Pelikan Changing to Non-translucent Binde

[Bo Bo Olson]

13 hours ago, Harold said:

the flat "disc tipping" or however you'd describe

Tear drop.

 

And in the softer than the modern semi-nail...is what I call regular flex, in often back in the day of B&W TV that was the regular issue nib.

 

At first I was a semi-flex snob, but by sending the then great 200's nibs to a passed pal in England, grew to really like the springy regular flex nibs from '82-97 and the 200's nib until the last 4-5 years, when that nib became fat and blobby too.

 

The stubbed Vintage '50-65, the tear drop semi-vintage '82-97 and the 200's nibs until 2017? all had nice clean lines....not the somewhat woolly line of the double ball/kugel nib.

 

I do cheat, I have an 1 1/2-7cm thick magnifying glass when I get town to nib, ink and paper....search for perfection.

(I'm sure I ran into perfection two times, but forgot where I laid the evidence.)

 

 

[Mercian]

16 hours ago, Harold said:

I could overlook this in isolation, but it is part of a now long list of bad decisions Pelikan has made…

Hmm.

It is increasingly seeming that what was done to Parker (after its acquisition by major Corporate owners) is now being done to Pelikan.

☹️

[A Smug Dill]

6 hours ago, Mercian said:

It is increasingly seeming that what was done to Parker (after its acquisition by major Corporate owners) is now being done to Pelikan.

 

Maybe it's the logical and/or necessary thing to happen to old brands that were once big in the market and known worldwide, and still loved by some, but for which nostalgia and word-of-mouth advocacy by a shrinking fan base do not translate to enough sales and profits to justify their continued existence in their original business model to be worth continued investment, using other brands and other consumer goods as benchmarks for return on investment.

 

I think “we” — including, and especially, fans of those brands — cannot expect either their traditional owners, or new investors with net worth to spare, to keep old brands alive and true to their original visions primarily out of love or appreciation of history and heritage, instead of judging the companies dispassionately as investments in for-profit enterprise. I don't see small-time aficionados offering up as much of their wealth as possible to protect their beloved brands from adulteration or demise, ahead of “better things to do with their money”.

[Aether]

New owners abandon tradition, as I said before (and which you rubbished but now apparently support).

[A Smug Dill]

35 minutes ago, Aether said:

New owners abandon tradition, as I said before (and which you rubbished but now apparently support).

 

You claimed Pelikan no longer owns the Pelikan brand. I said Pelikan still owns the Pelikan brand, it's just that Pelikan the company itself has changed. Tradition does not define Pelikan, and your views do not define Pelikan. The owners of the company, at a given point in time, get to (re)define what Pelikan stands for; fans and aficionados don't. That's the point I was making.

 

If you want to control the narrative of what Pelikan is, then buy the company. When you own it, you can choose to respect ‘tradition’ and return the brand to its roots, and get it to produce pen models just how you like them; or move all production to China if you want.

 

[Mercian]

2 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

Maybe it's….

I fully understand why this happened to Parker (& now appears to be happening to Pelikan).
It has happened to many other companies/brands too, in various ‘sectors’.

 

I ought to have made clear that my earlier ‘☹️‘ was intended as much in a spirit of Sic transit gloria mundi - a reaction to the fact that these are the times through which we find ourselves living - as it was intended as any kind of criticism of the ‘opening-takers’ who bought-up the venerable German pen-maker in order to be able to extract for themselves as much as possible of the value of the brand before they eventually fold the ‘Fine-writing’ division.

 

I remain unhappy about these developments, even though (or, rather, especially as) I do understand the economic factors that cause/enable them to occur.

 

As an old English madrigal has it, ‘more geese than swans now live; more fools than wise’.

Equally, I am well aware that ‘twas ever thus.

 

O tempora! O mores! Oh, bugger… ☹️

[Aether]

2 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

You claimed Pelikan no longer owns the Pelikan brand. I said Pelikan still owns the Pelikan brand, it's just that Pelikan the company itself has changed. Tradition does not define Pelikan, and your views do not define Pelikan. The owners of the company, at a given point in time, get to (re)define what Pelikan stands for; fans and aficionados don't. That's the point I was making.

