It's
time for the next in Pelikan's City Series, and this time around it's
Chicago. Just in time for the Chicago pen show... Actually, a bit in advance,
but who's counting, right? The City Series from Pelikan have proven to
be popular pens. Not quite "limited edition" pens of the type
that get squirreled away in safe deposit boxes, rather they are "special
edition" pens, made for a limited time period, but to no specified
number. The Series began with the Berlin and Stockholm, continued with
San Francisco and Madrid, and is now celebrating Chicago.
The Chicago is made in a blend of light and dark gray marble, with sections of translucent material, giving the pen a neat, three dimensional look. The Chicago, like the other pens in the city series, is made on the M600 size, so it's a bit smaller than what I would call a "full size" pen. Still large enough to be comfortable in the hand for most folks. And of course, they are making this pen in three versions, fountain pen, rollerball, and ballpoint, so those who don't like "real pens" can choose from a couple of other alternatives. The rollerball version is the same size and style as the fountain pen, the ballpoint is a slimmer cap actuated design with a black barrel.
The
trim on the Chicago is silver plate, instead of the traditional gold plate
of Pelikans. It's the perfect choice for the color of the material used
in the Chicago, the sliver goes very well with the shades of gray. There's
not a huge amount of trim on these pens, they're fairly understated (hey,
they are Pelikans after all!) just the capband and clip, and a
couple of rings on the barrel.
The nib is two tone 18K, and like most Pelikans, it's a nice nib. Very smooth medium on the one I tried out. The Chicago is a piston filler, and worked about as well as you'd expect from a Pelikan. In other words: Perfectly. It's sometimes tough to write about Pelikan pens. You buy them, you fill them up, and then you write with them. Not much more to it in my experience!
These
pens are available with the full range of M600 nibs, so you can pretty
much get what you want in terms of writing performance. Every thing form
a nice thin extra fine through a very wide broad nib that has a bit of
an edge to it, making for a line with some character. Whatever the nib
choice, these are clearly "writer's pens".
So far the Pelikan Cities Series have been not only great pens, all of them being made on the same mid sized M600 pen, but also very good looking pens. It's tough to choose a favorite form the bunch to date, I'm torn between the Berlin and the Madrid, myself. The Chicago is definitely in keeping with the high standards set for the series so far.