Pelikan Future reviewed by Hari Balakrishnan

The Pelikan Future-Silver is a variant of the popular Pelikan future range of fountain pens. These pens are cartridge/converter filled. The pelikan future-silver as its name suggests is a futuristic looking pen. The body I think, is made of a plastic that looks and feels like aluminum. The feel of the pen is definitely metallic and is quite scratch proof. The section features a comfortable three point cushioned grip. This is a light weight pen but is quite balanced while writing. The pen measures 5 3/10 inches with the cap closed and 6 inches with the cap posted. The pen is remarkably well built for its low price (approx Rs. 300-/- in India; $6), the threads inside the barrel where the section screws in, are made of steel. The body material is strong and looks long lasting. This pen does not have the cheapish “plasticky” look.The pen performed flawlessly out of the box with no skipping or flow problems. The strong stainless steel nib is very well made with only the point size marked on it. The usual Pelikan logo is missing. The fine point on my pen is very smooth; the ink flow is just right, leaving a wet uniform line. The nib is rigid as SS nibs go but not very rigid.

The only cons of this pen are the cap and the cartridge filling system. The cap does not post securely and tends to come loose while writing. The underside of the clip tends to curl the lip of the shirt pocket. The converter should be supplied as standard equipment with the pen, it is very difficult to find spare converters in India.

To sum it up, the Pelikan future silver is a very good writer and a great looker at a very reasonable price. It is an excellent pen for taking down lecture notes and for everyday use. A pen definitely worth buying.

Pelikan Culture reviewed by John

As I was walking around Oxford on my annual visit there, I was naturally on the lookout for good pen stores. From perusing the web, one has the sense that, at least at the low end, good quality pens are easier to be had in Europe (where I'm including the UK in that category -- apologies) than in he US. Certainly, I found this to be the case at a stop in Eton earlier on my trip. There I ran across the Eton Stationers -- a low-cost Mecca forschool pens. The store was fully stocked with Parker Frontiers, Vectors, and Reflexes, Sheaffer Awards and Javelins, and so on. Even more remarkable were the pens that are harder to find in the US -- Waterman Kulturs, Pelikan Pelikanos, Lamys, and Rotrings galore -- all it great prices (at least with the US exchange rate). Sadly, I was overwhelmed by the choices and, since i twas early in the trip and I did not want to bore my wife with an extended pen shopping expedition, I ended up passing on this in hopes of better things to come during an extended -- and wife-free -- time in Oxford.

Well, sad to say, that little pen shop in Eton turned out to be better than any place at Oxford, at least in the school pen niche. This is not to say that pens are hard to find there. They're not, but they're mostly higher end and then prices are nothing to write home about. Economists have a notion called purchasing power parity that says that across countries where there is free trade and movement, stuff should cost the same. For the coveted Carene amber shimmer this theory holds quite well. In store after store, translating UK prices to US led to the same depressing conclusion, the price there was the same as US retail.

Back to Oxford. I came across a pen store there with a beautiful window display call Pens Plus, which I think I've visited on the web as well. I went in and browsed the ink section in complete silence since I was alone save for the person behind the counter. A quick scan of the shelves revealed a brilliant selection of pens, but at full retail. How depressing. Anyway, since the goal of the trip was to buy a nice school pen, this was of no issue. I kept searching for Pelikanos or something other than the ubiquitous Parkers and Sheaffers. Finally, the person behind the counter asked if I needed any help. Normally, I'm about as willing to accept help in retail stores as I am to ask for directions when lost on the highway (it's a guy thing I think). Still, I was  desperate, so I asked about Pelikans. He pointed me to a cup of pens on the counter that looked, to the untrained eye, to be the sorts of things one give customers to sign credit card slips. But contained therein were a number of amusing Pelikan Culture pens. I chose one with a dancer on it although at the time I did not recognize her as a dancer per se. I just sort of liked the muted colors and the graceful lines.

From what I understand, the Culture is a Pelikano with a gilt nib and a design on the cap and barrel. I got mine for about $4.50.The only design on the nib is a stylized pelican logo. The plastic body of the pen is quite light (too light without the cap posted). The top of the cap is also stamped with the logo. The clip betrays the humble origins of this pen. Whereas the tradition series and up feature clips with the stylized pelican beak, the clip of the Culture is much straighter and plainer looking. Thankfully, it retains the really desirable design feature of its more expensive cousins -- since the underside of the clip slopes gradually, Pelikans are easy to secure in the button openings and collars of golf shirts. This, by the way, is impossible with a Parker clip. The writing quality of the pen is up to Pelikan's usual high standards, though the Culture is not as smooth a writer as my 600 or 800. However, for the money, it is easily one of the best writers out there completely dominating every other pen I've encountered in the under $10 price point. One annoyance -- the pen does not come with a converter and it's hard to imagine buying one since it would cost more than the pen. Still, since it takes international size cartridges, it's easy enough to find a converter to fit it out of my existing collection.

I had one weird problem with the pen. At the base of the barrel, the dancer design gives way to a black section where the cap posts. It turns out that this is glued to the barrel. On posting the cap recently, this part of the pen came off and became VERY stuck in the pen. The only way to get it out was to Krazy glue the barrel, try to replace it on the barrel (with the cap still posted) and hope that Krazy glue was stronger than friction. It is, but the bottom is no longer seated properly on the barrel of the pen. This detracts from its attractiveness somewhat.

