I had been looking at these pens for quite a while. When I fell a few dollars short of free shipping, I I decided the time had come to try one of these. With the difference in shipping it was like I was getting paid $4 to get this pen. Yay Amazon!
The pros:
-Writes smooth, really smooth, even smoother than that.
-Easily converted to an I dropper pen to hold tons of ink.
-Can take some abuse. Toss it in a backpack with a bunch of other pointy things and it'll be fine.
The cons:
-It takes it's own converter/cartridge. Same as most (all?) Platinum pens.
-The converter costs more than the pen, still cheap overall though.
The review:
It's a $4 fountain pen. That's a big plus in a world that can be hazardous to pens. This pen seems to be able to hold its own in the durability category. I've tossed it around quite a bit, and no real damage has been done. That's probably due to the plastic it's made out of. It's not so hard that it feels like it's going to crack, and not so soft that it feels like it's going to bend. It feels like plastic, but it's very smooth plastic more like what you'd find on a more expensive pen.
The nib writes smooth right from the first time I put ink in it. It feels more like a big rollerball than a fountain pen. I got the 0.3 nib and it writes more like a medium German French nib. That's with the cartridge it came with. Personally I would have liked a finer line. Did I mention it's smooth? I have pens that cost 100 times more than this one that don't write this smooth. In fact there's only a few pens that I have that wrote as smooth as this one without tuning. So while I want a finer line, this pen gets top marks for smoothness. It really is that good. For comparison it writes about as smooth as an S.T. Dupont Orpheo, and smoother than a Waterman Le Man 100, or Lamy Vista.
I plan on using this with Noodler's Baystate Blue, and being able to convert it to a eyedropper pen is a big plus. There's plenty of videos that show you how to do this, and it's really cheap and simple. An O-ring and some silicone grease is all it takes. As an eyedropper pen it holds a ton of ink. Basically you do away with the cartridge or converter and use the whole back of the pen to hold ink.
One of the things that surprised me is the little spring section in the cap. My guess is that it puts a small amount of tension against the pen where the nib and feed come out to form a better seal and keep the ink from drying up too fast. That's kind of a big deal here in the desert where pens dry up really fast. I've seen this sort of spring mechanism on other pens, but never would have thought it would be on a $4 pen.
This pen uses the same converter as other (all?) Platinum pens. I tried it with a few different “International” converters and they didn't fit well. Definitely recommend the Platinum converter. I had one on hand, and it seems to work fine. It sicks to the pen pretty well, and doesn't seem to want to fall off. Even if it did, clean up would be pretty easy. The downside to the converter is the price. I found it online for $7.50 which is higher than the pen itself. However, when you combine both prices along with the price of converting it to a eyedropper pen, you get about $12. That's still a really good price for a fountain pen. Even better for one that writes as nice as this one.
Overall I am happy with the quality of this pen. I think I'll start recommending it to people that want to try out a fountain pen. It came with one cartridge that could possibly be refilled with an ink syringe and used again.
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This Item  Platinum Fountain Pen, Preppy, Fine Nib, Black (PPQ-200-#1) | Recommendations  |  |  | ![Platinum Fountain Pen, New Preppy, Fine Nib, Black(PSQ-300#1) + Ink Cartridges SPN-100A#1 (Black) Set (Japan Import) [Komainu-Dou Original Package]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51mgHxomQ5L._AC_.jpg) |  | |
| Price | Currently unavailable. | $7.60 | $18.00 | $5.59 | $7.98 | $5.72 |
| Delivery | — | — | Get it as soon as Tuesday, Nov 26 | Get it as soon as Tuesday, Nov 26 | Get it as soon as Tuesday, Nov 26 | Get it as soon as Tuesday, Nov 26 |
| Customer Ratings | ||||||
| Sold By | — | Passion4Pens. Inc. | Zen Store. | SALASALA JP | PureFamily | saitaniya |
| point type | Fine | Fine | — | Medium | Fine | Extra Fine |
| material | Platinum | Platinum | Plastic | Aluminum | Metal, Plastic | Platinum |
| closure type | Snap | Snap | Snap | Snap | Retractable | Cap type |
Nice pen for first time user
I started using the preppy fountain pen today. I learned that it takes firm pressure to insert the ink cartridge properly so that the ink will flow, so don't be afraid to press slowly and firmly until the cartridge is punctured, after which you can hear the little silver ball rattling around in the ink. It writes like a dream, very smoothly, and so far does not leak. It came with a large paper sticker on the barrel that was a hassle to remove, see photo.
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