Pelikan M200 Cognac Review

I had bought the m200 cognac with its stock Italic nib to replace my old rotring ArtPen. I have to simultaneously admit that the only reason for going with an italic and somewhat flexible nib was to try it out and learn something new. The cognac was launched last year as a special edition and the dazzling golden hues allured me. These were quite vibrant compared to the earlier tones of a lighter Amber demo. 

DESIGN - LET’S DRINK TO THAT (5/6)

The m200 cognac shimmers in honey gold and its golden loops dazzle in absolute harmony. Lack of ambient light makes it adorn darker hues of brown. 

The cognac colours are remarkably darker and more vibrant than the amber hues of a Pilot Custom 823.

The radiance is matched throughout the pen starting with a golden gleam from the finial area and the pelican beak through the cap band before finally converging with the piston ring. When its an m400 the loops multiply into two.

The cap is light and unscrews with less than a complete turn which I like very much, revealing a slightly dullish golden nib. The gold plated steel nibs somewhat lack the lustrous enchantment of a 14k souverän nib, but again a 14k nib comes at a premium. The grip is simple and reveals interior threads of a screw fit nib. The section ends with a slight bump which is usually adorned by a loop in the souverän series. The transparency reveals the plastic piston mechanism.

A gleaming tassie decorated with a protruding plastic jewel painted with a golden pelikan logo adorns the cap with its signature pelican beak-shaped clip. The single cap band succinctly carries an imprint of PELIKAN GERMANY, which is common across the classic series. The logo on the finial is the one embraced by Pelikan post 2003, that of a mother pelican and its chick, in golden paint. You can also see the distinctive lines of the cap insert.

FILLING SYSTEM (6/6)

A piston filler with a smooth & sturdy knob is embellished with a golden loop. Apart from its looks, it's an utterly efficient mechanism. The piston end unscrews with three to four rotations and it draws ink quite quickly once the piston is screwed back on. The best part being you observe the thing in action probably through honey gold lenses. A plastic spindle connector in the M2XX limits its overall weight. A M2XX fills upto 1.3 mL of ink. However, given the wet & wide flow especially of the Italic nib, it may not last for a long time. I have found the 14k nibs of the same width running wetter & wider than the steel ones. 

           Keep in mind that these piston mechanisms for M2XX/M4XX/M6XX are not supposed to be dismantled as they are friction fit under heat. In case of problems other than lubricating the piston seal, it’s better to send the pen to Pelikan Germany/Country Authorized Service Center. Pelikan does have an excellent customer service.

NIB - ALL THAT MATTERS (5/6)

The steel nib comes in a classic m200 gold plated look across five stock widths - EF, F, M, B & I (1.1). Like all the pens in the classic series, the nib has standard pelikan logo with the usual convenience of a screw-fit section.

             With standard m2xx/4xx feed, the nib-section is easy to take out for swapping or cleaning. And this golden finish is meant to converge with the cognac glimmer of the pen as well as its gold-plated trims, although its shine is rather towards the dullish side of the golden spectrum. Below the circular breather hole it carries its brandname of Pelikan as well as an encircled logo of mother pelican with a chick. The nib started flexing its tines after some use and it was quite stiff at first. The nib is tipped.

A standard black plastic feed ensures a good ink buffer for the promised wetness and prevents hard starts. No skipping or hard starts in past few months, even if it is lying unused for weeks.

While cleaning the section area, I found some of silicone grease and water trapped between inner and outer walls. Initially I was scared at the thought of a crack, but thankfully the suspect crack-line seemed to move. There is a FPN thread on this.

PHYSICS OF IT (5/6) – RELATIVELY SPEAKING

It’s comfortable posted with a bit of heft and length, since the cap contributes more than a third of its weight. The capped length is around 12.5 cm. The pen does get some heft from ink inside the barrel. Incidentally, it weighs a gram less even when it shares all its dimensions closely with a m400.

• Uncapped Length ~ 12 cm
• Posted Length ~ 15 cm
• Nib Leverage ~ 2 cm
• Overall Weight ~ 14 g (without ink)

ECONOMIC VALUE (5/6)

The m200 Cognac retails at around USD 170 with the stock gold plated steel nibs. It is also available with 14k nibs from the m400 series. As with all pelikans, the pen is dependable and could be an everyday writer.

OVERALL (5.2/6)

The tipped & gold plated steel nib is smooth and it’s graced with a wet flow. The Italic nib was quite stiff in the beginning, but within a month of ‘light’ use, it started flexing its tines like wings of a bird, even under light pressure. Very springy of course, the horizontal lines run thinner for the Italic nib. There is a lot of ink laid by the italic nib, which take more than 1.5 minutes to dry a wet Diamine Majestic Blue ink on MD Paper. 

In case you are wondering about the quote, it's by Swami Vivekananda.

REFERENCES

Pelikan M4XX

Patent

Piston mechanisms

Ink Capacities

Thank you for going through the review. 

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In A League of its own : The Pilot Custom 823 Review

The Custom 823 pens have always been highly captivating demonstrators from Pilot Corporation (Japan), sporting the second largest nib (Pilot#15, Namiki#20 nibsize), with a vacuum plunger filling mechanism. The model number 823 refers to the price and year, of launch, although in a slightly intricate manner. Since this pen was released in the year of 2000, 82 years after the company’s inception (i.e. 1918), it carries the first two digits of the model number as ‘82’ and the last digit which is ‘3’ refers to it launch price of JPY 30,000 (3 X 10,000).