Bottom line: At $4.50, the Culture offers a good value. Still, given my other experiences with Pelikan, I was a bit underwhelmed with the writing experience. Still, chalk this up to way too high expectations.

Pelikan M800 reviewed by John

The Pelikan M800 is the quintessential Pelikan. It's a large pen with good width and heft. However, for its size it is not so heavy that I find myself becoming fatigued from writing with it. The nib is ornate and very attractive as is the trim on the pen. I have a fine nib which lays down a reasonably wet line and glides along fairly effortlessly. The pen is also extremely reliable. No skips - no problem starts - and it's a good flier to boot! M800s have been selling far below retail on eBay and in a number of Internet outlets. It's possible to get one for as low as $175. At that price, the quality is hard to beat.

Pelikan M600 reviewed by John

I bought a new style 600 at the SRW closing sale. Interestingly, 600s appeared at three different prices on their site, for $175 at their regular location, at $150 for an old style under web specials, and at $130 for new style in this same section. Mine was a $130 model with an oblique double broad nib. This was my first venture into the world of obliques. My previous forays outside of the plain vanilla realm of nibs were a mixed bag. I bought an Esterbrook stub nib that was not very nice to use, producing little line variation and lots of headaches. Then, I bought a Lamy Joy with a 1.1 mm italic. This was fabulous to use. I've also dabbled with Sheaffer italics in various sizes and don't find them fun to use. Anyway, I thought the Pelikan would be like the Joy only smoother and more perfect. Well, 600 OBB was smooth and consistent all right, but it is not friendly to left-handers who write upside-down. The problem is that the oblique angle of the pen forced me to write with the pen angled away from my body, and there was just no way to do this comfortably. I tried for about five days to get the hang of it, but to no avail. The line variation, which was substantial, was always backwards - thick horizontals and diagonals but thin verticals. I ended up swapping the nib for a medium with another kind soul in the pen world. The medium is fabulous -- smooth, consistent, and expressive.

Some words about the aesthetics of the pen. In the new style, the 600 is a bit smaller and than the 800. (The old style is much smaller - about the size of a new-style 400.) Otherwise, its ornamentation is identical to the 800. It features a piston filling system although without the brass piston of its larger cousins. This results in the pen being substantially lighter than either the 800 or the 1000. The two-tone gold nib is smaller than the 800 and less lavishly ornamented. This was actually a bit of a disappointment to me. Prominent on the 800 is a large stylized pelican in gold. The 600 has a much smaller version of the pelican ringed with the words "Pelikan" and "14c - 750." Making the pelican smaller somehow detracts from the beauty of the nib. In fact, the whole design seems a bit crowded.

The main reason I picked up the 600 was that I thought it would be a better fit for my hands than the 800. Indeed, that is the case, the pen is lighter but still has good girth and heft to it. It is well balanced with or without the cap posted. The dimensions are comparable to the Montblanc 146 although the 600 is much lighter.

So what's the bottom line? At $130 or so, the 600 is a good value, and I'm quite glad I got it. At a price closer to retail though, I think it loses much of its attraction, especially as compared to the M800 or, moving down a notch, the M400.

Pelikan M200 reviewed by John

Suppose that you were forced to use only one fountain pen for the rest of your life. To make matters worse, suppose that you only had 60 bucks to buy this pen. Well, there is no question that this is the pen you should buy. At $60 (from Swisher) it dominates pens costing less as well as those costing up to four times more. The funny thing is that the 200 is like the Rodney Dangerfield of the Pelikan line -- it doesn't get the respect it deserves. For example, the desert island pen scenario I posed above, but without the $60 restriction, was a running thread on a pen newsgroup recently. While Pelikans as a whole did very well, the 200 received no votes at all. Why should this be? My guess is that when you encounter as successful a design as the 200, you end up buying and liking even higher end products by the same company. Indeed, if I had to go to a desert island wit only one pen and money were no object, I'd choose the 200's big brother, the M800.

So what's the 200 like? The version I have has a blue marbleized body with an ink window near the section. This pen is a smoothly functioning piston filler, so, if you're bound and determined to use cartridges, this is not the pen for you. The cap is shiny black plastic with a single gold ring band near the base. The cap end displays a silk-screened stylized pelican in gold. The pen is quite light and small compared to most modern pens, so if you're looking for a fat, hefty pen, the 200 is not for you. Interestingly, the size and design of the pen strongly evoke design highlights from vintage Pelikans.

On to the nib. The 200 comes with a one-toned gilt nib decorated with a stylized pelican. The pen is well balanced with the cap posted, but is too short for my taste without the cap. As a writer, this pen is excellent. The pen is incredibly smooth (maybe the smoothest steel nib made). The ink flow is generous without being excessive. This combination lets the pen work well on paper ranging from the cheapest to the most expensive. The nib is moderate among modern pens in terms of flexibility. It is less stiff than most Watermans, but much stiffer than a Sonnet. The line is consistent, but does offer some minor width variation to keep things interesting.

Like others in the Pelikan line, the 200 is incredibly reliable. I've had no problems and needed to make no adjustments from day 1 with this pen.  One of the advantages of all Pelikans is the pelican bill clip, which works extremely well in sliding over the buttonholes and collars of polo shirts. This is in sharp contrast to Parker clips.

What's the bottom line? The 200 is a great pen in its own right and, considering the price, offers one of the best values in the pen world today (vintage aside). Looking for a pen to give to someone just discovering the joys of fountain pen writing? Well, this is the one.

For more on the M200, visit the Beginner's Guide section of the site.

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