The point was that the tipping on nibs - both gold and steel - is likely the same most of the time.
The point was that the tipping on nibs - both gold and steel - is likely the same most of the time.
azkid (April 21st, 2018), bill.davis (April 22nd, 2018)
The most important thing about the nib is the quality, not the material.
As the price of gold has risen, the quality of steel nibs has risen as well, and I don't think that's a coincidence
The smoothest, best-writing nib I have is on a Pelikan M200. And most of my pens have gold nibs.
Do price increases necessarily reflect increased demand/market size? I'm no economist, but I thought this could mean exactly the opposite.
Price increases can be due to a lot of things, so it doesn't necessarily mean anything in particular. But the demand and supply don't necessarily increase together. Increased demand usually increases prices, especially on the high end where the supply is kept low, and on the vintage market where the supply is fixed.
Interesting question. From year to year, a nib ought to increase slightly in price, just because there is a tiny amount of inflation built into the world economy. Over thirty or sixty years, fountains pens, parts, and ink will increase with overall inflation, but prices have changed as people shifted from liquid-ink pens to ballpoints and fiber-tipped pens, to typewriters at home and dormitory, to personal computers in the '80s, and to pads and "personal digital assistants" and smartphones.
My unscientific impression is that many people now call fountain pen use a "hobby". Just note the number of inks -- non-blue and non-black -- offered by Diamine and Noodlers.
In the late '40s, the big-time pen companies, like Parker, Sheaffer, Eversharp, and Waterman, made gold nibs. They competed on the quality of their nibs as well as on the innovations in their filling systems. Parker offered a steel nib on their economy pens. Legend has it that Parker put more tipping on their P-51 Special "octanium" nibs to compensate for putting more effort into the "electro-polished" gold nibs in their regular 51's.
Third tier companies, as someone suggested above, made cheap pens that an owner would throw out rather than repair. A decade ago, I bought National, Wearever, Epenco, Stratford, Arnold, Majestic, and Traveler pens just for the fun of re-saccing, cleaning, and writing with mass-market pens from the '30s and '40s. Cheap steel nibs, but they can be smoothed, unless, of course, they've rusted or been broken, or just plain died. Also, as noted, some have tipping made by folding the steel tines over themselves, and some have tips welded to the tines. A crazy variety of nibs, tips, barrel and cap materials, grips, and usually lever fillers.
Of course, Esterbrook was different: great pens, nearly unbreakable, gorgeous material, and terrific nibs in the 2xxx and 9xxx series. All steel nibs, and someone had to work hard to ruin one.
Big change from 1955 to now. Nobody in Europe or Japan makes third-tier fountain pens today. The equivalent might be throw-away ballpoints, although people seem to use paper less often. (Hey, I'm typing this on a keyboard!) Gold is expensive, and steel nibs are more carefully made. While Parker made gold and steel nibs for the P-45, their entry-level pen in 1960, they made only gold nibs for their top-line P-75 (1963 or '64). The Sonnet seems to have replaced the P-75, and it seems that Parker always made both gold and steel nibs for it. Or consider the opinion of Brian Gray, who says that a well-made steel nib, today, writes just as well as a gold nib. See his "In Praise of Steel Nibs", at http://edisonpen.com/in-praise-of-steel-nibs-2
Thank you for the article. It really opened my eyes
Bookmarks