Field Guide No. 03 · The Nib Brief
Fine or Medium Nib:
Choosing a Fountain Pen Nib for Legal Work
Fine Nib, or Medium?
The stroke width you write with on every page, for as long as you own the pen.
By James Kaywell · A lawyer for 26 years · Active member of the District of Columbia Bar
A fountain pen is sold by model and finish. The decision that actually shapes how it feels in your hand is neither. It is the width stamped on the nib itself: Fine or Medium.
Most retailers reduce the choice to a size chart. That is unfortunate. Nib width is the one decision you live with on every page, for as long as you own the pen.
What Actually Changes
| Fine Nib | Medium Nib | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical line width | ≈ 0.4 mm | ≈ 0.5–0.6 mm |
| Ink flow | Sparing and controlled | Generous and free-flowing |
| Feel on the page | More textured and precise | Smoother and more forgiving |
| Best paper | Smooth stock only — can catch on rough or textured sheets | Forgiving of nearly any smooth paper |
| Best suited for | Redlines, marginalia, dense notes, small handwriting | Signatures, correspondence, the pen people notice |
| Without saying it, it says | "I take a lot of notes." | "I write to be read." |
A note on the figures above: nib widths are not standardized across the industry. These follow the German convention — Pelikan's, and that of JoWo, the German house that makes Esterbrook's nibs. Japanese houses grind narrower, so a Japanese medium sits closer to a German fine; treat these numbers as describing the pens on this page rather than every nib you will encounter. The same two words are stamped on Sheaffer's steel nibs, and they mean the same thing: fine for the margin, medium for the signature.
This guide examines the practical differences between the two, then maps each width to the moments that matter in legal practice — redlining a draft, taking deposition notes, signing closing documents, and writing personal inscriptions.
Exhibit A — The Fine Nib
Built for margins, redlines, and small handwriting.
A fine nib lays down a narrower, more controlled line — roughly 0.4mm at the page. Less ink reaches the paper per stroke, which means less feathering on ordinary copier stock, legible text at a small size, and a slightly firmer, more textured feel as the tip meets the page. It's the nib that disappears into the margin of a draft rather than announcing itself.
It also asks a little more of the hand and the page than a medium nib does. Use a light touch rather than a ballpoint's habitual press — the tip needs less force to lay ink, not more — and keep to smooth, high-quality stock. Rough, laid, or heavily-textured paper can catch a fine tip and interrupt the line entirely, which a broader nib shrugs off.
- AShoulder — where the nib meets the section and begins to taper. Same anchor point on every width; what happens after this is what changes.
- BBreather hole — vents air back into the reservoir as ink is drawn out, and stops hairline cracks from creeping up the slit.
- CSlit — channels ink to the tip by capillary action. Narrower and stiffer on a fine nib, so less ink moves through per stroke.
- DTipping — the actual writing surface, a hard alloy ball fused to the tip. Ground smaller and rounder than a medium nib's.
| Typical line width | ≈ 0.4mm |
|---|---|
| Ink use | Sparing — a cartridge lasts longer |
| Best paper | Smooth, high-quality stock — avoid rough or heavily-textured sheets |
| Technique | Light hand, gentle pressure |
| Best for | Redlines, marginalia, dense forms, small handwriting |
In Practice
The M800 in black — carried in fine, the width that fits between the lines of someone else's draft.
Exhibit B — The Medium Nib
Built for signatures, letters, and the pen people notice.
A medium nib is the width most fountain pen owners settle on for their primary pen — wider than fine, generous with ink, and smoother on the page because more of the tipping's rounded surface is in contact with the paper at once. It's the width that makes handwriting look like handwriting, with the kind of visible ink shading a ballpoint can't produce.
It's also the more forgiving width in practical terms. A medium nib writes reliably under normal pressure and in any direction — no special grip or light touch required — and it handles nearly any smooth, uncoated paper without complaint, which is one reason it's the width most people never think twice about once they've chosen it.
- AShoulder — the same anchor point on every nib on this page; the section grips here regardless of width.
