120 Type II Cap
The Pelikan model 120 was introduced on May 23rd, 1955 and served as Pelikan’s first entry into the schulfüller or school fountain pen market. Prior to that, their focus had been on writing implements designed almost exclusively for adults. I spoke a bit about the 120 in my post discussing Merz & Krell, the company that briefly revived an updated version of the 120 line for Pelikan in the 1970’s. To be clear, in this post I’m only discussing the Type I 120 made from 1955-1965 and not Merz & Krell’s Type II produced from 1973-1977. Pelikan was not the first to attempt to capitalize on this market segment and therefore had to play a bit of catch up in catering to these school aged consumers, their parents, and teachers. School pens generally follow certain guidelines, incorporating characteristics that can be seen across school pen models, even those from different manufacturers. At least initially these were available in only basic colors, lacked ornate furniture, and usually came equipped with a stainless steel nib. In the case of the 120 Type I, they were only offered with a green barrel, black cap & piston knob, a green ink window, and a gold-plated stainless steel nib married to Pelikan’s ebonite feed with the longitudinal fins. All 120s were piston fillers, a contrast to the later school pen models which were almost exclusively cartridge pens.