson]

There was a fairy tale rumor I read here on the com; that the Mayor of Hanover gave up his gold chain of office so Pelikan could start making gold nibs right after the war.

 

Don't forget that CN nibs would have been replaced by gold on the 100n by those who could afford it ASAP, & at least up to 1954.

Status is after all, Status.

And once, a nib was considered old after 10 years....and the tipping from before the War wasn't as good as after, in tipping had been perfected during the War.

 

And there use to be fabled The Corner Pen Shoppe on every corner; where new nibs could be added.

[stoen]

2 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

Don't forget that CN nibs would have been replaced by gold on the 100n by those who could afford it ASAP, & at least up to 1954.

Status is after all, Status.

Thanks. I wasn’t really aware the “working class pens”, such as Pelikan 100 and 100 N really had much to do with status. Maybe 101N or the 110 as well as some “high-end” pens. Montblanc as well.

 

Aside from gold being a symbol of civil security, I find there must have also been a functional, metalurgical reason for restoring gold nibs to the owners: gold alloy nibs can get osmium/iridium re-tipping once worn out, while the chromium/nickel steel nibs can’t. It has to do with melting points, thermal and electrical conductivities and some other technological reasons, AFAIK.

[OMASsimo]

I think we can forget about status here. Pelikan was definitely a premium (first tier) brand just like Montblanc and their pens had a price. Interestingly, Pelikan never produced as crappy cheap pens as Montblanc did in those days. Anyway, if you couldn’t afford a reasonably good pen, there was an incredible number of really cheap pens available from countless third tier and no-name producers. Don’t confuse those with the “corner shops”, often jewellers or stationary stores, which often produced very good pens from high quality standard parts.

 

2 hours ago, stoen said:

Aside from gold being a symbol of civil security, I find there must have also been a functional, metalurgical reason for restoring gold nibs to the owners: gold alloy nibs can get osmium/iridium re-tipping once worn out, while the chromium/nickel steel nibs can’t. It has to do with melting points, thermal and electrical conductivities and some other technological reasons, AFAIK.

The obvious metallurgical reason is corrosion. Keep in mind that harsh iron gall inks were standard. A minor point could be tactile/haptic properties of the nibs. With today’s nails, it hardly matters whether a nib is made of gold or stainless steel. But those vintage nibs are very different, much thinner and more flexible. Thus, there are vibrations when writing on regular paper that’s not super slick. I do feel a difference between gold and steel nibs of that era and for me gold nibs feel more pleasant. Bo Bo always claims that Osmia made steel nibs that were as outstandingly good as their gold ones. I agree, but I still feel a difference between those and prefer the gold ones.

 

Another aspect might be that people who did do a fair amount of writing usually could afford a better pen with a gold nib. Many others had no reason to write much and wouldn’t care to spend more money as long as the pen put some ink on the paper. And, to phrase it quite brutally, the working class pen was a pencil (at least in pre-war Germany).

 

Last but not least, if a steel nib had tipping at all (the cheapest didn’t, see “Gleitspitze”), then there is no technical reason why it couldn’t be re-tipped. But it probably wasn’t economical to do so. I think that even gold nibs were not re-tipped very often. Rather a new pen was purchased. To see some wear on the tipping, it requires an incredible amount of writing!

 

 

[stoen]

37 minutes ago, OMASsimo said:

But those vintage nibs are very different, much thinner and more flexible.

Why imply “today’s nails” should be or are being taken as some kind of standard in measuring nib performance in vintage pens? I don’t believe anyone reading this thread cares much about them, else they wouldn’t be here.

🙂

I have tested dozens if not hundreds of “those vintage nibs” (i.e. pre-1949) and own at least ten of the best, which allow for superb line quality control, also using modern iron gall inks.

I dare say I’ve noticed no iron-gall induced corrosion in good Pelikan CN nibs I’ve tested. Of course, I presume proper cleaning and maintenence...

 

IMHO, 1931-1938 Pelikan 100 and 100N gold nibs fare better than wartime CN ones I’ve tested in terms of how they react to pressure nuances, but I’ve tested many more of the golden ones.

🙂

 

As for CN retipping, I am only referring to the Pelikan CN nibs. Is there a reference that they can be retipped?

[OMASsimo]

3 hours ago, stoen said:

Why imply “today’s nails” should be or are being taken as some kind of standard in measuring nib performance in vintage pens? I don’t believe anyone reading this thread cares much about them, else they wouldn’t be here.

