I could say that this was a well-considered purchase, but then I would be lying…

No regrets at all! When I first heard the news of yet another brown Pelikan pen, I might have been slightly disappointed, but that all disappeared when I saw the first photos of this. The material perfectly complements the chunky shimmer of my M320 Ruby Red, and the cooler mineral-ish brown of this is more like a Smoky Quartz than the actual M200 release this year — which I found to be a darker rehash of the old Amber and Cognac pens.

This will be my last Pelikan of the year; I’m not buying the M805 Ocean Swirl (because it would look better in gold trim) and though the M605 White Transparent looks intense, I will only allow myself to buy it if I sold something comparable — two M620 pens are plenty!

As expected of an M800, it has a brass piston and so weighs more in the hand. It is by no means actually heavy, instead feeling perfectly balanced, with the weight of the piston resting neatly in the crook of my thumb.

The nib is two-tone, as is usual with Souverän models featuring gold trim, and the cap has the modern matte-on-smooth Pelikan logo. The rhodium plating on the nib goes very well with the black section, and the gold matches beautifully with the brown chunks of the body and cap. The material used is slightly transparent too, which makes an ink window superfluous. All you need to do is hold it up to the light to see how much is left in the barrel.

The nib is a surprising thing for me: almost every other Pelikan I’ve owned had to be smoothed or otherwise tuned a little, but this was perfect out of the box. The EF might be a little wider than a true EF, but that’s only par for Pelikan, which is why I’d ordered the smallest size possible. Compared to my M805 Stresemann’s fine nib, this is a good size.

Even with a dry ink like Lamy Dark Lilac, the lines it lays down are juicy and smooth, and the shading and sheen show up perfectly well. I have never had a hard start with this one (unlike the EF nibs on my both my M20x pens, which needed tuning), and the pen easily writes under its own weight.

This is the pen that I’ve spent the most money on — and I love it!

Here’s another handwriting shot, also with Lamy Dark Lilac: