Pelikan Make a Wish Nib - my experience

[Francisco_S]

Hi guys!

I want to share my experience with the Make a Wish Nib project at Pelikan!

This February I have started to learn German and decided to visit Germany in September to "try" my "similar to a 3 year old" German language skills and was lucky enough to find an opening on Pelikan's Make a Wish Nib program. I subscribed immediately, of course, and spent a couple of months anxiously waiting!

I stayed at Hannover and took the early morning train to Peien/Vörhum. The train station is quite small but has a cozy coffee place that helped me to a hot coffee on a cold and drizzled morning. I asked around how to get to Pelikan HQ at Pelikanstraße (how is it to have a street named after you?) and I was informed I had to take a certain bus (don't recall the number) and get off at the second stop. I looked around and the city was a sympathetic village and two stops couldn't be far so I decided, despite the drizzle, to walk and get to know the city.

If you decide to do so, I should warn you it is a 40 minutes walk and 30 of them are along the road and not amid the city... =D!!!! Perhaps you may decide to take the bus, specially if you're on the clock!!!!

When I got there I was feeling like a child on Xmas morning... or better, at Santa's Factory!!!!

I was received by Mrs. Juliane, who was extremely nice and well informed on a lot of details about Pelikan, and soon introduced to Mr. Detlev Köhn, who was the engineer responsible for tunning my M800 Make a Wish Nib. If Pelikan's factory is Santa's Factory, Mr. Köhn is Santa cause he is the one who works personally on your gift!

It was amazing cause we started talking, a bit in English, a bit in Deutsch (yes, everyone there was patient and polite to my poor Deutsch), and a few exchanges in Italian and suddenly we were talking about a lot of things and experiences and the pen just waiting at the table... it was trully great cause it was a personal experience and not something cold and distant, I felt welcome there and felt among people with whom I share interests and could talk for hours.

And after a most pleasant while it was time to meet my pen! My M800 S Nib, made for me, after I sent writting samples and answered a lot of questions about my grip and how I use my pens (kidding, just 2 short pages), and then magic happened!

The nib was perfect from start. No hard edges, no skipping, no blind spots on it, nothing, it just wrote extremely thin horizontal lines and broad and bold vertical lines. Just what I wanted!!!! And I was having my fun with the nib and saw Mr. Köhn looking at my hands, kind of surprised, and then he just said it: "your writing technique is perfect! You keep the nib straight, don't rotate the grip, no force on the paper, as you should!". Guys, this was a hell of a compliment coming from the person who engineers the nibs, specially because I was never taught how to use a fountain pen, I just learned it from writing and reading posts and blogs. Must say it was amazing!!!

I would ramble on a lot about that day, but I better don't.

I walked out of there with 2 M800s, one Orange Burnt with my Special Nib and a Renaissance Brown, and more than that, I walked out of there with a light and happy heart and a strong desire to return, soon!

Here are some photos of Beatrix, my Orange Burnt M800, cause it is Orange and the Queen of my pens, so it should have a Queen's name!