:O not hidden treasure from SECOND-HAND dödsbo

[cimorene]

We were clearing some MIL junk out of the bedroom so Wax can work there starting Tuesday and a pen rolled out from under a random Christmas ornament, and I picked it up, and it turned out to be a Pelikan fountain pen! It looks like a piece under the hooded nib is missing.

It's definitely the 1960 Pelikano (a student pen) in black; in 1965 the cap design was changed. If it were in good condition it would look like this (just imagine a bunch of scratches and dings and you get the idea for the one I found):



There is a modern version of the Pelikano, but I've never considered buying it because the modern idea of a student pen looks like... this:



(Not that I don't like childish things... I definitely want to buy a Pelikan Twist at some point.) The cap is just too clunky and ugly. It's more original, which is probably why they at Pelikan decided originally to upgrade from a straight-up cartridge-carrying clone of the All-Time Iconic Parker 51, and it's probably more ergonomic and anti-slip, but that's no excuse for the cap to look like THAT.

Also vintage is just cooler obviously. But I'll have to soak it because it had dried up with an ink cartridge that must have been last changed no later than 1985, when Wax's paternal grandfather died, and her mom had just carried it around in a box of his coins and keepsakes since then.

Comments

[laurajv]

It's so odd, isn't it, the bits and pieces of a life that you find after someone is gone? What a lovely pen it is.

[princessofgeeks]

WAY COOL

[vass]

Nice! It's a similar shape and look to the Pilot Metropolitan. And writing with your spouse's grandfather's pen which has been around since the 60s is just cool.

[cimorene]

Cigar shape is very classic, and a bit retro because generic high-end and -wannabe pens nowadays tend towards the more weighty metal-trimmed look of the Shaeffer Balance. But the Metropolitan has a sort of << shape when the cap is posted, while the Parker 51 shape is a more continuous line like so:


But of course the main difference is the hooded nib on the 51, which was extremely imitated in the midcentury and is now a bit less common: