The Pelikan Hubs for 2024 took place last weekend and luckily I was chosen again as the Pelikan Hub host for Bremen. This year we met in a more central location: in a very nice and vegan Restaurant serving Chinese / Taiwanese food.
Compared to last year it was really busy: Altogether twelve fountain pen fans attended, including Michael Silbermann, the author of the bilingual book in German and English on Pelikan’s special and limited edition’s between 1993 and 2020. He and his wife also brought a few of their special and limited editions with them. It was great to try them out. Other participants also brought lots of pens and I was able to try out pens I didn’t even know existed before this evening.
Once a year, not long before their worldwide Hubs, Pelikan organises an Open Day at their ink tower (TintenTurm) in Hannover’s Pelikan quarter. Seeing that I now live in driving distance, we (i.e. the whole family) went there last Saturday to have a look.
Lots of construction sites around
When parking the car nearby the venue you can see a lot of construction sites where residential buildings are being built. A nice surprise was that the street names all seemed to have a Pelikan link.
A Pelikan related street name
Before even entering the ink tower the event already starts just outside the tower, with activity tables and a prize wheel set up for kids.
Activities for kids
The prizes were really nice – a free spin gets you anything from pens and other stationery items to fridge magnets and the likes.
Prizes
I was especially impressed by the Pelikan erasers I saw there that have a slot on the top, so that they can be used as pen holders. Unfortunately I haven’t seen these in shops yet.
An eraser with a pen holder (green) – great idea!
You can certainly see where the ink tower got its name from, as it is the tallest (connected) building around.
Downstairs entrance area
After walking up the stairs you see the main area. Luxury pens in the front and school pens in the back.
Landing area updstairs
To the left of this area there is a neighbouring room.
Exhibition
On the day, it housed an exhibition of drawings submitted for a contest on one end and a table where you can try out different Edelstein inks by writing your own postcards.
Postcard station
Cards and stamps were provided. There was also a member of staff on this table who was engraving Toledo pens, or, more precisely, the barrels of Toledo pens.
Toledo engraving
The main part of this room, between the exhibition and the post card table was taken up by a pen-show-like set up with sellers, selling their goods on tables.
Toledo!
Similar to what you see at Pen shows in the UK the pens on offer are mainly vintage pens.
Kaweco’s Michael Gutberlet
This being Pelikan’s Open Day I was quite surprised to see Michael Gutberlet there, the man who single-handedly revived Kaweco in the 1990s.
Goldfink Berlin’s Tom Westerich
Another ‘revived’ brand at this Open Day was Goldfink Berlin, revived by Tom Westerich in the 2000s.
Goldfink Berlin
I was quite moved by the fact that Goldfink gave children free fountain pens. What a nice gesture.
Goldfink Berlin
We also got a tour of the (outside of the) buildings with an overview of Pelikan’s history. A great experience.
Historic Tour
Pelikan also sells some of their luxury pens at a discount there. I was very tempted by the Orange Delight version of the M200.
Historic Tour Pelikan coat of arms
You also have the chance to try out the different nibs, so I asked to try out the F and EF version.
Trying the pen out there and then only produced meh results, with the line being far too wide. We bought the pen anyway because it looks so nice.
When trying it out after I returned home I was very surprised: the pen wrote much better, producing thin crisp lines, just how I like them.
I am not sure what happened, either their ink wasn’t right or their paper, maybe because it had been stored in a humid environment at some stage, who knows. In Hannover the paper sucked the ink in so lines were wide, nearly like blotting paper.
So I now have an Orange Delight M200 that writes amazingly, I have one critique about the new paper-covered boxes though. The employee must have had inky hands when packing the pen – and it is impossible to remove the ink without damaging the slightly rough paper on the box.
We had a great time. If you ever have a chance to visit the ink tower please do so. They are open throughout the year, but historic tours only take place on certain dates. I assume that the special activities, like postcard writing, pen sellers etc also do not occur very often, so it might be worth checking first.
Almost unimaginable today, but: Yes, there was a time when employees spent their entire working lives, from training to retirement, with just one employer. A time when companies lasted and sometimes outlasted whole generations. Corporations and conglomerates with which people associated a degree of identification that went beyond the purely professional.
There is no doubt that Duisburg DEMAG was one of these companies, which lasted from 1910 to 1973, with roots going back to 1819. DEMAG – a name that still means something to many people on the Rhine and Ruhr.
Those who had been associated with such a company for a long time were given a gift, a token of appreciation, on their work anniversary – after 25 and 40 years with the company – in addition to an extra month’s salary.
A famous example of this is SIEMENS; to this day, a very high-quality wristwatch from a German manufacturer is given to mark the anniversary: the Ludwig from NOMOS in the corresponding SIEMENS edition (one of the few companies in the present day that still has such long ties).
What is the exception today was the rule in post-war West Germany: high-quality gifts on anniversaries.
Recently, while walking through a flea market in Duisburg, I discovered just such an anniversary present: a beautiful, originally packaged, actually never used LAMY 2000 gift set, consisting of a piston fountain pen and a biro, both engraved with the DEMAG logo.My father spent his working life in the ThyssenKrupp Group. I remember that when I was a child – the 1990s! – writing instruments, often from LAMY, and also pocket knives (Victorinox) were often given away in a professional context. Whole drawers were filled with LAMY pens and miniature pocket knives. These “normal” promotional gifts often had an equivalent value of € 5.00-10.00; something like a LAMY 2000 was only given on very special occasions.
Back to the flea market in question: The seller himself was not the youngest – but too young to have worked at DEMAG himself. An heirloom from his father? Probably. Written on the box in sharpie: Black fountain pen, black biros” – the beautiful set, it ended up in some cupboard, a drawer, maybe even in the attic, as soon as it was received. A package with obvious contents, after all, the writing instruments are clearly pictured on it, and yet the previous owner felt called upon to note the contents again in full.
In the cupboard, in the drawer or in the attic, this box must have lain for decades until it was sold to me. Why were the writing instruments never used? Perhaps they were “too bad” (although one might argue that it was too bad just NOT to use them). Or maybe they were simply not appreciated and only “archived” because that was the way official gifts were made at that time.
DEMAG existed until 1973, after which some former subsidiaries continued to bear the name – but it is unlikely that the gift was made after 1973. The iconic LAMY 2000, designed by Gerd A. Müller, came onto the market in 1966. The guarantee on the nib until the year 2000 is noted in the set .
Also based on the old LAMY branding, I assume that this beauty falls exactly into that period – i.e. 1966-1973. A wonderful set. And – in more ways than one – a piece of German history.
Freshly re-inked: My Super5 fountain pen in green (Dublin) is now part of my current pen rotation. The other two currently inked pens include the Lamy 2000 with an EF nib and the re-release of the Parker 51 in Teal with an F nib.
Something else that is new: The Diplomat Nexus has a patented sealing system, that cuts the ink supply off when the cap is closed. This might be quite useful when flying. On the other hand if have flown many times with a fountain pen in my shirt pocket and didn’t have any ink spilling issues yet. Many fountain pens leak though when thrown into bags and carried around, so this mechanism might help. I assume the ink near the nib can still ‘escape’ and make a mess, though.
