Help with This Nib Issue - Is This a Missing Iridium Tip?!

[OldTravelingShoe]

Dear all, 

 

(I hope I am posting in the right part of the forum. Apologies if I am not and, moderators, please help me move this message where appropriate.) 

 

TL;DR: This is about an issue with a 1970s Pilot Elite, Soft 18K Nib. I have never seen something like this before, but I suspect there is something wrong with the iridium tip of this pen. In plain English, I think it's missing. Could you please comment? 

 

Details: I just received a few pens from an eBay seller from Japan. One of the pens felt very scratchy on my thumb, so I started looking at its with 10x optics. Here are the photos, Figures 1-3, showing the nib overhead, sideways, and underneath, respectively. The original photo from seller seems to me to show the nib with tip, but I will not display it for now so I do not damage the reputation of the seller (which is high wherever I checked). 

 

My questions are:

1. What do you think could be the problem? Is there a missing (iridium) tip? 
2. Is this reason to contact the seller and complain? What would be a typical request - money back? 
3. Is there any other way I could fix this? Can the nib be re-tipped? Who could do this and what would be typical expenses? 

 

Many thanks. 

 

Figure 1. Nib from above. 

 

Figure 2. Nib from the side. 

 

Figure 3. Nib from underneath. 

 

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by OldTravelingShoe
Edited for correctness.

[Karmachanic]

T'were me I'd return it for either a full refund, including shipping, or a replacement.

[OldTravelingShoe]

Thanks, @Karmachanic. I don't think the seller has a replacement right now - it's a relatively common, but still vintage pen with a relatively special nib -, but I don't know what I can do to fix this and it's also not fair for me to pay for it. 

[Recursion]

Yep, definitely return it and ask for refund. This nib looks broken and missing tipping. The only thing you can do is ask a nibmeister to ground it to a stub. Retipping is also possible e.g at fpnibs.com repair service (although I’m not sure if they still offer that service) if I remember correctly it was around the €100,- mark

[Karmachanic]

The only fix, as far as I can tell, is retipping.  Greg Minuskin (US) is the only person I know of who does that.

 

to add; forgot about Pablo at FPnibs.

[OldTravelingShoe]

@Recursion and @Karmachanic, many thanks for your advice.

 

On the one hand, I know Pablo from reputation and also from buying a pen with special Fude re-grind (re-bend?), and I think his work is excellent. I have not collaborated with Greg, so I am taking a note. 

 

On the other hand, the pen was ~50$ (I know now I overpaid, the bug bit and I felt I wanted my first vintage SOFT nib from Pilot), so a mark ~100€ plus shipping seems too much to fix.

 

I'll sleep it over, decide when I'm less emotional about it. Thanks again, great advice! 

[OldTravelingShoe]

  On 1/10/2022 at 7:53 PM, OldTravelingShoe said:

I'll sleep it over, decide when I'm less emotional about it. Thanks again, great advice! 

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Update, just in case anyone is interested: I have decided to ask for a full refund. I can see no other logical way. Many thanks, @Recursion and @Karmachanic, without your help I would have doubted if it's my inexperience with pens rather than a real issue.

[Recursion]

  On 1/11/2022 at 3:25 PM, OldTravelingShoe said:

Update, just in case anyone is interested: I have decided to ask for a full refund.

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Well done 👍 and no need for thanking, we are all here to help each other as we all have the same interest😉

[arcfide]

It's too bad for that nib. At this point, I hope the pen can find a nice home for someone who wants to do a project with it. It looks like it would be a great candidate for some neat custom setups, given that it needs new tipping, especially as a soft nib. 

[OldTravelingShoe]

To conclude this request: I asked for a full refund. The seller did not reply, which makes me wary about a future collaboration, but eBay solved the issue quickly in my favor. Case closed. 

 

Thanks everyone. 

[awa54]

I have several "E" Elite/Super 200/Super 250 pens, with both switch filler and cartridge inking. The look of these nibs, especially older ones with long tines is a bit of a teaser, since most of them aren't true flex nibs, and some aren't even as flexible as a current Pilot "soft" nib as seen in the Elabo/Falcon or Custom series pens. That said, a few are truly flexy and one of those nibs might even justify the cost of retipping  ...but the majority of them wouldn't.

 

If the pen was otherwise in good condition I'd probably have kept it as a parts donor, but I do a fair amount of Pilot repair and can justify it that way. For someone who doesn't do repair your decision to return is definitely the right call.

[OldTravelingShoe]

  On 1/17/2022 at 3:45 PM, awa54 said:

That said, a few are truly flexy and one of those nibs might even justify the cost of retipping  ...but the majority of them wouldn't

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Interesting and very unexpected point - how would one tell how flexy the nib is, when the nib's tip is missing? Would you simply press the nib against the paper, infer from the spread of the tines? 

[awa54]

  On 1/17/2022 at 8:58 PM, OldTravelingShoe said:

Interesting and very unexpected point - how would one tell how flexy the nib is, when the nib's tip is missing? Would you simply press the nib against the paper, infer from the spread of the tines? 

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It would be difficult to be exact, but if you had experience with similar nibs, you could likely tell if it was on the firmer, or softer side by flexing it on a smooth, hard surface.

[OldTravelingShoe]

  On 1/18/2022 at 4:52 AM, awa54 said:

 

It would be difficult to be exact, but if you had experience with similar nibs, you could likely tell if it was on the firmer, or softer side by flexing it on a smooth, hard surface.

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Ah, thank you, @awa54, I understand now. 

 

The engineer (ingeneer [1]) in me is wondering now if there are more accurate ways to measure the hardness or softness of a nib, and if these are accessible to the regular amateur at home (in essence, to me). I saw at some point a discussion about something related - - a scale for flexiness that seemed to me feasible to use at home, from @Pen Engineer or at least explained by @Pen Engineer [2]. In essence, in this method you put the tines on a fine scale and press more or less uniformly, and record the scale when the nib reaches a target poin. To be precise, you would need to control how to exert uniform pressure on the nib. I was wondering if you or others do this. (I hope I'm not starting a flaming thread.) 

 

(Update) I don't know if would actually use a precise and accurate method. I use pens mostly for sketching and calligraphy, and at my amateur level flexibility or softness matter only with extreme differences, which you feel as you try them out. But I am curious about the technical side, and there accurate measurements matter. 

 

[1] Now that I mentioned @Pen Engineerin this discussion, I like very much his take on the etymology of the word 'engineer' and how he proposes 'ingeneer' to celebrate the ingenuity (creative part) of the process. But I digress too much. 

 

[2] Amadeus W.'s 051-7-2 Fountain Pen Flex Nibs — Classification. Online, URL: https://fountainpendesign.wordpress.com/fountain-pen-nib-design-function/fountain-pen-flex-nibs/fountain-pen-flex-nibs-classification/ 

Edited January 18, 2022 by OldTravelingShoe
Added my view.