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Currently I'm reviewing some pens kindly sent to me by Jetpens.com for this purpose; my previous installment was about the Mitsubishi Uniball Signo gel pen, and today I'm reviewing the Platinum Preppy fountain pen.
Before now, my experience with fountain pens has been limited to the Lamy Safari and the Pelikan Pelikano. I'll say right off that the Platinum Preppy is far cheaper than both of these, and better than one of them. 
As I've already established in my prior review, do check the Office Supply Geek for a more thorough and professional assessment of this pen. He's a pro. However, if you're just looking for bad pen drawings of pens, Strikethru's your (wo)man.
Banning the Big Black Box
4 hours ago
7 comments:
Have you tried out the Pilot Varsity? In my humble opinion, it just happens to be the Cadillac of disposable fountain pens (an admittedly small field). You can get 'em in three-packs at Office Depot, and they're pretty all-around great aside from the fact they tend to eat ink.
I bought a Preppy out of curiosity, and now it's the pen I take with me when running errands. The Preppy is proof that there is still a future for low end fountain pens.
The other cool thing about these is that, for those who like living on the inky edge, they're very easy to convert to an eyedropper fill pen: (i.e. you can fill the whole body with ink from a bottle using an eyedropper, or a straw or pipette. You just have to seal the threads with a dab of silicone grease (available at on-line pen sets or even hardware stores, I think), and/or use an o-ring where the pen screws together. Jet Pens even sells them, and there's a link on the o-ring product page to instructions on doing the conversion.
I have a converted Preppy I use quite a bit. I do find the plastic a little on the fragile side: my first Preppy developed a crack through fairly normal handling. But maybe that one was just a dud. They're definitely incredible pens for the money, no doubt.
I have not tried the Varsity... or have I??
I have never converted a pen and am super scared to try. Hopefully someone out there *LFP cough* will post a tutorial with pics.
I've really fallen in love with these pens lately. What I really like is the airtight cap that allows the pen to write even after sitting a few days unused.
I've converted a couple to eyedroppers using nothing but hardware store silicone grease and so far, no leaks - but I wouldn't use them as pocket pens that way.
If I had a gripe it's that they aren't "converter friendly." There's a gap between the nib and the section that will be an ink bucket if you dip the nib. You could try to fill the converter directly - but I don't roll that way :-)
On the other hand, for desk pens, I'm ok with a pack of cartridges and a blue-black in fine is a daily writer.
I bought a few of the eye dropper pens from Swisher Pens. Good stuff. I only use Noodlers ink, so using the cartridge pen was out of the question. Having an entire barrel of fountain pen ink obviously lasts a very long time, and it's easy enough to refill.
BTW, I do not work for Swisher, I'm just a happy customer.
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