Pelikan M205 Review

If your pen company has been around since 1838 - as Pelikan has - you must be doing something right. Experienced fountain pen users know all about the history, quality, and value of the brand, but for novice fountain pen users Pelikan poses a dilemma: Is the premium price worth it?

Just two years ago I was a fountain pen beginner. I knew what fountain pens were and what direction to hold the nib when writing, but that was about it. With the help of the amazing online pen community my knowledge has grown exponentially. I have learned what makes a good pen and how to apply that information when shopping for pens that suit my needs.

Discovering some favorite brands was easy. For example, Pilot pens work well for me, practically sight unseen at this stage. Their design, nibs, and price push all of my buttons. I found several other brands that work well for me: Sailor, TWSBI, Edison - the list goes on. I kept running across Pelikan pens in my shopping too, but looking at the price and comparing them to other brands I knew I already liked, I never could justify buying one. That is, until I finally put one in my hands.

I'll be the first to admit that I am lucky. Running this blog has given me access to people and products I never imagined I would have access to. I am forever grateful to my friend Thomas for allowing me to try a wide variety of pens from his collection, including my first Pelikan, the M405 with an 0.2 mm Japanese extra fine nib.

I learned a lot from that pen. Most importantly, I learned that Pelikan fountain pens suit me perfectly. I came home with a blue striated M405 of my own from the 2013 Atlanta Pen Show, and recently picked up a black M205 with a steel EF nib from JetPens to expand my Pelikan arsenal.

While the price of the 14k gold nib M405 gave me pause (I paid around $270), the steel nib M205 was more of a concern at almost half the price. Why? There are a huge amount of great steel nib pens to be found in the $40-$80 price range. How can I justify recommending the M205 when you can by my freshly minted #1 fountain pen for $60?

Because I feel different when it is in my hands.

It's not something I can quantify, and it may not help you make a purchasing decision, but that's the truth. Has some of the aura around the Pelikan brand rubbed off on me? I won't discount that, but it's more likely the precise German engineering that speaks to me. The design and functionality of this pen is flawless on all accounts. And the famous Pelikan ink window? Swoon.

Should you buy the M205 over the 14k gold nibbed Lamy 2000 or Pilot Vanishing Point? If your only consideration is the gold content of the nib, then no, you shouldn't. If you are looking for a great writing experience though, the Pelikan M205 can hang with any pen on the market.

(JetPens is an advertiser on The Pen Addict and I received this product at no charge.)

TWSBI Mini Review

(Everyone say hello to Jeff Abbott, the latest writer to join me here at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution, Twitter, and App.net. Welcome aboard Jeff!)

Small pens and comfortable writing experiences do not normally appear on a list describing the same pen. But ever since this TWSBI Mini entered my collection, I've been continually impressed by its portability and quality writing experience. The particular model I have is a clear body with a black cap and piston. It currently has an EF nib, and it's my favorite non-Japanese small nib. I currently have Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-peki in the pen, one of my favorite go-to inks.

A lot of mini-sized pens have significant trade offs in the actual usage of the pen, but the TWSBI Mini isn't one of them. I love the size. It's portable and small, but still maintains the proper proportions of a larger pen that makes it easy to hold for long sessions or a quick commute in my pocket. When the cap is posted, the weight is perfectly balanced for my hand. I really enjoy posting the cap on this pen because the cap actually screws on to the end of the pen. This gives it a solid, secure feel in the hand and I don't have to worry about twisting the cap and moving the piston, which might result in a nasty ink spill on the page.

The nib is extremely smooth and consistent (especially for an EF nib), which is one of the main reasons that I pick this pen up in the morning. I've never had issues with the ink stopping or skipping in this pen. Even with other inks loaded, it performs admirably. While we're talking about inks, it's worth pointing out that this little pen holds a large amount of ink.

I've used the pen on a variety of papers, from cheap copy paper and composition notebooks to Rhodia and Clairefontaine papers. It feels smoother and nimbler on the premium paper, but it also gets the job done nicely on cheap papers. In my mind, this is what qualifies a pen for everyday use.

The relatively low cost of entry for this pen is another huge plus. I paid $55 for my copy from Amazon, which is hard to do with a piston filler fountain pen.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this pen to someone just starting on their fountain pen journey, but if you want something small, charming, and deceptively refined, then give the Mini a try. The Mini comes in three color variations: black and clear, completely clear, and all black. You can pick the nib size you want, but like other TWSBI models, the nib section is incredibly easy to swap out later if you want to try other sizes.

Kaweco Allrounder Review

Brad was kind enough to send me one of the Kaweco pens he recently received so that I could play around with it for a bit. The Kaweco Allrounder is a thing of beauty, seriously. The brushed metal finish, a nicely weighted cap, the vintage style-clip…and I really can’t ever see picking up the pen again.

Like Brad, I’m a Kaweco fanboy through and through and pretty much everything in the Sport line has been a favorite of mine forever. I’m pretty envious of the ART Sport Brad just got his hands on. The Allrounder, though, is an entirely different pen. Full sized, heavy, all silver trimmings - the thing is a walking talking writing specimen of German industrial design. It is sleek yet solid, which is a tough feat to pull off in a pen. However, I still don’t end up wanting to use it.

I’ve been trying to figure out what it is that makes the pen not work for me. At first, I wondered if the problem might be, well, me. I tend to over-rotate my hand when writing with fountain pens so I’m almost writing with the nib sidewise, and that ends up resulting in a great deal of skipping with some fountain pens. With the Allrounder, I tried my normal rotation and forced myself to write with the nib at the proper angle to the paper. Nothing really worked. It isn’t so much that the pen skips - there isn’t that usual feeling of scratching or catching that accompanies that terrible moment in fountain pen writing. Rather, I just can’t get a consistent line out of the thing.

If you press too hard, you get a line that ends with more ink than you started with, which leads to some unintended shading. If you hold the pen lightly…well, it is hard to hold the pen lightly. The weight and the girth of it mean you have to grip it fairly firmly. Light-handed attempts just left it skittering across the page.

I asked Brad to kit this out with an EF nib as I almost never write with anything larger than a fine, except with italics. I actually found myself wondering as I wrote whether I should have gone with a bold nib. With a wide nib, I think the ink variation would actually look expressive rather than accidental, and you might be able to hold the pen with a lighter grip and let it skate atop the paper.

I certainly wouldn’t advise against trying out the pen, though it is at a relatively hefty price point for an experiment. I will say, though, if you have small hands and prefer thin nibs, you’re likely better off with something from the Sport line.

(This pen was provided by Kaweco for review purposes.)