M805 Stresemann
In the early morning hours of Saturday, December 13th Pelikan announced to the community via its Facebook page for Pelikan International that something new was coming. It was described as the reinterpretation of a classic and an image of just the silhouette of a pen was provided with a short caption. Of course, this generated no shortage of speculation and commentary throughout the weekend. I saw quite a range of guesses as to what was in store, many of which seemed to be hoping for some new variation of tortoise. Thankfully, Pelikan did not keep us waiting for long and, just 48 hours later, they have made the announcement that in 2015 they will be releasing an M805 with a new binde (pronounced BIN-duh) dubbed Stresemann. Binde is a German word that describes the colored/patterned sleeve that is fitted around the outside of the barrel of a pen. It is more of a historical term as the old birds had a barrel with a separate binde to provide the coloration. I believe that this is still the case though for the M8xx series and up but does not hold true for the smaller Souveräns.