- BBreather hole — same function as the fine nib's, slightly larger to keep pace with faster ink flow.
- CSlit — wider-set and more flexible than a fine nib's, moving more ink to the tip with less resistance.
- DTipping — ground larger and rounder than a fine nib's, which is what puts more of it in contact with the page.
| Typical line width | ≈ 0.5–0.6mm |
|---|---|
| Ink use | Generous — refills more often |
| Best paper | Forgiving — handles most smooth, uncoated stock without much thought |
| Technique | None needed — writes reliably in any direction, any grip |
| Best for | Signatures, correspondence, the pen you actually reach for |
In Practice
The M1000, stocked in medium — the width that makes a signature look written rather than printed.
On Film
The Signature — the M800, carried in fine and medium, and the moment in every deal when everyone looks at the pen.
The Docket
Which one, which moment
Four moments, and the case for each width.
Redlining a draft
Fine Nib
Interlineations and margin notes need a line that doesn't bleed into the text it's correcting.
Case notes / depositions
Fine Nib
Fast, dense, and small — a fine nib keeps up without turning a legal pad into a blot test.
Signing the closing documents
Medium Nib
The one signature on the page people actually look at. Let it show a little ink.
Personal notes & gifting inscriptions
Medium Nib
Warmer on cream cardstock than a fine nib manages — this tier is built for occasions, not to-do lists.
Building the Kit
A pen for every stage of a practice
Seventeen fountain pens from three houses, from under eighty dollars to a little under nine hundred, with a sensible one at every price between the first week of law school and the bench. The nib decision is the same on all of them. What changes up the ladder is the metal in the nib, how the pen fills, and how much presence it carries at the table.
Six of the pens below fill by piston rather than cartridge — a mechanism Hungarian engineer Theodor Kovács patented in 19291 and licensed to Pelikan, who brought it to market the same year with a transparent ink window built in from the start2. That patent lapsed decades ago and other makers now build their own piston pens, but the mechanism is unchanged in principle since 1929: it shows you how much ink remains, holds more of it than a cartridge, and refills from any bottle. The rest — the Sheaffers, the P205 and every Estie — take a cartridge, or a converter and a bottle, which is lighter in the hand and simpler to live with, and is most of why they cost less than the pistons above them.
Tier I — The First Pen
Sheaffer · steel nib · cartridge or converter
Sheaffer 300
Fine and medium, in every finish
The full-sized Sheaffer, with the slotted clip and the wide cap band, in matte black, glossy black with gold, glossy blue, or an engraved barrel under a chrome cap. A steel nib that writes the first time, two cartridges in the box, and the maker's own black case. It is the fountain pen for the first year of practice, and the one listing also holds the rollerball and the ballpoint in the same barrel.
See the 300Sheaffer · steel nib · cartridge or converter
Sheaffer 100
Fine and medium
The slimmer Sheaffer, with the cut-out clip, in coffee brown lacquer under gold trim and a gold-tone steel nib — the only brown pen in the shop. A little less in the hand than the 300 and a little less to pay; the one for a shirt pocket rather than a desk.
See the 100Tier II — The First Good Pen
Pelikan · steel nib · cartridge
Pelikan P205
Fine and medium
Steel nib, cartridge fill, chrome trim, and the lightest Pelikan here — the only one that does not fill by piston. This is the pen to buy if you want to find out whether you like writing with a Pelikan before deciding how much you like it.
See the P205Esterbrook · steel nib · cartridge or converter
Esterbrook Estie
Fine and medium, in Ebony, Tortoise and Nouveau Bleu
The American name — Camden, New Jersey, 1858, revived in 2018 — on a barrel of blended acrylic polished so that no two are figured alike, with a German JoWo steel nib and a cushion cap that keeps it from drying between a Friday and a Monday. Three finishes: Ebony is the plain answer, Tortoise the senior one, Nouveau Bleu the profession's own color.
See the EstiePelikan · steel nib · piston
Pelikan M200 Marbled
Fine and medium, in red, green and brown marbled
The first piston filler on the ladder, with the ink window that has been part of the design since 1929. Gold-plated steel nib, gold-plated trim, marbled resin barrel. Most of what makes a Pelikan a Pelikan, well short of the Souverän price.