The Custom 823 (for the Asian market) comes packaged in a standard pilot gift box (Z-CR-GN) which might not draw much attention, quite unlike the pen. The US merchandise comes with a silver sateen lined gift box with a complementary (hey! not really folks) bottle of Pilot/Namiki Ink-70 (Blue). The pen of course is a hot star. A golden label with a model number and nib specs is tagged to the clip. The box carries a user manual for a Type P fountain pen, which does mention keeping the knob slightly unscrewed (at a 2 mm distance) relative to the metal ring, while writing.

DESIGN - THE AMBER DEMONSTRATOR (6/6)

The Custom 823 comes in three standard designs of transparency - Amber, Smoke and Clear resin, all with gold plated trims. The resin material seems substantial and feels heavy. A silver trimmed version may be a nice thing for many fountain pen nerds including myself. I went for an Amber one with a medium nib and find it quite challenging to resist getting another Smoke version, with recently slashed prices in Rakuten/Ebay. 

The Amber demonstrator given its lightness, is capable of bedazzling you even with a tiny bit of moonlight. A golden dazzle along the three bands and the clip, subtly delivers the rest. The finials at the cap along with the piston knob conclude the design with a rather brownish opacity.

The cap feels substantial and unscrews with one and a half turn, revealing the elegant yet simply designed pen. The grip section is moulded from the same brown resin as the cap-final and the piston-knob, and another golden ring segregates brown grip from rest of the body. The amber demonstrator does reveal the steel rod with a plunger seal mechanism.

The cap does mention a few things etched across the broader of the concentric golden bands, including the model name CUSTOM 823 and PILOT MADE IN JAPAN with six stars of separations.  A thinner band above renders some more aesthetics to the overall design. The clip  is tension fit and it encompasses a vertically embossed PILOT within its golden sheen.

FILLING SYSTEM (6/6)

The brown piston knob unscrews from the golden ring till an end stop, post which the plunger unit can be pulled out. The rod is made of stainless steel and is resistant to most of the commonly used inks. For IG (Iron Gall) and Pigment Inks, care must be taken to clean the pen several times, to prevent clogging or deposit accumulation inside the ink passages. 

The pen fills to more than two-thirds its capacity, once the nib is dipped in ink and the plunger is pushed back in. This can result in an instant gush of ink inside the barrel with a comfortable volume of ~ 1.4 - 1.5 mL, which could last for several days. Though getting some more ink into your pen is quite possible.

Cleaning the pen is a similar ritual accompanied with some shake and I suggest you do it on a regular basis, for the ink stains if left may look ugly with time, and might require a light ammonia solution to go-off.

And as mentioned in the manual, while writing with the pen, you would need to keep the piston-knob slightly unscrewed (at a 2 mm distance) relative to the golden ring. This will displace a conical valve seal below the piston seal to allow passage of ink to the feed. Given the high ink capacity of these pens with plunger type filling mechanism, this has been done to prevent ink-leakage. And this is a nice thing to have, if you intend to carry the 823 in a flight.

For a rather crazy and complete fill, you do have a workaround. With the nib pointed up, you can pull out the plunger of a partially filled 823 and then by slowly pushing the plunger inside, you would get the air-gap between the inverted ink-levels and the visible end of barrel-section minimized. Once the inverted ink-level reaches the visible end of the barrel, you can submerge the nib in the ink bottle and push the plunger in. Voila! Done. This process may result in some ink escaping to the threads of the piston knob, but again you can repeat the same process with water/cleaning solution and shake a little to wash it off. 

NIB - ALL THAT MATTERS (6/6)

The nib is friction-fit and comes in a standard 14k monotone design across three stock widths - F, M, B (and some specially ordered custom widths of FA and WA). The nib has a standard pilot design.

 The tail end of the nib specifies the month and year of manufacture. An elongated hexagonal imprint separates the design from the outer shoulders and tines with an arabesque decor running inside its circumference, encompassing the circular breather hole in between. 

The branding and nib specifications of PILOT, 14k-585 (58.5% Au Alloy) along with the nib size and width, which are imprinted below the breather hole.

A standard bluish grey plastic feed with thin fins and a decently sized feeder hole delivers the amazing ink suction.

PHYSICS OF IT (6/6) – RELATIVELY SPEAKING

With a transparent resin body in form of a traditional cigar shape, it does give a comfortable feel of length. The cap itself weighs 10 grams which makes it top heavy if posted. The overall weight of the 823s have thus a significant (one-third) contribution from the cap. There is then a comfortable grip section with around 1.1 cm diameter. 

• Uncapped Length ~ 13. 2 cm
• Posted Length ~ 16.4 cm
• Nib Leverage ~ 2.4 cm
• Overall Weight ~ 29 g

A capped and uncapped comparison with few of the standard large pens like Visconti Homo Sapiens Maxi, Pelikan m805 and MB 146 is posted below for your reference.

ECONOMIC VALUE (6/6)

It retails at around USD 288, and as usual it’s available at lower street prices towards a band of USD 200. I had got the pen at a cost of USD 220 at that time, which I thought was a good bargain. This year Rakuten sellers made it look lamentable by selling 823s at less than USD 190, inclusive of shipping!

OVERALL (6/6)

This 14k nib has a wet flow, albeit a hint of softness like the custom 74. The nib is springy and lays a somewhat wider line with pressure. There is no significant variation among the horizontal and vertical strokes. These wet lines take almost 15 secs to dry a Sailor Jentle Sky High on MD paper.

Thank you for going through the review. Hope you had a good time.

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