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A new nib on the scene (and a bit of nib knowledge too)

Phil - 17 May 2016 10:00:00Other articles...

This is our brand new size 5 fountain pen nib, which is supplied as standard with all Beaufort Mistral fountain pen kits, and will also be available to buy on line within the next few days. We promised elsewhere that we’d publish a bit of information about it, so here it is.

Nearly all pen kits are supplied with a so called IPG nib, so called because they are engraved “Iridium Point Germany”. Nothing is further from the truth as they don’t have an iridium point, nor have they ever been any closer to Germany than Shanghai. They might as well claim they are made on the moon.

Iridium point is a different issue – once upon a time, European nibs were all tipped with iridium, which is an extremely hard metal in the same group as platinum, that neither corrodes or tarnishes with the effect of ink. These days, tips are not pure iridium but are an alloy of precious metals, specially formulated by each manufacturer and kept a closely guarded secret, but the further east you go, the less precious the alloy gets, to the point that some of them are nothing more than a bit of stainless steel with drop of cobalt added.

The new Beaufort nib has been a long time in development. It really is made in Germany, to our own specification, and with our own precious metal tips. They are as smooth as butter to write with, with an excellent ink flow, and make the difference between a nice pen kit and an excellent writing instrument.

If you are interested in making excellent writing instruments, then you have the Mistral, which is one of only a tiny handful of pen kits worldwide that is supplied with a nib that isn’t out of the Far East. You also have the ability to upgrade the nib in most pen kits with our popular and established range of Bock nibs, and now you also have a slightly cheaper option to upgrade with our new Beaufort nib, which will go on sale at about the £8 mark.

It is a two tone gold plated nib with a medium writing point, and is currently available in size 5 only. Other writing points will follow in time, as will a size 6 version, and we are also currently working on a full-flex nib, which we think will be of interest to many fountain pen owners.

Here it is – we hope you like it.

Beaufort Ink size 5 fountain pen nibs

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Our market leading Mistral pen kits are the only pen kits avialable worldwide with truly matching fountain pen, rollerball, ballpoint and pencil. Each type of kit is available to buy individually, so that you can create a matched set of pens (or pen and pencil) in any combination you choose.

Why is that a thing? Well, if you offer a rollerball to someone who normally uses a fountain pen, they're likely to turn up their nose. Fountain pen people simply don't write with rollerballs, and rollerball people don't write with fountain pens. And yet, if you look around at pen kits, that all you can usually get - a fountain pen matched with a rollerball. What pen owners want is a matching fountain pen and a pencil, or maybe a rollerball and a pencil, or perhaps a fountain pen and a ballpoint. You get the picture. They'll use them both, but they're extremely unlikely to use them both if the pens are a fountain pen and a rollerball.

Mistral pen kits were designed by us, from the bottom up, to offer matching pens and pencils in any combination. They're not just modified as an afterthought, they were designed right from the start to look the same.

You can mix and match with Mistral pen kits. They're high quality kits, not just cheap offerings with cheap plating and cheap mechanisms. And they do match. And that's the point.

Pen turning

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A new nib on the scene (and a bit of nib knowledge too)

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Topics

About The Authors

Pen turning

Fountain pen nibs

Fountain pen ink

Pen blanks

Our market leading Mistral pen kits are the only pen kits avialable worldwide with truly matching fountain pen, rollerball, ballpoint and pencil. Each type of kit is available to buy individually, so that you can create a matched set of pens (or pen and pencil) in any combination you choose.