I'm sure everyone has been waiting with bated breath to hear my follow up after the glowing review (sarcasm intended...) I provided the Pelikan M205 previously... Have my thoughts changed? We'll see.
Upon receiving my red Pelikan M205 back from Chartpak (Pelikan's US distributor) I can admit I didn't instantly tear open the box and ink it immediately. Perhaps I had lost a bit of interest in using it due to the previous issues as well as the process needed to make it right, so it did take me several weeks to give it a go.
From a customer service standpoint, Chartpak was pretty easy to work with but communication wasn't that great. It initially took two weeks to hear back about what the steps were for sending it off, and upon sending my pen across the country for repair/replacement there was no indication that it had been received, no status update, no "we're working on it", etc which was a bit frustrating. I had to reach out to them to find out if my pen had even arrived at their office.
Once inked up, the pen did write much better and the lines were wet and dark. The occasional vertical line skip was still present, but it was actually writing which was an improvement. Enjoyably enough I might say, but I still wasn't blown away.
While writing with the M205 it is a bit hard to explain, but I feel like it takes work to have the nib just right to be comfortable. Am I holding it at the right angle? Is this the sweet spot? Even while the writing was better, I still feel like the nib is temperamental which diminishes the overall experience. A bit unfortunate really.
I'm going to admit that in this instance it is probably me, and not the pen. The first experience of the nib NOT writing was the pen for sure, but with a perfectly functional unit it must be me. Perhaps the M205 nib doesn't really write to my preference, but for some people it may, or maybe I'm simply turned off by it? My friend has an M405 with a gold nib that, I must admit, does the same thing for me. The nib simply does not write how I would expect it to and maybe it is just me.
I had high hopes for a future relationship with the Pelikan brand, but I'm not so sure I'll branch out and try others. Maybe in a few years I'll be swayed back and will give some other models a try. So, in my opinion, for the price point on these pens I do not feel the experience is there for me to warrant the cost. Again, probably just me.