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Clicbait? Absolutely! And I'm sure already done before So that Preppy original nib met an unfortunate early demise, and I had a spare Lamy Z50 laying around...but then I got a Z55 in the mail, so it was only natural to try it on the Preppy! The Preppy will however live with a Z50, which feels even worse on the Preppy than it was on a Lamy Logo. Lightweight pen, light plastic feed/nib holder and scratchy nib don't go well together..but at least that's a functional pen.

What could be wrong with (or dirty or clogging) a nib? I have had two Preppies and one "disposable" Zebra with what I thought was a similar problem. I see plenty of ink and if I wipe the sides or back vent hole with a damp paper towel, ink immediately wicks out. But when I wrote, nothing came out. With the Zebra, I pulled the nib out and noticed with some magnifier help that there seem to be a teenie bit of dried ink between the tines. I scrubbed it with a cotton swab with some rubbing alcohol and sure enough some ink-color staining on the swab. I "deform" the nib a little bit to expose the inner-edges to the alcohol. I put the Zebra back together, and all is fine. I did the same with a Preppy, but it's still not writing. I recall now this is the same problem I encountered about 8 years ago and is why I gave away my Preppys. However, I want to try again. I should note that this is clogging on BayStateBlue. The cloggy Preppy is better with the included cartridge. The other non-clogging Preppy is filled with Monteverde. These Preppys are all newer models, not the ones with the painted colors on the nib-backs. (Too bad, they are cute.) Or maybe BSB is like any drier ink and I should "do something" to the space between tines? Or "deform" it a bit to be farther away from the black part? Thanks for any tips! Btw, I refilled a "disposable" blue Zebra with BSBlue and it writes terrifically -- thin lines, thinner than the Preppy 03 but maybe a little wider line than the Preppy 02. No hard starts and good cap-off time. Is anybody using Preppy+BSBlue?

I want to convert my Platinum Preppy to an eyedropper pen. Its threads are too coarse to be sealed by silicone grease alone so an O-ring must be added to make an airtight seal. The problem is I have been unable to find O-rings for a reasonable price. I tried to find them over the internet but either 1) they cost far too much 2) are out of stock 3) are not of the appropriate size. None of my local hardware stores seem to have them, also tried the plumbing store and the motorcycle repair shop. Did anybody have better luck finding O-rings ?

I have a Preppy EF which i enjoy writing with. Actually I bought it a few days ago, the black ink which came with it writes so well with the Preppy, but when i refilled it with Sheaffer Skrip Blue, it skipped like hell, nor was the ink flow good when the ink came out (occasionally). I have refilled it with my Quink Black for the time being, well it writes a bit better, but still it writes too dry and the line it writes is too light. Any recommendations for a good ink? (except iroshizoku inks or extremely costly inks)

I have a beautiful -at least to me- Lamy Vista with an awful EF nib. Having experienced more than one mediocre Lamy nibs (lucky me! ) I loose faith in Lamy and refuse to buy yet another scratchy nib. So the pen sits unused in my drawer. And here comes that topic and that post of mine (https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/249626-if-your-friends-all-jumped-off-a-cliff/?p=2746375) to remind me my beautiful Vista and what a pity it is to see it laying unused and how much I would love to just replace it's nib with a smooth Pilot M nib. And then it hits me. Ok, Pilot nibs can't really catch on the Lamy feed, but how about that Preppy I bought a few months ago? After playing a little bit, I figured out that the Platinum nib DOES catch securely on the Lamy feed. The only problem is that the feed is a little large and sticks out from the nib, making the pen a bit funny/weird to look at. Considering that the nib is just soft plastic, I might try to cut it to the right size with a utility knife (perhaps tomorrow. now it's too late, I'm sleepy and I will definately ruin it) But, to be quite frank even with it's peculiar looks, I much prefer my Vista as it is now than as it used to be. At least now I can use it.

