After getting the Grand Place and Piccadilly Circus pens from Pelikan’s M620 Cities series, I had my sights set on the soft stripey blues of the Place de la Concorde. But then this turned up:

Emulating the chunky celluloids of an earlier era, this barrel material is pretty unique for Pelikan. I’d always appreciated the white caps and knobs of their more colorful offerings, and so it was natural that I would have my head turned by this. It gets even better, though, since the section is black, and so the pen looks like it’s a colour dither:

The nib is 18k, as is typical for the M6xx special editions. This came in a medium, which I ground to a rather crisp extra-fine cursive italic.

The nib itself is excellent, and as usual for Pelikan, very firm. (I don’t consider this a nail, though some might.) It screws out and is swappable for a regular 14k nib from the M600 or M400 sizes, or even the M200 steels if you so desire.

It’s certainly a wet nib, though, and wrote so big at first I couldn’t not grind it; it was simply too big for my handwriting. Anyway, here’s what it writes like now:

Here’s another writing sample: a review of Pilot Iroshizuku Hoteison (from the 100th Anniversary release).