The DECCAN YEMATSO - Deccan Pens’ tribute to the legendary Pelikan M800 ...

This is about the pen that I bought recently (on 21 August 2013) from Deccan Pen Stores, Hyderabad.  When Umair showed me this pen I thought I’d seen this pen before and probably hadn’t bought it then, and told so to Umair.  He said this was a recent model and I couldn’t have seen it before.  I wondered for a while and then it struck...

FLASHBACK ALERT!!!

I was in some way part of Hari’s novel project where he had wanted Deccan to make him an ebonite pen modelled on the Pelikan M800 that could hold a Pelikan screw-in nib unit.  It was codenamed the Yematso Project.  By virtue of living in Hyderabad, I became the messenger, informer, reminder-er (?), and finally, courier...was generally liaising between Hari and Deccan.  In fact, I got to see this Pelikanised Deccan FP and hold it, before Hari could see it, who had actually thought of it in the first place.  So, that was a rare privilege.  That pen can be seen here...

 FLASHBACK OVER..

All this came back to me in a while, but when Umair showed it to me, I thought, “Great...another Pelikan inspired pen from Deccan...this time the M800...”  The last time they did one, it was modelled on the Pelikan 120 and Hari had reviewed it here...they called it the Pelkan...

That day, coincidentally, I had my blue striated M800 in my pocket and Umair showed some interest and wanted to see it...he appeared to be delighted... I now feel, my M800 must have reminded him of their new model and it was then that he fetched this pen and showed it to me...

My guess is that Deccan had prepared the moulds/dies to make the pen for Hari and then later decided to use that to come out with a new model...

The pen under review is good where looks are concerned and Deccan has done a fairly decent job in emulating the design, shape, and size of the original... I would say that it is a ‘tribute’ by Deccan...

The cap jewel is rather well done...what is part of the clip itself in M800 is made as the full cap jewel...attention is given to detail as you can see in the picture, except for the logo on the top... I felt, briefly, perhaps the calligraphic D might have looked good on the top...not enough space...there is a cap band too and there is a hole in it and I don’t know why or for what reason...the barrel end is also decently done, though it is a mock-piston, so can’t unscrew... just a design feature...and BTW, this is an ED filler pen...no trims in the mock-piston...

The clip is their now regular Advocate ball clip...I would have liked a ‘beaky’ clip...and they have the ‘beaky’ clip on some of their other models, and they could have fixed one for this model too...I am slightly disappointed here...the ‘beaky’ clip could have given a sense of completion to the pen... I told this to Umair, and he had also brought out their earlier Pelkan model (recent version), which had the ‘beaky’ clip... I asked him if he could swap the clips, he gave both pens to the service section to see if they could do it, but they returned both pens intact saying that the diameter (on top) of the ‘beaky’ clip was small for this pen...the calligraphic D, the Deccan logo, is also seen on the cap, but on both pens I bought, this D doesn’t seem to be ‘imprinted’ properly...the forelock and the back curve look incomplete... I asked about this to Zubair, and he noticed this for the first time when I showed it to him!  He said there must be something wrong with the needle that inscribes this on the cap and it doesn’t seem to press evenly on the surface...anyway, hope they rectify it soon...

Once the cap is unscrewed, it is a straightforward Deccan pen...all nicely done...nib, feeder fixed properly in the section...the nib says OLYMPIC IST QUALITY U.S.A.  The flow is very good and the nib is not scratchy, but not very smooth, either...but no tripping, skipping, etc. ... easy flow...

I inked it the next day evening and I wrote this post in longhand first with this pen yesterday...nice fine line, I would have liked it to be a slightly more thicker... I normally don’t meddle with the original fittings and let them be, but I might go back and ask Deccan to fit this pen with a Deccan medium and also the ‘beaky’ clip...

I bought swirly green and swirly brown, but seem to like the green one better, and that is what I inked first...

I want to call it the DECCAN YEMATSO...

The Deccan Yematso

Section and clip

The Deccan logo

Yematso and M800

Both cap jewels

Yematso's cap jewel - close-up

Yematso's cap jewel - close-up

M800's piston and Yematso's mock piston

Writing Sample

Two Deccan pens with the 'beaky clip'