Jan172009
Pelikan Pharo
Filed under Pens by Kim at 11:44 am on Jan 17 2009
I stumbled into a great pen the other day, thanks to amazing happenstance and Jack’s quick mind for trivia. Sometimes we attend a weekly social event (called Tea) wherein there is a trivia prize, and this week I walked in all full of pen talk and our friend David and I were merrily talking pens, and then the prize was announced – A fountain pen!
It took me about 15 minutes when I got home to figure out what kind of Pelikan this was. You can see in the Pelikan website that they only list a rollerball and a ballpoint for this design, but I found some links on the Fountain Pen Network explaining that the fountain pen version got discontinued. That’s a pretty comprehensive review, but my opinion diverges on a few fine points.
The second I felt the weight of this pen in my hand I knew I wanted it; I truly love a weighty pen. I had this problem with a Levenger pen in that they feel light and cheap to me, so the heft of this pen was welcome. Since this wasn’t originally an expensive pen, I was surprised that it had a screw-on cap, which I had to get used to (particularly since I am so used to the Lamy). The FPN link above recommends a Conklin converter for this pen although it is meant to be cartridge only, so I hope to find one of those at the pen show next weekend.
Oh, what’s that? You want to know how it actually writes? Oh fine. I found that this nib performs one task I really appreciate – writing well on crap paper. I know that crap paper can gunk up your nib, but sometimes that’s what you have to write on. At work I spend a bunch of time writing comments on printed documents, so I need a pen that I am not afraid will be unable to handle it. (Although I will note that the nib is misaligned! Not sure if I’m going to get it fixed or god forbid try to fix it myself since it writes fine.)
I like the line that this pen lays down very much. You can see in the large size that it seems to
handle stops and starts well; when I’m trying to write a sample for a pen review I find I write slowly trying to rein in my hideous scrawl and with some pens that leads to lots of bleed and extra ink on the paper, but not with this pen.
The pen came with a purple Pelikan cartridge inside, so the Levenger ink bottle there is just for show. I have an ebay search set up to see if I can find another one of these; someone else at Tea wanted this pen as well and I feel kind of bad that I got it when I’m already so pen-blessed.
1 Davidon 28 Jan 2009 at 4:16 pm
You shouldn’t feel guilty. You — and by you I mean Jack — won it fairly and squarely.
It was kind of spooky that the Tea Trivia Prize (TM) was a fountain pen . . . Better keep an eye on Shannon.
[Reply]