 

If you want to control the narrative of what Pelikan is, then buy the company. When you own it, you can choose to respect ‘tradition’ and return the brand to its roots, and get it to produce pen models just how you like them; or move all production to China if you want.

 

 

Lots of words, lots of projection, lots of assumptions and lots of deliberate misinterpretation of my original point.     Pretty standard retort from you in fact.

 

Pelikan as it is today has been defined by its own tradition.    The new owners have no interest it seems in maintaining the weight of that tradition.  Most likely this is due to having an all profit-no loss approach to business.  To be fair, businesses can do what they want, and I've never stated otherwise, but there is always the danger that customers will 'vote' with their feet.   I don't want to control the narrative of this company, never said I did.  I also didn't sink to the blatantly racist overtones that are no doubt intended by your China remark.

[dftr]

The news feels bad. 
when i think of my favorite pelikans, its the red tortoise and the all black m600 and 120. None have striped visible barrels. 
 

At any rate, not too interested in the red / black 800 reissue. If they make a red tortoise 800 or put out a cool 600 Color, or bring back some flex nibs like montblanc did with their calligraphy nib ill look at it the brand again.  It feels like they are less interesting.  

[A Smug Dill]

(Double post, because I cannot effectively edit this one on my iPad to insert additional quotes interspersed with commentary.)

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by A Smug Dill

[A Smug Dill]

On 3/12/2022 at 12:31 PM, Aether said:

The owners of the Pelikan brand is not Pelikan (as i are led to believe). 

20 hours ago, Aether said:

Lots of words, lots of projection, lots of assumptions and lots of deliberate misinterpretation of my original point. …‹snip›… Pelikan as it is today has been defined by its own tradition.   

 

Pelikan is not an adjective.

 

As a noun, there is no other Pelikan than the (hierarchy of) business entities trading by that name, that may legally be the owner of the Pelikan brand or trademark. Therefore your earlier comment and point must be interpreted as referring to the company. No amount of tradition, and no amount of sentiment in the hearts and minds of customers and aficionados, can create an alternative Pelikan that exists separately from the company, that is legally recognised as an entity with the capacity to own the brand.

 

20 hours ago, Aether said:

The new owners have no interest it seems in maintaining the weight of that tradition.

 

Yes. So what? If defenders of that tradition wants it to hold sway in what Pelikan is today, or will be tomorrow, they can try to gain a controlling interest in the company.

 

20 hours ago, Aether said:

I also didn't sink to the blatantly racist overtones that are no doubt intended by your China remark.

 

I have no idea what is racist about it. China is the obvious destination for established Western brands to move their production in order to cut costs. China as a geopolitical entity primarily defined by its government and policies also happens to be something a lot of consumers living in Western democracies seem not to like. Moving a brand's primary production capability to China from the country where the company that owns the brand was founded and is domiciled, with both impacts of ‘local’ jobs and concerns as to whether product quality will be maintained, is the purest, most cynical example of giving little or no consideration to the Western (as in living in Western democracies and being accustomed to that kind of world view, irrespective of race) consumer sentiment but letting economics be the only guide for business decisions.

 

I myself am Chinese by race and have lived in a Western democracy for the past thirty-odd years. I don't like China much, but I appreciate its industrial capability, and am well aware of the country's military might (which some others might prefer it not to have); none of that has to do with consideration of race. Moving Pelikan's production to China does me no favours and would not please me as an owner and user of Pelikan pens; I like the brand enough to have fifteen or so of its pens here. However, if somebody with the money and the keenness buys Pelikan (or just its Fine Writing division) to redefine what the name stands for, I'd be the first to agree it's his/her/their/its right, even if that could be seen as a snub to fans who have their own ideas about how the brand should be but fail to cough up the capital to gain a controlling interest.

