After an interesting and fruitful discussion whit Dominic Rothemel author of the excellent website about Pelikan pens you can find in previous link, I am certain all the parts in my pens are indeed Pelikan, but I cannot be 100% sure Pelikan has ever produced the Pelikan 400 and 400NN with green inkwindow to be sold commercially.
Why do I make this conclusions?
1) There is not, to my best knowledge, any official record that Pelikan has ever produced these pens. There are no price lists or any documents that refer to both the Pelikan 400 or Pelikan 400NN as a commercial product from Pelikan back in the 50´s. Off course this is not a definitive prof whatsoever, why?
- Pelikan is known for not having the best kept records from that era,
- These can be prototypes and therefore a few have been made but not widely sold.
2) I am 100% sure all parts are Pelikan. After disassembling for servicing so many Pelikan 400 and 400NN pens I know how a Pelikan barrel is, and I am 100% sure this are genuine Pelikan barrels.
But here enters a new information I got from discussing with Dominic yesterday. Since 1951, Gimborn was producing the Gimborn 150 fountain pen.( for more detailed information about Gimborn see here)
Gimborn 150 - First from the left - From www.rothemel.de
Gimborn 150 colour scheme. From www.rothemel.de
According to Dominic´s website information:
"In 1951 the first fountain pen model at Gimborn was introduced with some resemblance to the Pelikan 140 Series. Parts of this fountain pen were produced at Pelikan, but no evidence revealed this relationship. The nibs of this fountain pen were all imprinted 'Gimborn'."
"The Gimborn 150 fountain pen was almost identical to the model Pelikan 300. The model differed from it by the clip and the missing cap logo. The name Gimborn is found on the nib(.....) About 5 years later the black model was extended by three additional colour varieties and other models."
So it is possible and plausible that two things could have happened:
- Pelikan itself made this pens using the barrels they were producing for the Gimborn 150 in order to test the market and/or to commercial sell them and see the reaction customers had to the black version of the 400 pen ( although in small quantities). The moulds used for production are probably the same as the Gimborn moulds. These moulds could be located at Pelikan premisses in Germany. [R1]
- Users could have swapped parts between pens and used the Gimborn Barrel to " make" a Pelikan 400 and 400NN black pen.
After having found the pen, I tried to find any reference to more of this pens and I got confirmation via Dominic and pen forums that more of these pens have been found over the years. The 400NN was easier to be found and I could find pictures online. The 400 was more difficult.
Dominic was of great help here and contacted some important and well known collectors that confirmed they had seen the Pelikan 400 Black with green inkwindow pen before, but also confirmed that there are no official records from pelikan about these pens.
It looked already like mine was not the only one ( please remember that mine was found with a Pelikan 400NN cap as referred in the OP), but I was still not able to find any picture online showing a similar pen till I posted my pens on another forum and got a reply with a similar pen. Check the link here:
So to sum all in a nutshell:
I´m 100% sure its all Pelikan parts production, but I am uncertain as to the fact of these pens being official Pelikan commercial production or, prototypes/testers or even later modifications from users using Pelikan parts, although I am more inclined to say that these were indeed Pelikan prototypes or testers to check costumers reaction to an all black pen as many have surfaced over the years, mainly Pelikan 400NN.
Any more information that could bring clarity to the question would be very much welcomed!!
Best regards
Vasco
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R1 - I think the injection molding was only available in Germany. The factory in the Netherlands makes other stationary goods and inks
Edited by piscov, 28 May 2015 - 10:42 AM.
