Pelikan Grand Prix (Orange!!)

The Pelikan Grand Prix, currently available in the US by parallel import (gray market) only in orange, is an entry-level fountain pen, aimed at the youth market. That would explain its "in your face" image in bright orange. I am no spring chicken, so I am not even close to the target demographic. My youngest son, age 16, is barely still in the target demographic. However, I wanted an introduction to Pelikan pens at a minimum cost, and this seemed to fit the bill, at $8.99 plus $5.00 shipping on eBay from ebay seller zerocoo01 pens.

The Grand Prix is a cartridge filler, unlike most Pelikans. It came with a Medium nib, and blue ink. The pen is rather large diameter for its length, made of plastic, with a rubber cover over the body of the pen. Grand Prix is inscribed in white on the plastic cap, which, like the section is gray, with no rubber cover. The pen body has "racing stripes" running most of the length
of the pen, with a white plastic raised oval with the raised capital letters GP in the center. Photo is stock photo from eBay site mentioned previously.

The nib is steel, and broader than the medium on a Waterman Phileas. I understand that most Pelikan nibs run broader than other brands. The nib is a nicely wet writer, and the overused cliche "writes like butter" is more than applicable to it. Zero pressure is required to get the pen to start, even after it has been sitting for over a month, as mine has. It is so smooth, in fact, that unless you either exert downward pressure, or watch the pen in progress, you have no tactile clues as to whether the pen is actually writing and putting ink on the paper.

A coworker of mine, who shares my penchant for pens, liked mine so much she got one of her own. When she figured out she really was not going to talk me into selling her mine, she got one on eBay, with a roller ball, and an orange knit vinyl case. If you are looking for a relatively low cost knockaround pen, which coworkers are unlikely to try to snatch (the orange puts many people off big time), this could be a winner for you. It certainly is for me. I use it only occasionally, for signatures, as the line is too broad for my tastes for any other use.