Pelikan, founded as Günther Wagner · Hannover, Germany · 1838–present

Vintage Pelikan fountain pens

Pelikan started in 1838 as Carl Hornemann's paint and ink factory in Hannover. The chemist Günther Wagner took it over in 1871, and in 1878 the pelican from his family's coat of arms became the company's trademark, one of the oldest registered in Germany. The company didn't make a fountain pen until 1929, when it launched a piston filler built on a patent from Hungarian engineer Theodor Kovács. That pen, later called the 100, started a line of piston fillers that hasn't stopped. The striped 400 followed in 1950, and its last version, the 400NN, ran until 1965. Pelikan then paused its quality piston pens, and it came back in 1982 with the Souverän M400, a close copy of the 400. The M600, M800 and M1000 grew the range, and the M200 brought the same filler with a steel nib.

How to identify one: Early nibs are stamped for Günther Wagner, and wartime pens can carry palladium (PD) or chrome-nickel steel (CN) nibs. The cap-top pelican had four chicks until 1937, two until 2003 and one since, and an imprint reading W.-Germany means the pen was made before reunification.

7 pens we cover.