 

So, if you buy the company, you can choose to respect tradition or whatever you please, you can return the brand to their roots if you want, or you be can guided only by the dollar and do the most cynical or dastardly thing possible if that's where you want to take the company, and you can snub the customers if it makes no difference to you.

 

 

[Aether]

It's just an observation.  And you are wrong.  When it comes to their pens, the Pelikan brand has over time developed a tradition that incorporates certain characteristics for which they have become synonymous.   What I see, and what I offer my opinion and observations on, suggests that the qualities for which the Pelikan (pen) brand has  become known, through the building of that tradition, are being eroded.  I find that regrettable, and your arguments about businesses doing what they want because that is their 'right' are irrelevant, as they are a given and don't require explication.

 

You seem to have this weird thing where you equate a person's observation and opinion with some perceived and projected need for them to engage in action.  

 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

The bonus is sacred; nothing else....... now. Once upon a time (now fossilized)  Stock Options were sacred also in days of low P&E.

 

When lemon tree management takes over, woe be tradition.

 

Be the first on your block to get a Pelikan Sharpie. .........unless of course I missed that era.

I did gladly miss the '66-81 era outside a Silverx.

[twinspark]

This is surely a great loss of utility and moves the fountain pen from being something practical to easily use on a daily basis to something where form over function rules?

 

I don't own any striped Pelikans. Only an M215 and and M805. I knew I was forgoing full visibility of the ink level by going with these models but was content with the utility that I could monitor ink in the "last quarter of the tank" so to speak!  I wouldn't be comfortable relying on a pen where I didn't know how much ink was in it and consequentally when it was likely to run out of ink.

 

I have a Parker 51 - Brilliant pen and beautiful writer. Always starts and writes reliably... write up to it running out of ink.... you probably get half a sentence's notice that this is about to occur....... Not so much of a problem if sitting at your own desk with a supply of ink or a spare pen you can jump to.... pretty useless if "out and abot" and it's your sole source of being able to write!.....

[Mercian]

20 minutes ago, twinspark said:

I have a Parker 51 - Brilliant pen and beautiful writer. Always starts and writes reliably... write up to it running out of ink.... you probably get half a sentence's notice that this is about to occur....... Not so much of a problem if sitting at your own desk with a supply of ink or a spare pen you can jump to.... pretty useless if "out and abot" and it's your sole source of being able to write!

 

WARNING: THREAD DETOUR AHEAD

In my time on FPN I have seen several people recommend a very simple way to get around that problem…

 

All that you need to do is: remember to re-fill your “51” at the same time every week - e.g. on Sunday evening.

 

They hold a lot of ink, so you shouldn’t run out in one week, unless you are writing War and Peace every week (in which case you need only to increase the scheduled frequency of re-filling).

I own two “51”s, both of which are aerometric pens with still-clear sacs. I don’t write loads, but I do like being able to check my ink level, so I limit my use of my “51”s to only filling them with two inks that don’t stain their sacs (R&K Salix and Noodler's Black).

 

DETOUR OVER

[Bo Bo Olson]

I have sac pens, that I ...when I use them re-fill regularly...depending on estimated use.

My 2006 MB Woolf is also a 'blind' piston pen ... I don't think the lack of a ink window makes a difference in I seldom take it out of the house.

 

I believe the rest of my piston pens have an ink window....outside the stripped Pelikans....

Personally I prefer ink windows, but could look out a sunny window or turn on a desk light on a cludy day....I got use to it.

 

Out side the 200 I'm too cheap to buy new....and that goes double for having to buy a extra strong desk light.....more than likely small.....I'm so out of date, there are the blind the crook's mini-lights for those buying new.

 

I'm sure no one at Pelikan with anything to say, reads we favor being able to squint at an ink level....It must be nice to have a secretary to make sure one's signature pen is always filled.

[amk]

I'll put in my two-pennyworth.

 

I have many pens with no ink view, and I don't *need* an ink view. But I do love the way Pelikan made the translucent stripes into one of their USPs; it's subtle, if you compare it say with Aurora's ink view windows. I don't even mind if I have to lift my pen up to the desk lamp, as I do with the red torty 600. In fact I rather enjoy doing that. And in the same way, the translucent stripes are not 'demonstrator' style. They are more subtle than that, too.

