With the surge in people looking to make the switch from using a ballpoint, rollerball, or gel pen over to using a fountain pen, we have noticed more and more people reaching out with a number of questions about intermediate level fountain pens. With many people wanting to jump in with a decent fountain pen, even if it is at the lower price range of the intermediate price bracket there is no surprise we are seeing so many questions about fountain pens between $100 and $200.
For todays article, we are going to be going over our Pelikan m200 vs m205 comparison as we have noticed a number of people specifically asking about the differences between the two variants of this fountain pen model. Before we go any further though, although the Pelikan m200 and m205 are great fountain pens, we do consider the Lamy 2000 to be a great option at the same price point that is better in some areas. Depending on your circumstances, it may be worth taking a look at the Lamy 2000 in addition to the Pelikan m200 and m205.
Now, mechanically, both the Pelikan M200 and the Pelikan m205 are idendical to each other. They are based on the exact same pen designed with the only difference between the two being the trim used on the pen barrel and cap. Pelikan uses their 05 designation on their model numbers for their pens that come with a silver trim and the 00 designation for their pens that come with a gold trim.
Due to this, selecting if you want to go with the m200 or m205 is largely down to the look of the pen and what option meets your personal preferences. Most of the time, it will come down to the actual color of the resin used for the barrel and cap of the pen. Although the Pelikan m200 is more popular, there are some pen designs such as the all black or all white Pelikan M205 that looks better with the silver trim in our opinion.
The Pelikan M200 Vs M205
As we mentioned, although both pens are mechanically identical to each other, we will now be going over some of the key features of both options. Although there are no differences in the performance and functionality offered by the Pelikan m205 or m200, we like to break down each pen that we feature for our articles as some of our readers may not be aware of some of the other advantages the specific model offers them.
The Nib Of The Pens
One of the main differences between the Pelikan m200 and their m205 is the appearance of the nib. The nib on both variants of the fountain pen is based around a standard stainless steel nib with the m200 being gold plated and the m205 being silver plated. Due to both nibs only having precious metal plating rather than being actually made from the metal, the writing experience is identical to each other for the standard models.
As we touched on earlier, the Lamy 2000 does have some advantages over both standard versions of the m200 and m205 as its nib is made from 14 carat gold as standard. This can help to deliver a better writing experience to you but there is an upgrade available with the No products found. that brings both pen options in line with each other.
Both the Pelikan m200 and the Pelikan m205 are available with the extra-fine, fine, medium, and broad nib sizes too and although this will meet the needs for the majority of our readers, the Lamy 2000 also offers the double broad and oblique nib too. Although it is a minority of fountain pen users that use the double broad or oblique nib options, it is rare to find a pen model at this price point that offers them and is one of the reasons that the Lamy 2000 is so popular.
As Pelikan fountain pens are made in Germany, they conform to the standard western nib sizes so if you opt for an extra-fine, fine, medium or broad nib on your pen, you will be getting what most of our readers will be used to using. That said though, if you have previously used fountain pens from Asian brands such as Pilot or Platinum and want to stick to their nib size, you should size down with your Pelikan as Asian fountain pen nibs tend to be around a size smaller than wester nibs.
For example, if you have a Pilot fountain pen with a medium nib and you want a similar font size with your Pelikan m200 or m205, we would recommend that you go with the fine nib on the Pelikan range. Although it will not be an exact match, this should help to keep your font size when writing with your Pelikan m200 or m205 as close as possible to what you are used with your Pilot fountain pen.
The nib of both the Pelikan M200 and the Pelikan M205 being wet writers, we would highly recommend that consider using a fast drying ink with the pens, especially if you are left handed. This will help to prevent smearing and smudging, especially if you are a faster writer.
On top of this, as is common at this price point in the market, both the m200 and m205 can have issued with their extra-fine and fine nib sizes when writing on cheaper paper, especially with lower quality ink. This is due to the lower GSM of the paper encouraging feathering, ghosting, and bleeding when writing with cheaper fountain pens. That said though, if you pick up some 120 GSM paper then you shouldn’t have any issues with feathering, ghosting or bleeding with either the Pelikan m200 or m205.