Being the happy owner of two Sailor fp's (1911 Standard GT & Pro Gear Slim CT, both 14k H-M) and two Pilot fp's (Custom 823 F and Metropolitan M), I was curious what Platinum would bring to the gathering of Japanese pens. As I did with Pilot, I decided to buy a cheap pen first, with the possibility to "upgrade" to a gold-tipped model later on. So I got a blue Plaisir with 0.3 mm nib (18 euros) and a blue Preppy with a 0.5 mm nib (3 euros). I compared them to each other as well as to the Pilot Metropolitan (19 euros). The 3 euro Preppy doesn't come in any kind of box. Based on look and feel, I would expect the pen to be somewhat more expensive (i.e. around 8 euros). It's a plastic pen and it will probably not live to see its first birthday, but it doesn't appear flimsy. I bought one with a 0.5 mm nib. Popped in the included Platinum blue cartridge and off I went. It's somewhat weird to see the ink flow across the section-enclosed fins of the feed. There are no fins outside of the section. The pen wrote straight away and puts a big, fat, confident line on paper. It's not a stub, so line width is more or less the same in downstrokes as well as sidestrokes. The nib is very, very smooth. On a scale of 1 to 10, scratchiness zero, tooth zero, feedback 2. It's like skiing over fresh snow. Very impressive, though purely as a matter of personal preference I'd like more feedback. The 18 euro Plaisir comes in a cheapish plastic box with instructions and an included black cartridge. The instructions claim that the pen won't dry out for a year, even though it is a click-on cap. If that's true, then it's impressive. The barrel and the cap seem to be made of aluminium. Even though it's made of metal, somehow the design looks cheapish to me. Being 6 times as expensive as the Preppy, I'd say it looks only slightly more upmarket but definitely feels more upmarket. I bought one with a 0.3 mm nib, and after popping in the cartridge the pen wrote straight away. Being narrower, the nib offers more feedback than the 0.5 mm but is still incredibly smooth. On a scale of 1 to 10, scratchiness zero, tooth 1, feedback 4. Very impressive. I like this nib. Both pens are nice to write with, in terms of ergonomics. I can use them unposted and the sections aren't slippery at all (even though I tested them on a hot summer day). I could easily do long sessions with these pens. I feel that both Platinums offer exceptional value for money, with the expected longevity of the Plaisir being the main reason for its higher price. The fact that the nibs are easily exchangable between the Preppy and the Plaisir is a great bonus. Want another nib in your Plaisir? Buy a Preppy. Both pens use Platinum's proprietary cartridge system. A converter is available (see photo). Also available is a small item that facilitates the use of standard international cartridges (see photo). For fun, I compared them to my Pilot Metropolitan M. In terms of price, size and shape, the Plaisir and the Metro are very very similar, with the Plaisir being about 4 mm longer and 1 mm wider. A big difference is the feel of the section. The Plaisir has a very small step-down from barrel to section and no ridge at the low end of the section. The Metro does have such a ridge and a pronounced step-down. I like the Metro just fine, but the Plaisir is much easier to grip and feels more comfortable. In terms of writing, both are excellent pens. My Metro has a touch of baby's bottom; it's very subtle but it's there. It also offers slightly more refined feedback, of the pleasant kind, than the Plaisir. It's a tie, both pens writing very well, very smooth and very reliable. Heck, I've had issues getting 200-euro pens to write this good. Count me impressed.

Has anyone ever figured out how to safely remove the feed from the section of the Preppy/Plaisir so it can be cleaned and dried faster? In some SBRE Brown video he mentioned that he had been utterly unable to remove the fin-feed from the clear section of either his Preppys or Plaisirs, said that as cheap pen you have to deal with it, but complained that it took 'forever' for it to dry inside its clear tube section after rinsing it out. Well, I just got my first Plaisir (light and plastic-y yes, but the .05 writes very nicely - more smoothly than my .03 Preppy) and I see exactly what he was talking about. A comparison between a normal fountain pen feed to the Preppy/Plaisir (from this old post): http://www.pbase.com/liverman/image/141447107/original.jpg http://www.pbase.com/liverman/image/141447688/original.jpg I really don't want to have to wait 'forever' for my pen to be ready to be re-inked. Has anyone gotten the feed out of the section easily?

