FP Design curiosity: Covered nibs vs Exposed

[penwash]

My first fountain pen experience was using my dad's Hero, which has a covered nib.
I didn't realize what nibs look like without a cover until years later.

Today, as an adult, I often wonder why would anyone cover the beautiful shape of a nib, is there any other reason besides just to be different?

Anybody like covered nib design, or even prefer it to exposed ones?

[jar]

Many reasons. It helps keep the nib moist and wet for easier starts and helps if you pause between writing.

[dneal]

The ones that are covered/hooded aren't that "beautiful". Suggestive clothing is ofttimes more exciting than none at all...

[AltecGreen]

My first fountain pen experience was using my dad's Hero, which has a covered nib.
I didn't realize what nibs look like without a cover until years later.

Today, as an adult, I often wonder why would anyone cover the beautiful shape of a nib, is there any other reason besides just to be different?

Anybody like covered nib design, or even prefer it to exposed ones?

This originated with the Parker 51. Part of the 51's design was the ability to handle some super fast drying ink like Super Chrome. The hood served a specific purpose in conjunction with other features of the 51 like the multi finned collector to keep ink wet and flowing. Many of the Parker inks at the time posed problems for traditional pens and ink sales were a huge driver of profits for Parker. The 51 was popular and in those days people copied everything Parker did much like companies do with Apple today. This spawned all kinds of hooded and semi-hooded pens from other companies including some equally iconic pens like the Aurora 88, Omas 361, and others. The Hero is just another copycat although less iconic. You can have a whole collecting focus collecting hooded pens.

[Laura N]

Anybody like covered nib design...?

Sure. I like a number of pens with hooded nibs. The Parker 51 and Lamy 2000 are two of my favorites.

And I like a number of pens with conventional nibs. I just want a nib that writes well for my tastes. As for what the nib looks like, it can be anything.

[Hawk]

I started out liking exposed nib pens, the beauty of the nib. I have acquired a fondness for the 51 and 61 (but not necessarily the 45). The whole design of the Parker design flows and the hooded nib is part of the design. Other manufacturers have not made their design as pleasing, in my opinion.

[inklord]

Since the beginnings of fountain pens, a lot of experimenting was done with hooded (Parker 51 etc), semi-hooded (Lamy 2000), inlaid (Sheaffer, Waterman, Montblanc), tubular (Sheaffer, Lamy and now Visconti), box-shaped (European school pens, Lamy, Pelikan, Montblanc) and extremely small (Pilot VP) nibs. There used to be no "standard" shape of the now so common winged nib, but the somewhat gentrified comeback of the fountain pen and fewer nib manufacturers supplying more pen makers have made the in my view exquisitely unappealing winged nib the new standard. So, most uncommon nib shapes are a throwback to older designs.
Some of these designs were just novelties, but the hooded and semi-hooded nibs have several advantages:
- ink intake can be closer to the tip (which allows you to fill from lower ink levels)
- hooding prevents nib and feed from drying out
- the pen can be held closer to the nib's tip which is preferred by some
I like hooded and semi-hooded designs because they allow for more continuity in the pen's lines; but that's just because I like minimalist design in general; Lamy's box-nib is to me very attractive, as are older tubular designs. Winged nibs are a study in curves largely independent from the rest of the pen, and present challenges often ignored by modern pen designers, who tend to use them interchangeably on any pen, with varying success.
That being said, one of my favorite pens uses a rather generic JoWo No.6 nib.

[Sailor Kenshin]

My first fountain pen experience was using my dad's Hero, which has a covered nib.
I didn't realize what nibs look like without a cover until years later.

Today, as an adult, I often wonder why would anyone cover the beautiful shape of a nib, is there any other reason besides just to be different?

Anybody like covered nib design, or even prefer it to exposed ones?

Me, though I don't 'prefer' it. Decades ago, I saw a French film in which a character was writing with a hooded nib. That needle-fine point emerging from the mysterious hood! Not even knowing what it was, I had to have one.

Much later, on another pen forum, I discovered the Hero 616, and was overjoyed with it. Even today, when I have a couple of hooded and semi-hooded Parkers, the 616 rarely leaves my rotation.

[penwash]

Can the popularity of Parker 51 attributed to its hooded nib design?
Or something else?

[pajaro]

The design is streamlined, like a lot of the design of the 51's time.

I have tried a large number of fountain pens and still have quite a few. Of the pens that I have found effective in starting and not drying out, I put them in this order: Parker 51, Montblanc (144, 146, 149 and Generation), Pelikan (M200, M400, M600, M800 and M1000), Waterman (Crusader Taperite, Phileas), Sheaffer (Cadet, Craftsman, School Pen). Note which is first. The best pen by far.

[Jerome Tarshis]

[/QUOTE]Many of the Parker inks at the time posed problems for traditional pens and ink sales were a huge driver of profits for Parker[/QUOTE]

Actually not so. Before the inks that went with the 51, Parker wasn't making "many" inks. It was making Quink. And Quink wasn't posing problems for traditional pens. It was only the inks that went with the Parker 51 that could be said to pose problems for traditional pens. One of the many divergent ideas offered by the late polemicist Frank Dubiel was that, people being as sloppy-minded as they are, quite a few of them will have ignored the warning that came with Parker 51 ink and Superchrome, and used those inks in traditional pens. And did all of those pens come to grief in short order?

Frank thought maybe they didn't. Lending just a little credence to that view is the present-day fact that some in our community wouldn't think of putting Parker Penman inks in their pens, while others are paying a premium for Parker Penman. If it comes to that, I don't doubt that Quink Black in its current formulation has clogged some pens, but the ink is still being used in huge volume by people who aren't having trouble with it.