Last year, I was browsing through the junk in a street market in Sao Paulo, and was lucky enough to find a strange looking small pen I had never heard of.
Since no one seemed to be much interested in it, I was able to pick it up for less than 10 USD. Later, I found out that it was a high-class japanese pen, a Platinum pocket one, in excellent condition (there are photos of it in here). I also found out, however, that both cartridges and converters for it are completely unavailable in Brazil, which dampened my enthusiasm somewhat. A pen repairer guy showed me that a international cartridge fits, if its top is sliced off - I suspect this arrangement is not going to last forever, though, and that someday this pen will leak and make a mess inside my briefcase.
Anyway, the reason I´m posting this is that I´ve just noticed there is something that looks wrong in my pen. It is basically the same as the one in the photo, with with a medium 18K nib. There is a difference, though - there is no gold ring between section and barrel. I´ve done a little research on the web, and in all the photos I say the ring was there, just like the one in the Stutler´s site. Is this ring removable (as the one in Parker 45´s, for example) ? Could the previous owner have mislaid it? Or are there models that came out without the ring?
Does anyone happen to have any experience with this model of pen? Can anyone solve the mistery of the missing ring ? (if there was a ring, in the first place...)

Hi,
I could not get your link to work so your pen remains an unknown to me. Am experienced with many types of Japanese pens and offer the following.

1. If you pen is a short pen, converters will be hard to find. the only person who regularly offers them is speerbob on ebay but, you will need to buy a pen to get one.
2. Yes. you will eventually have a mess in your back if you continue to use cutoff converters. Russ Stutler show a fix on his website where a cartridge is used with a sac to create a squeeze filler. Good luck.
3. The ring should be there and it can come out (and get cost) if the owner unscrews the section from the metal part that connects to the barrel. Is the cap loose when it is capped.
4. Obtaining Platinum cartridges in Brazil might be problem. I'd suggest doing the cartridge fix shown on Russ' site. Mailing cartridges to Brazil can be expensive and you can now use your own flavor of ink.

Take care.

Hi Stan,
I think the link is working now - thanks for pointing out the problem.
Thanks also for the suggestions about the makeshift converters in Stutlers´s page. I´ll see what I can do about them.
I found out something very curious thing yesterday, however - the ring between section and barrel in this pen has exactly the same outside diameter as the ring in a Parker 45. I took one out of an old Parker, and the Platinum cap fits nicely over it. The inside diameter of the Parker ring is a bit larger than necessary - the ring sits loosely on the barrel. I fixed it by placing a strip of paper under the ring. The pen now looks identical with the one in the photo... now it´s time to work on the converter problem.

best regards,
Rique