I've ordered some samples of ink recently one of them being noodlers baystate blue, now I have read that as an ink it can be abit more work than some standard inks in regards to cleaning etc. So I figured that I'd test it in a pen that I wouldn't be overly bothered about if something went wrong and at being less than £3 to replace and being a smoothish writer out the box the preppy sounds perfect for this. Is it a case that the standard platinum converters work in which case I'll order two when I get the one for my 3776, or am I going to have to wait until I've used up the blue/black cartridge in the 3776 and giving that a good clean.

I really like the ink that came with my violet Preppy. It writes so smooth with zero feathering even on the cheapest paper and dries pretty quick. Honestly, it behaves almost like I'd expect a gel pen to. I was wondering exactly what ink it is so I could try it in my TWSBI Eco and Noodler's Konrad. Fairly certain that this is the same as what came with my preppy: https://www.jetpens.com/Platinum-Violet-Ink-For-Fountain-Pen-and-Marker-2-Cartridges/pd/1519#index=0 Which is dye-based. So would any dye-based Platinum ink perform the same? i.e. Is the above cartridge the same ink that comes in this bottle: https://www.jetpens.com/Platinum-Mixable-Silky-Purple-Ink-60-ml-Bottle/pd/7449#index=0 and would the following perform similarly: https://www.jetpens.com/Platinum-Blue-Black-Ink-60-ml-Bottle/pd/11986 Anyone know if Platinum's iron-gall https://www.jetpens.com/Platinum-Classic-Lavender-Black-Ink-60-ml-Bottle/pd/20235#index=0 Or pigment-based https://www.jetpens.com/Platinum-Carbon-Ink-Black-60-ml-Bottle/pd/3461#index=0 Handle the same?

Dear all, I recently bought myself yet another Platinum Preppy (in 03 = fine) in red. Naturally it came with one red cartridge. I can't say that I was all that convinced by that ink; it was pinkish, did not flow so well (didn't even saturate the fins of the feed properly), and it would dry up at times) So now I'm looking for a better ink for that pen; still red and just for grading papers. So, I'd like an ink that's - a more true red, - not pale, - behaving well on all kinds of sub-par paper, - not easy to dry up (since the preppy is what it ts), - price and size of bottle should not be too great. - Can't be Noodler's; not available here. I've considered Sheaffer Skrip Red, and Diamine Wild Strawberry so far. If you have other suggestions, please share your ideas. Thanks a bunch. Edit: I live in a very humid environment, so I was worried about the Sheaffer's distinct lack of water resistance. The humidity here definitely affects paper over time, and when left out in the open.

I just purchased a Platinum Preppy, and am having trouble inserting the included cartridge into the pen. Any hints or suggestions?

I filled the barrels of two Pilot Preppies identically - made sure to seal with silicone and o-rings, tightly sealed. The other day, I opened my fine point (the black one in the pix) and a big blob of ink plopped onto the paper. I inspected the pen and saw that the feed was flooded with ink. But not the feed of the other one. Does anyone have an explanation for this? Apart from the blob mishap nothing is amiss and even with the flooded feed the pen writes fine. I'm just curious. I've learned from this why some people don't like filling the barrel directly. From now on, I'm refilling cartridges. They are just Preppies but I don't like this.

I've gotten more than one Platinum Preppy fountain pen lately. I am cleaning and flushing them all. A problem I'm running into is that they take so long to dry out. All in all, a Preppy will take about three or four days to completely dry out once I've gotten done with cleaning it. I really would like to have the drying process take a lot less time. I also don't like a pen with enclosed parts to be wet and exposed to the atmosphere for that length of time because it increases the possibility that something will start to grow in the water in that part. The problem is the collector, or whatever it may be called, in the section. That's the thing with all of the fins on it that fits in the section and into which the nib and feed fit. I have been able to remove the nib/feed unit from the Preppy, but that collector thing, which is the same color plastic as the cap, is giving me trouble. Has anyone ever been able to remove that piece of plastic? If so how did you do it? I can't find anything that will even get a grip on the thing. Thanks for any help with this.

