Firm

A firm nib has absolutely no cushion or flex. It is a very rigid nib. Sheaffer nibs are often discussed as being too firm. However, Sheaffer was also a leading supplier of pens to businesses that often needed things written up in duplicate or triplicate with carbon paper. In the days before copy machines and pdf files, a business needed as many copies of a document as it might need today. To get those copies without having to hand write or type the same thing over and over again, they slipped a piece of carbon paper between two or more sheets of paper. A firm nib needed to press a little harder than normal on the top piece of paper, which transferred via a carbon-backed piece of paper to the blank sheet of paper below the carbon paper.