🙂

Oh, I certainly don’t take those nails as standard and don’t care for them at all. But there are countless discussions about “gold vs. steel nibs” here where the difference between vintage and modern nibs usually is overlooked. My point was that vintage steel nibs do perform differently compared to vintage gold nibs. So, it was not necessarily status that made people prefer gold nibs.

 

3 hours ago, stoen said:

I dare say I’ve noticed no iron-gall induced corrosion in good Pelikan CN nibs I’ve tested. Of course, I presume proper cleaning and maintenence...

Modern IG inks are as mild as baby skin lotion compared to many vintage IG inks. Some of them were so acidic that they can damage the paper over time! And no one pampered and cleaned their pens like hobbyists do nowadays. Nib corrosion was a major issue those days, especially in low quality brands. The CN nibs were definitely among the top quality steel nibs and may have had less corrosion problems, just guessing, though.

 

3 hours ago, stoen said:

IMHO, 1931-1938 Pelikan 100 and 100N gold nibs fare better than wartime CN ones I’ve tested in terms of how they react to pressure nuances, but I’ve tested many more of the golden ones.

I don’t have any CN nibs in my collection and thus can only tell my experience with other brands. And among those, Osmia really made the best steel nibs, coming very close to their outstanding gold nibs. Their flex and response to pressure as well as their ink flow is very similar to their gold siblings. But yet they feel different when writing on regular paper. The difference is much reduced when writing on very slick paper like Clairefontaine or Rhodia. I think it has something to do with vibrations and how the nib resonates.

 

3 hours ago, stoen said:

As for CN retipping, I am only referring to the Pelikan CN nibs. Is there a reference that they can be retipped?

I don’t have a reference. I think that re-tipping is something that’s done rarely in general and even less so for a “cheap” steel nib. But I see no technical reason why it couldn’t be done. That was my point. If the tipping was welded onto the nib routinely in the factory, there is no physical reason why this can’t be done again.

[stoen]

11 hours ago, OMASsimo said:

Pelikan was definitely a premium (first tier) brand just like Montblanc and their pens had a price.

This statement can easily be analyzed into more informative details:

 

• a Pelikan 100 pen cost approx. 13.50 Reichsmark (RM)
• a Pelikan 100N sold for about 16.50RM
• a RapPen (entry level pen) cost less: a half of that

For comparison, a Montblanc Meisterstück pen of similar class could have cost almost twice as much, AFAIK. There used to be a reference in this site, but scans of old MB catalogs were Photobucket links, now gone, unfortunately.

 

With a teacher monthly sallary of about 500+ RM, a Pelikan 100 was affordable to those who needed it.

 

By saying Pelikans were “working class pens”, I said exactly what I meant: they were tools for earning for living. There was a huge intellectual working class in Europe of that time. No one of them would have bought pens for work, which performed poorly, not to use some other words.

 

Three generations ago, all my family members were academically educated, yet they had to earn for living with their intellectual work. So they were considered “working class”  and they all had Pelikans. None of them thought of affording a MB. 

 

This was all I meant by saying that a Pelikan 100 was likely to belong to people of certain professional status, but was hardly considered a status symbol in today’s meaning of the word.

🙂

[Bo Bo Olson]

13 hours ago, OMASsimo said:

Pelikan never produced as crappy cheap pens as Montblanc did in those days.

I don't think of the Rapen...late Ibis as first class; but the gold nib on my Ibis surprised me.

Omas is right about MB's many many sub-brands....off the top of my head some 20.

Monta Rosa or something similar (Like Shaffer's Crest sub-brand) has been the only one I can remember showing  up on the Com; but I was not chasing MB.....even if I now have some.

 

The MB ball points were every man's affordable....the German Jotter, and not priced much higher...depending on the fall of the $. Insurance companies use to give them away. Which is what mine is.

[OMASsimo]

Thanks for posting the prices, that’s very interesting info, indeed. By comparison, a MB 232 of the mid 1930s cost 11.25-12.50 RM and was MB second tier. Their third tier pens (3xx) must have been even cheaper. Their first tier pens (1xx) were luxury goods for the well-off people only.

 

Using the inclusive definition of working class as you do, the vast majority of MB pens were sold to working class members. I had the income/labour based definition in mind by which both Pelikan and MB would be for the middle and upper class. The brands we are discussing here were all expensive high quality goods and people would buy one such pen and use it for many years. There were gazillions of cheap no-name pens around that cost a fraction and were pretty low quality. If you had little reason to write and low income, then such pens were all you needed and probably could afford.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I'd forgot about the 2xx & 3xx. Which are sturdy enough pens.

I  was thinking of 'never heard of that brand' sub-brands.