Ok... So ive seen one other thread on this but no answers really... I have preppys on order for testi.g new inks as well as for my baystate colors and other staining inks. My question is is it possible, without scratching the body, to FULLY remove the logo and all paint from the barrel of the pen? Ice seen people take off the wording but leave the white backround... i did see one video where it shows the last couple rubs and it was perfect and he said he used automotive headlight cleaner... Is that the product they sell to remove the fogginess feom headlight covers?!? I dont see vuying a qhole bottle of that just for a couple cheapo pens... So does ANYONE know another way to do it without acratching the pen? Thanks everyone!!!

I agree with the reviewer. Although, its good and fun to write with the medium nib Platinum preppy but i use it more to mark things in my journal than actually writing with it. Which one is your favorite Platinum Preppy: the medium one or the fine one?

Hi! I've narrowed down my next pen choice to these two pens: the Plaisir and the HighAce Neo. Both are avaible locally in a mom-and-pop store. The Plaisir is $11 (right now there's a sale, and it's only $8.5), the HighAce is $13. I've only tried the HighAce, and I quite like it. I only have a Preppy. I'm a student, I write a lot, have very small hands, and I would like to use cartridges. I find the HighAce Neo's slimness good (before the Preppy I used a Parker Jotter as my pen), but the Preppy's is also good. Which one would you recommend?

I just picked up a Platinum Preppy EF from Goulet Pens...true to the conversation, the Preppy EF has been a pleasant surprise for a $5 fountain pen. It is actually a smoother nib than the fine, handles ink fairly well, and is comfortable to hold. I plan to pick a couple up. They are great for editing purposes. I am currently inked with Diamine Oxblood and plan to experiment with "drier" inks to see how they handle them.

Hello! First, I'm a noob, so if this has already been addressed at length, and I missed it in my search, I apologize. Now onto my situation....I was given a bottle of 4.5 oz Noodler's HOD for Christmas, and of course this came with a modified eyedropper Platinum Preppy. I was excited to use the pen and bring it to work because everyone says that they really like the pens and they are cheap, so if one walks away from your desk, no biggie. Yesterday, I am writing away, and it begins to leak heavily. Huge drops came from the bottom of the base of the nib where the feed ends. Ink got everywhere. It was a huge mess. I inspected the pen, and it does not appear to be leaking at all from the closure. I checked the O-ring and ensured that the threads were lubed up with silicon grease. I ran water through the nib and feed, dried it, and inspected the parts and put it back together. It has not leaked again...yet. My questions.... (1) Why did this happen? (2) What can I do to prevent this from happening again in the future? (3) Is this a common problem with modified Preppys? If so, I will need to reconsider buying a bunch of these for my desk at work. I work in oncology clinical research, and it would be a disaster of epic proportions if my pen leaked all over a patient's chart or other source documents. I can see the look on the FDA auditors' faces now....YIKES! Any help or advise is greatly appreciated!

I am relatively new to fountain pens, so don't have a big collection of empty pens on hand. I recently ordered a few samples of ink from Goulet Pens, but was only able to try out 3 of 5 due to my lack of suitable pens. I am attempting to find a "signature" ink in my favorite color of teal and am slowly working my way through my collection of samples. I had an idle thought today that I could order several Platinum Preppy pens, transfer all the ink from a sample vial into a pen, then immediately be able to make a writing sample, but also leave it in the pen for storage (labelled in some way of course). As one of my daily use pens runs dry of its test ink, I can use a syringe to transfer ink from the eyedropper into it for trial. Is this a feasible idea? What other options are there for instant gratification ink trials?

