Pelikan M200 Golden Beryl

After many many years of being convinced that the M200/M400 size was not for me, I’ve well and truly fallen down the rabbit hole of this size, now owning 4 pens in this size. The M200/M400 size is the smallest of Pelikan’s Souveran series (with the exception of their M300 pocket size) – they are both the same size but the M200 is the lower end pen with a steel nib, while the M400 is part of the higher end, luxury Souveran series which comes with a gold nib.

The M200 series also typically (especially in the last few years) matches Pelikan’s ink of the year. In 2021, this ink was the Golden Beryl, which, from what I’ve seen in reviews, looks like a molten gold ink with a yellow base. I chose to skip the ink and just go for the pen.

The pen has a beautiful, translucent clear body with golden sparkles all through the acrylic. The piston mechanism is made of a white plastic and it apparent, unlike some of the darker body colours I own. Its stunningly trimmed in gold which offsets the sparkles perfectly.

Compared to their gold nibs, the Pelikan steel nibs seem to be quite inconsistent. Where all my gold nibs are great writers out of the box, the few steel nibs I’ve owned are scratchy and dry. This time, I skipped using the steel nib altogether and popped one of my M600 gold nibs into the pen when I inked it. So keep this in mind as the writing sample will not be representative of the nib that comes with the pen. Having said that, this is one of the pluses of the Pelikan nibs, especially in the M200/M400 and M600 size – they are all interchangeable between these sizes.

I was a bit paranoid that the pen body might get stained by the ink used, so I opted for a low pigmentation ink – Sailor Manyo Haha. The nib is so wet that it brings out the beautiful multichromatic colours in the ink, which may not be so apparent with finer nibs.

All in all, I’m really glad I decided to give this pen size a try, because I’ve loved all 4 of the Pelikan M200 and M400’s I’ve recently bought. Out of the sparkly Pelikan range, I’m now only missing Moonstone….I’m seriously thinking about going back and picking one up after this one.