See the M200Tier III — The First Gold Nib
Pelikan · 14K gold nib · piston
Pelikan Souverän M400
Fine and medium, in black-green
The 1950 Model 400 at its original size, with a two-tone 14-karat gold nib and the striped acetate the Souverän is known for. Pocket-sized, 14.9 grams, and the pen for the hand that found the M800 long or heavy. A lawyer's first gold nib, more often than not.
See the M400Esterbrook · 18K gold nib · cartridge or converter
Esterbrook Estie, 18K
Medium in Nouveau Bleu and Ebony · fine in Tortoise
The same Estie barrel under a solid 18-karat gold nib, made in Germany by JoWo and engraved with the Esterbrook scroll. In Nouveau Bleu it is the pen we photograph for the swearing-in and the inscription — a senior partner's pen handed across a desk — and in medium it lays the signature that gets looked at. A class pen, and the one on this page that most repays the upgrade from steel.
See the Estie 18K
The Estie 18K in Nouveau Bleu, medium — the width that makes an inscription look written, not printed.
Tier IV — The Standard, and the Flagship
Pelikan · 18K gold nib · piston
Pelikan Souverän M800
Fine in black · medium across the collection
Solid 18K gold nib and a brass-sleeved barrel that gives the pen the heft people mean when they say a pen feels serious. If you intend to own one fountain pen for the rest of your practice, this is the one most owners settle on.
See the M800Pelikan · 18K gold nib · piston
Pelikan Souverän M805 Stresemann
Fine and medium
The M800 in anthracite stripes with palladium trim and a fully rhodium-plated 18K nib — the same pen for the lawyer who wears steel rather than gold. Everything said of the M800 applies; only the register changes.
See the M805Pelikan · 18K gold nib · piston
Pelikan Souverän M1000
Medium
The largest pen on the page, and the softest nib on it — an 18K nib with noticeably more give underhand than the M800's. Sized for a full grip and long-form writing rather than a shirt pocket. The flagship.
See the M1000A Note on Availability
Both widths are on the shelf for the Sheaffer 300 and 100 in every finish, the Pelikan P205, M200, M400 and M805, and the Estie in all three finishes. The M800 is fine in black only and medium across the collection; the M1000 is medium only; the Estie 18K is medium in Nouveau Bleu and Ebony and fine in Tortoise.
If the Docket above points you toward a width we do not have on the shelf, write to us before you order. We will tell you what is on hand, what can be brought in, and roughly how long it will take. We would rather special-order the right pen than sell you a width you did not choose.
And on a Pelikan, if you choose wrong, the choice is not final. Pelikan has built its nibs as screw-in units since 1929 — nib, feed and collar as one threaded assembly — so the whole unit comes out by hand, no tools, and a unit of the other width goes back in. Units are sold as a spare part for the P205, the M200, the M800 and the M1000 alike, though not across model families: an M800 unit fits an M800, not an M400 or an M1000. On an Estie and on a Sheaffer the width is chosen when you order — Sheaffer does not change widths under warranty — so if you are unsure, write to us first. The pen is the decision you are making. On a Pelikan, the width you can revisit.
- U.S. Patent No. 1,706,616 (filed Sept. 15, 1927; issued Mar. 26, 1929); see also German Patent No. DE457462 (filed Sept. 29, 1926; issued Mar. 16, 1928) (Theodor Kovács, inventor). ↩
- The Piston Filling Mechanism, 1929–1950, Pelikan Heritage & Tradition Archive, archive.pelikan.com (licensing agreement with Günther Wagner dated Aug. 19, 1927; product launched as the Transparent Pelikan Fountain Pen, 1929); see also The Patent That Launched a Fountain Pen Empire, The Pelikan's Perch (Oct. 2, 2020). ↩
Exhibit C — Anatomy of a Nib
The detail that decides how a pen feels in ten years.