Hey guys, I just came from another thread where someone did a review of the Preppy after they glued the body on and instead filled the eyedropper by a small hole + syringe after taking the nib off and that made me think about alternative designs that don't require the silicon grease. This is all just theoretical and I don't own a preppy myself at the moment (I gave mine away to a friend who was fountain-curious). The reason for this is someone in the same thread also mentioned the ability to toss a Lamy nib on the preppy, but that it was very hard to get back out again. I wouldn't mind doing this mod for myself, but I can't be arsed with the re-applying of grease every few fills. So the idea would be to glue / waterproof the threads where the barrel screws on. Then, using a saw and a file, take a little off the very end of the barrel, leaving it open. Use the file to smooth it out and make it flush. I've roughly guesstimated the opening would be about 10mm (which equates to 3/8ths of an inch, according to the interweb). The idea is then to friction seal the end with a small plastic cap: http://www.clipsandfasteners.com/Plastic_Flush_Type_Hole_Plugs_p/pas1302-100.htm http://cdn3.volusion.com/9wsnr.t9nao/v/vspfiles/photos/PAS1302-100-2.jpg?1391549283 http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-8-NPT-Male-Thread-Plastic-Oil-Plug-Yellow-5-Pieces-/230917449481?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35c3c0a709 http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTEwMFgxMTAw/z/FvYAAOxy-sRSX-X7/$(KGrHqR,!nYFJPFq3okfBS(-(6oyU!~~60_57.JPG If you can find a cap size that would fit tightly enough, yet have a little lip over the barrel, you could potentially get an ink-tight seal that could be removed and then replaced for filling. Or if the screw in type work, then that would be even better. Maybe the plastic could be heated and moulded around the screw in yellow type. Just throwing random ideas around, as I said, I don't have the resources atm to try this out for myself. But if anyone with a preppy and plenty of time on their hands wants to give it a go, let me know how it goes. Alternatively, you could drill a smaller hole in the side of the barrel if you could find a smaller plug, that might work better as you could suit the hole to any plugs you could find off hand.

Hello everybody, When I was much younger I had a small collection of Parker FPs and at that age it was basically a case of pearls before swine. I like some of them but in the pursuit of smoothness(back then I felt they weren't) I abandoned them. Now to improve my handwriting and in general get back to FPs, I shopped about and picked up a Schneider FP. Living in India I have relatively few choices and most of the FPs recommended here cost 1.5 times more than they normally do. What I'm looking for is a smooth(I really can't stomach scratchiness), inexpensive FP to get started. I expect to be writing quite a bit - mostly reference notes. The options before me are the: The PlatinumPreppy(the only website with it gives the model code of the Fine 0.3, but displays a 0.5); Parker Vectors(these seem to be popular here, they're stocked in nearly every colour, can't comment on the nibs); the Sheaffer VFM; Pilot Petit1 Pierre Cardin Masterpiece; the Rotring Isograph(I dont think this counts as a FP); lastly the Schneider ID M(this being the most expensive).From reading several reviews and posts I can't help favouring the Preppy. Primarily since it is Japanese(I'm quite a Japanophile), but also because I generally seems to enjoy a good reputation. Especially if I do end up getting the 0.5 the scratchiness will be averted.However this does seem a little hasty. So I look forward to you suggestions. P.S. Unfortunately I couldn't find many inexpensive Pilots or Pelikans here so I haven't included them on the list.