 

And so even though for me an ink window isn't functional, it's part of the appeal of Pelikan. They really shouldn't have dropped it.

 

I have a feeling that they need someone in marketing who really understands the brand and its values. By comparison, everything I see from Lamy at the moment makes me feel there's a company that has a good feeling for its basic values, and will try different things but always in the right spirit. 

 

[JulieParadise]

It's ... interesting to read how people react to this business decision that apparently was necessary because the material for the binde was becoming hard to get for Pelikan. The supply issues of the last months are, as far as I recall, caused by the lack of that very material in its various colour ways.

[Mercian]

16 minutes ago, JulieParadise said:

It's ... interesting to read how people react to this business decision that apparently was necessary because the material for the binde was becoming hard to get for Pelikan. The supply issues of the last months are, as far as I recall, caused by the lack of that very material in its various colour ways.

What I find dispiriting is that Pelikan’s owners/accountants could not see sufficient economic justification for acquiring the means of manufacturing the chatoyant material/transparent barrel material that has apparently become hard for Pelikan to source.

 

The knowledge of how to manufacture it has, clearly, not suddenly vanished overnight. And nor has market availability of the raw materials for that ‘product’.

 

I am one of the people who regards the chatoyant stripes on a transparent barrel as one of the most-desirable traditional features (or ‘unique selling points’) of Pelikan’s pens.

I would therefore have hoped that it would be possible for a large office-supplies company that has expertise in working with many different materials, and with many manufacturing-techniques, to have the capacity to ‘invest’ in ’vertically-integrating’ the manufacture of this component material.

Perhaps Pelikan’s owners/accountants chose to ‘reduce the value of their sales-offer’ instead of investing in the manufacturing process for this material. Or perhaps the current owners of the (presumably, sole) supplier of the material simply shut-down their production facilities, but still insist on hanging-on-to the ‘intellectual property’ rights for the manufacturing process?

 

Either way, I stand by my earlier comments of sic transit gloria mundi, and O, tempora! O, mores!

☹️

[carola]

5 minutes ago, Mercian said:

What I find dispiriting is that Pelikan’s owners/accountants could not see sufficient economic justification for acquiring the means of manufacturing the chatoyant material/transparent barrel material that has apparently become hard for Pelikan to source.

 

The knowledge of how to manufacture it has, clearly, not suddenly vanished overnight. And nor has market availability of the raw materials for that ‘product’.

 

I am one of the people who regards the chatoyant stripes on a transparent barrel as one of the most-desirable traditional features (or ‘unique selling points’) of Pelikan’s pens.

I would therefore have hoped that it would be possible for a large office-supplies company that has expertise in working with many different materials, and with many manufacturing-techniques, to have the capacity to ‘invest’ in ’vertically-integrating’ the manufacture of this component material.

Perhaps Pelikan’s owners/accountants chose to ‘reduce the value of their sales-offer’ instead of investing in the manufacturing process for this material. Or perhaps the current owners of the (presumably, sole) supplier of the material simply shut-down their production facilities, but still insist on hanging-on-to the ‘intellectual property’ rights for the manufacturing process?

 

Either way, I stand by my earlier comments of sic transit gloria mundi, and O, tempora! O, mores!

☹️

 

I second that, pretty much summing up my thoughts.

 

And just because something has to change for one reason or another, I don´t have to like the new version. I have seen some of the new non-transparent striped pens (the white-green for example) and I just don´t like the way those stripes look. 🤷‍♀️

[JulieParadise]

9 minutes ago, Mercian said:

The knowledge of how to manufacture it has, clearly, not suddenly vanished overnight. And nor has market availability of the raw materials for that ‘product’.

 

Well, when I had the chance to visit the factory in Vöhrum/Peine some years ago, it was said that this binde material was sourced from one small manufacturer, so it probably was beyond Pelikan's means to change the amount that could be produced or even acquire the rights to manufacture these sheets themselves.