Pelikan Souveran M805 Demonstrator Special Edition

Regrettable nib on my Massdrop Pelikan 805 demonstrator - rather raspy and too many dry starts, worse than my 200 and my wife's three 400s ... That's the risk with online discounted purchases, I guess. Will take pen to a shop or show for adjustment. Will buy expensive items locally and cheapies online. "live and learn" as they say. So sad, since I had so wanted an 800/805.

Nibs.com is also definitely a good deal at $495 because Pelikan nibs can be hit or miss generally speaking. If a retailer like nibs.com has a nibmeister in-house to inspect every single nib that goes out the door, that extra little bit of cost can be worthwhile. In the grand scheme of things, $45 is pretty good for piece of mind on a pen at this price. I happen to like this pen in particular because its like a sleeper pen. From a distance, it might just look like some random demonstrator. From across a room, you might not be able to distinguish it from a TWSBI demo. I'd say I'm the opposite of Matt Armstrong. He likes his pens flashy and shiny. I like my pens totally subdued so they dont draw attention.

You know, we of the Fountain Pen collecting/purchasing ilk, generally go for interesting resin bodies, sometimes metal bodies and lord knows, some crazy expensive Urushi bodied pens. So it has always struck me as odd, that pen manufacturers actually charge more, for what is really nothing more than a clear, plastic body version of their otherwise, colorful pens--and odder still, that we buy 'em! Yes the piston fill mechanism is cool, but you can see the same guts for a tenth of the price with a nice TWISB! And don't get me wrong--I'm a Pelikan guy, but I question why someone would pay the price of a very nice M800 for a clear plastic pen? Think it over.