Dating Pelikan 140 by box and Gebrauchsanleitung leaflet?

[InkyProf]

I received today my first vintage Pelikan, relatively modest and commonplace by FPN standards: a green-striped 140. From reading the pinned discussion of dating Pelikans in this forum, as well as the information on various webpages, including @tacitus's, I don't see any easy way to narrow down the pen's date beyond 1955-1963 (it doesn't have any of the features of the "early" 140s that changed in 1954, and the fir-tree branches on the nib go all the way to the slit). From what I can see, it does appear to have the older style of the two feeds used in the 140 (and the seller confirmed for me that the nib collar was not polystyrene) but I don't know when that change took place.

However, the pen did come with its box and instructional leaflet, the design and typeface of which certainly look more consistent with the catalogues from 1954 on Dominic Rothemel's page (https://www.pelikan-collectibles.com/en/Pelikan/Models/Revised-Piston-Fillers/140-Basis/index.html) than with the catalogues from the early 1960s. My leaflet and box end looks like this (that's a sticker on the box end):

 

    

After browsing a bit on eBay, I noticed a current listing for a 140 that uses a very different, cursive display font for the Gebrauchsanleitung, and which appears to have the model number printed on the box end (no sticker): https://www.ebay.com/itm/285991288732.

 

Does anyone have any idea about the timing of these changes that might help me narrow down the date of this particular pen, even probabilistically? Nothing hangs on this, I just love a good challenge.

 

And if you've read this far, one other question: am I right that the Pelikan logo incised into the finial on the green-striped 140s was originally painted green?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

[tacitus]

Hello, @InkyProf.

 

According to your pen's instruction, "Patented locking ring in the cap prevents the shaft from falling out, even if the cap is forgotten to be screwed tight."

Please refer to the other FPN article. Dose your 140 have the cap safety device or can you see a metal ring inside the cap tube? If yes, your 140 may be made 1958 or after.

The cap safety device or patented "Kappensicherung" was introduced in 1958 into 400NN, 140, 120, in line with the introduction of P1. 

[InkyProf]

Thanks, @tacitus, for this great information (and your websites!). It only adds to the mystery, for while my leaflet does indeed mention the “patentierter Sicherungsring,” I don’t see or feel anything like this in my cap; just the usual beveled section stop where the cap narrows. So either my cap was replaced with an older one at some point, or the box and/or leaflet doesn’t belong with this pen! Still, very helpful, and I will think of this as “circa 1958” as an approximation!

[InkyProf]

One further possibility occurs to me: if the Sicherungsring ws really just a thin metal ring that sat in a groove just ahead of the beveled inset in the cap, as the leaflet reproduced in this article suggests, I supposed it could have been lost or removed along the way. But I don't see (nor can I feel, using a bent paper clip as a probe) any such groove in my cap.

[chromantic]

  On 4/2/2025 at 4:37 AM, tacitus said:

Hello, @InkyProf.

 

Dose your 140 have the cap safety device or can you see a metal ring inside the cap tube? If yes, your 140 may be made 1958 or after.

The cap safety device or patented "Kappensicherung" was introduced in 1958 into 400NN, 140, 120, in line with the introduction of P1. 

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Well, dang. As mine has the embossed logo and wider clip introduced in 1954, I liked to think (and tell people) that the pen and I were possibly born in the same year. Alas, '58 or after for my little friend, then.

[stoen]

According to the cap drawing in your Instruction leaflet, it belongs to a 400NN. It does not mean the same drawing wasn’t used for a 140 Instruction leaflet.

 

BTW, I have a very early 140 model (3 part cap, no cap ring engraving), which behaves like having this safety system, although it shouldn’t have one, by the book. I don’t have enough reference to make assumptions, but it seeed as if GW were occasionally experimenting with this feature, until eventually having it included in both 140 & 400NN productions by the late fifties.

[tacitus]

  On 4/4/2025 at 12:59 PM, stoen said:

  it seemed as if GW were occasionally experimenting with this feature, until eventually having it included in both 140 & 400NN productions by the late fifties.

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Thank you @stoen for interesting information. In addition to transitional models that have a mix of old and new parts when specifications change, cases like yours also tell us that it can be difficult to determine when a Pelikan was manufactured.

[Bo Bo Olson]

  On 4/4/2025 at 1:53 AM, chromantic said:

Kappensicherung

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I'd heard about this in some 400nn's.

I just found out my black 140 has some sort of hesitation apparatus, that holds the cap a smidgen, that I'd not noticed before. Hadn't looked for it, so didn't find it.

The green stripped 140 I sold to a neighbor to give him a nib he needed, OB semi-flex, didn't have that.

 

I had only two 140's both semi-flex. 

 

I do have a couple maxi-semi-flex nibbed Pelikans, a 400nn and a 500. 

I have read someone had a more springy than semi-flex 140, back before I defined the term. Maxi-semi-flex.       

 

I ran into a Rupp nib that was much softer than the normal semi-flex. When I tested my 20 semi-flex nibs, five were maxi-semi-flex, but not as soft as that Rupp nib, still my softest maxi-semi-flex. 

Last time I counted, I have some 40 semi-flex and 16 maxi-semi-flex pens.

I have a flex system of halves from Regular flex up, so maxi was a key to furthering my system.

.....................

Degussa is/was the gold and silver manufacturer for Germany.

1932 they took Osmia' nib factory for debt. They had made gold ribbon wheels in both semi-flex and maxi-semi-flex for Osmia. Mostly but not aways semi-flex was the small diamond on the nib, and maxi-semi-flex was Supra and or Big diamond on the nib. Some fine posters with 30 and 50 Osmia's told me, my 8 pen assumption was a bit off. It was mostly, but not always.

 

In I have MB, Geha, Pelikan as well as Osmia nibs in both flex rates.

 

IMO, it was either a bookkeeper problem, to sell the old cheaper gold at today's gold price, or lazy warehouse workers grabbing the first gold ribbon wheel that they could reach, why the big brands didn't advertise having a softer semi-flex nib that they did end up with.

And Or, advertising was so expensive, none of the companies wanted to advertise having a softer semi-flex nib; in case there was a run on that nib, and they ran out.