Steel — on the Sheaffers, the P205, the M200 and the Estie, steel nibs are firm and consistent from day one: what you feel at first is close to what you'll feel in year ten, and they're cheaper to produce, which is part of why the first two tiers cost less than the gold nibs above them.
Gold — 18K on the M800, the M805, the M1000 and the Estie 18K, and 14K on the M400 — gold nibs flex slightly under normal writing pressure and don't corrode, so most owners find one quietly adapts to their hand over time. The nib itself is solid gold — it's the pen's trim (cap bands, clip, rings) that's gold-plated brass.3 Either way, the tipping that actually touches the paper is the same hard tungsten alloy; gold changes the flex, not the wear.
- Pelikan-Collectibles, M800 Basis (Souverän Series) spec table, pelikan-collectibles.com/en/Pelikan/Models/Souveraen-Series/M800-Basis (listing the nib as 18K/750 solid gold and the trim separately as gold plated); see also The Pelikan's Perch, Putting Karats To Paper: The Various Gold Purities Of Pelikan's Nibs (Nov. 23, 2021), thepelikansperch.com/2021/11/23/pelikan-gold-nibs (two-tone rhodium plating is applied over a solid gold nib, not a base-metal substitute). ↩
The Argument
The Brief
Why these three houses earned a place in this catalog — the case for the file.
A curated catalog means every item had to earn its place, not just be available. Three houses make the fountain pens here, and each is here on its own ground.
Pelikan — Continuity
One house since 1838
Pelikan has been in continuous business since 1838 and built fountain pens since 1929, including piston-fill engineering unchanged in principle across the century since4 (see also notes 1–2, supra). At its senior tier the nib is solid 18K gold, not a spec-sheet phrase that quietly means something thinner (note 3, supra). A house that has serviced its own mechanism for a hundred years is a safer long-term bet than one that has changed hands recently.
Esterbrook — The Name, and the Nib
Camden, 1858; Mineola, 2018
Esterbrook was for a century the American pen — the Camden, New Jersey, steel-pen works of 1858 — and the name was revived in 20185. What makes the Estie more than a revival is the nib: made in Germany by JoWo, in steel or in solid 18-karat gold, on a barrel of blended acrylic that no two pens share. It is the pen on this page that most looks like an heirloom at the price of a good suit.
Sheaffer — The Beginning
Fort Madison, 1913
Walter A. Sheaffer patented the lever filler and founded the company on it in 19136, and for decades a Sheaffer was the pen an American graduate was handed. The 300 and the 100 are what that name means today: a steel nib that writes the first time, a proper barrel, the maker's box — a good pen at an entry price, and the first fountain pen for a great many lawyers.
- The 1838 date traces to the Hannover ink and artists' colour works of Carl Hornemann; Günther Wagner acquired the business in 1871 and registered the pelican mark in 1878. The firm's first fountain pen followed in 1929, together with the piston mechanism described in notes 1–2, supra. Ink and artists' materials, not pens, are what the 1838 date refers to. ↩
- Richard Esterbrook established The Esterbrook Steel Pen Mfg. Co. at Camden, New Jersey, in 1858. Brand History, esterbrookpens.com. The original company's operations ended in 1971; the name was acquired in 2014 and has been held by Kenro Industries of Mineola, New York, since 2018. The name is continuous; the manufacture is not. Esterbrook does not publish where the Estie is made, and neither do we; its nibs are stated by Esterbrook to be made by JoWo in Germany. ↩
- The Sheaffer Pen Company was founded in 1913 by Walter A. Sheaffer, a jeweler in Fort Madison, Iowa, on the strength of his lever-filling mechanism. The Sheaffer Story, Sheaffer 2026 catalogue, and Brand History, sheaffer.com. The name is American; Sheaffer states that its writing instruments are currently manufactured in India, and so do we, on every Sheaffer page. ↩
Closing Argument
A signature is the one piece of handwriting in a legal career that gets read as carefully as it's written — on a closing, a judgment, a partnership agreement. Nib width is a small, daily decision that shapes every one of them. Choose based on what you're actually writing, not the size chart, and you'll rarely choose wrong.
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Written by James Kaywell