Well, first off let me thank everybody on this site for all the information they have provided me in my research. Probably 5 months ago, I purchased a Lamy Safari (F) with a converter and a bottle of Noodler's Black ink as a starter fountain pen based on the reviews I had seen on here and other places. I was very happy with my purchase as a first pen and it wrote beautifully for the time I had it...it was "misplaced" at work one day and has not been seen since. The Safari was a great intro into fountain pens but was a bit rich to risk losing another one at work. Well, on to my new purchases. I did some more digging for other budget minded pens and came to the decision to purchase two Platinum Preppys and one Pilot Metropolitan. I will start with the Preppys: I got one in 05 and one in 03 to test out how I liked the different nibs. I loaded the supplied cartridges into them and tried them on a variety of paper from my sketchpads, to nice notebook paper, to standard printer paper. On all paper, the 03 preppy was smooth as butter with a nice fine line, the ink was very "watery" for me and became dull once dried. This was not really a big deal and there was very little feathering on any of the paper, just some bloating if you will. The nib on the 03 created a finer line than the F Safari I had and was quite a bit smoother. As I said, this nib is incredibly smooth with ZERO scratch to it at all. The 05 Preppy was a much broader line and the nib did exhibit a bit of scratchy feel but nothing that bothered me, I would say about on par with my Safari nib (not to go into a tangent here, but the Safari went back and got replaced once due to a bad nib, the replacement was much better but still not what I would call ideal). The ink flow out of the 05 was much broader, probably in line with the Varsity pens I have tried, but the ink again was very watery and tended to look quite dull on all papers once dried and did bloat. The pen was a very wet writer, but did not blob or give any adverse writing. I am just not a broad/medium nib person and much preferred the 03 nib. Both pens function very well, start up every time, and are an amazing deal at $3 a piece. I intend to buy at least 1-2 more preppy's and convert one to an eyedropper to replace the ink which I don't enjoy as much with some Noodler's Black I have on hand. Next up, the Metropolitan: I would say this pen is the best of any I have tried to date. The nib creates a nice fine line on par with that of the 03 Preppy but the pen was filled with Noodler's black ink and the difference from the preppy ink is night and day. No bloating, no dulling, it is just a nice fine, dark line. The nib is very smooth, maybe not quite as good as the 03 preppy as it is a tad bit dry, but it never skips and there is no scratch to it. The look of the pen is very nice and I would say it is a better pen than the Safari was and has a finer nib which writes just as well as the Safari did with less scratch to it. If I was going to recommend a pen to somebody new to fountain pens it would definitely be the metropolitan. I am extremely impressed with this pen for the price; however, the squeeze converter is not the best method in my opinion. The first thing I will do with this pen is buy a piston converter which will hopefully hold more ink as well. I have not tested to see how long I can get the pen to write for, but it really doesn't seem to hold much ink with this method. Overall I am extremely pleased with my purchase and would recommend either of these pens. The metropolitan is a bit fancier and an overall better pen, but that might also be from the ink I used which I think made a big difference. The preppy pens are an absolute bargain at their price and are going to make great work pens that I don't really care if I lose. Hopefully the next couple I get for testing eye droppers and converters in them will have nibs as good as the one on the 03 I have now. A little plug for JetPens here, I ordered on Thursday last week and they arrived today with the free shipping, can't beat that. Thanks again for all the great information on this site for leading me to these pens. I almost gave up on fountain pens after I lost the Safari, but I am glad I did not. These pens have made me turn a corner and don't think I will be leaving the fountain pen side for a long time to come.

So i got a bottle of baystate blue.... also got a preppy for obvious reasons... Went well for about 3 days. Wrote great, flowed great, looked great on paper. Then last night, all of a sudden the flow just stopped. .. I noticed the finsin the feed had filled more over the three days, as well as the threads on the barrel even though i iaed silicone grease and an o-ring to convert it to an ED (but not leaking).... I tried wiping the nib (which was covered in the ink,) wiping it with a wet napkin, flossing the tines (best i could without trying to remove tye nib from the feed.... nothing. Tried dropping it nib down into a cup of water and niticed some flow coming out of the nib, so i dried it a bit, but still nothing. Finally, i opened tge barrel and put in 5 or so drops of water. Now after letting it sit, it does write but having bad start issues and will still stop, skip, and all other sorts of annoying things. My question is, what did i do wrong?? Ive heard of people leaving theirs for weeks and picking them up and writing fine!!! :-( im sad because i like the cokor but wont put it in another pen. PLEASE HELP!!!