As the Pelikan nibs have been specifically designed to offer more flex than some of the competing brands in this price point, both the m200 and the m205 offer similar levels of flex when writing to a solid gold nib. This delivers a super smooth, pleasant writing experience for the vast majority of situations, especially if you opt to go with the medium or broad nib sizes. Another advantage of these pens is that they are both very easy to clean even if you only have a cheap, fountain pen flush cleaning kit.
The Barrel Of The Pens
Unlike some of the competing pens in this price bracket that have their barrels made from stainless steel, brass, or even plastic, Pelikan have used a high-quality, polished resin for the main material in their barrel. Although with modern production techniques, the difference is minimal, in our opinion, using resin is still the better route to take as it is slightly lighter than stainless steel and brass while being tougher than plastic.
As we touched on back at the start of the article, the main difference between the Pelikan m200 and m205 is the trim on the barrel and the cap. The m200 comes with a gold trim where as the m205 comes with a silver trim with each option looking slightly better than the other on different color resin barrels. The best way to make your decision between going with the m200 or m205 is to try and see the color combination of the fountain pen that you want with the gold trim (m200) and silver trim (m205) side by side.
Unlike most of the competing fountain pens in this price range, the m200 and m205 both use the Pelikan piston filler system to fill and store the pens ink supply. Although cartridge convertor systems have come a long way over the years, a piston filler is still the best option in our opinion and offers a better over all experience for the user.
The Cap Of The Pens
The caps of both pen options are made from the same high-quality, polished resin as the barrel of the pens helping to keep the cap as light and tough as possible. This offers the advantage of helping to keep the pen perfectly balanced when posted to prevent any issues with back weighting when writing with the pen. This really is a plague on fountain pens at this price point in the market as so many feel back heavy when posted ruining the writing experience but Pelikan have done a great job of designing and engineering the m200 and m205 to be perfectly balanced.
Pelikan have also used the screw lock system on the cap too and although some people prefer to have a push to lock system, we feel that every fountain pen over the $100 price point should come with a screw on cap as standard. It adds an additional layer of protection to the pen to keep the barrel and cap attatched to help prevent the barrel from going missing or accidental falls that may result in damage.
With Pelikan being Pelikan, they have their signature pelican beak for the clip on the m200 and m205 in gold or silver respectively. The finial of the pens also comes with the Pelikan logo but there are actually three versions of the official Pelikan logo now. All have the mother pelican with either one, three, or five baby pelicans. We have seen some people asking if their Pelikan pen is fake due to having a different logo to their other Pelikan pens but it is usually due to the band having three official logos now making everything a little confusing.
The Ink Reservoir Of The Pens
Both the Pelikan m200 and m205 use the trademarked Pelikan differential piston filler system offering some of the best performance available in the market in general, never mind just at this price point. This model of Pelikan pens offers a 1.2ml maximum ink capacity coming in at just about the 1ml average for fountain pens helping to ensure you have as much ink available as possible.
Being a piston filler-based pen, you are able to use a wide range of different inks with it and although Pelikan recommend that you use their own ink, this is usually just a marketing ploy. Although you can stick to Pelikans official ink if you like, Noodlers ink is a very popular option due to it being cheaper, offering excellent performance, and being available in the widest range of colors possible at the time of writing.
Both the Pelikan m205 and the m200 do have an ink view window to allow you to quickly and easily check the amount of ink currently held in your pen at any given time. That said though, the window can be a little difficult to see through in low light but it is better than having nothing as many pens at this price bracket do not come with an ink view window.
Writing Samples
We always like to show writing samples of any pens that we cover on our blog. Please note that the video below shows a writing sample for the Pelikan M200 but due to the m200 being mechanically exactly the same as the m205, you can expect the exact same performance from either pen.
Conclusion
That brings our Pelikan m200 vs m205 comparison to a close, as we have mentioned multiple times throughout the article, both pens are mechanically the same and the only differences are visual. The Pelikan M200 comes with a gold trim that some people prefer while the amazon link=”B00478DI9G” title=”Pelikan M205” /] comes with a silver trim that other people prefer. In addition to this, some colors of the barrel and cap tend to look better with gold or silver too making that particular color more popular with one trim over the other.
