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PELIKAN FOUNTAIN PEN UPDATE!

JUNE 6, 2010


Good news on the new Pelikan pen front. I haven't been all that happy with my used Pelikan 120 pen nibs, so I contacted Richard Binder of Richard Binder Fountain Pens and he suggested I buy a new Pelikan M200 body fitted with an M250 nib.  He said the M250 nibs are gold and therefore have decent spring with a fairly varied line under pressure. He cautioned that the M250 nib is not real flexible out of the box, but that he could custom tailor a more flexible nib for a fee. The basic price for the Pelikan M200 pen with a M250 nib (Binder fine-tunes the nib to assure good flow as part of the sale) costs $132.00 plus shipping. You can write to him via his site if you want to get a customized nib (click on Repair and Restoration on his main page).

Click for Richard's Site

I opted for a non-customized Pelikan M200/M250 nib combo and I love it! I got the medium and it's great for most jobs. I work on 90# Arches cold press watercolor paper and I can get a fairly heavy to quite fine line. I may eventually get a fine version, but one of my old 120s has a fine nib and, while it doesn't flow as well as this new one, it's okay. I'm sure if I send my 120 with nib to Binder, he could fine tune it for better flow. Or, better yet, maybe he could mate the 120 with a gold nib.

By the way, I've been using the Platinum Carbon Black ink now for a while and it's great. It's a little thicker than the old FW ink, but it flows well and doesn't seem to dry up quickly in the nib between jobs. I've let my capped pen sit for two weeks and the ink flowed without my having to rinse out the pen. I'm sure it'll clog up at some point and I may even clean the pen soon just in case, but things are almost back to the good old days.

Happy scrawling!

-ES
A sample of my linework using my new Pelikan M200 with the M250 gold nib. The ink is the Platinum Carbon Black Ink. Flows beautifully and the ink is nice and dark with good coverage. As Richard Binder noted, the pen nib is not super flexible, but it's just right for my needs.
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