Platinum 100Th Anniversary Book

December 4, 2019

Platinum will sell the 100th Anniversary book - in the MOOK (magazine book) format starting December 18.

Prereservation started today(?).

1859 Yen @Amazon, Yodobashi and a variety of bookstores.

December 7, 2019

That's the one that came with the 100th Anniversary pen, right? Am I remembering wrong or does it have both English and Japanese descriptions?

December 7, 2019

Hopefully.

The problem is Amazon and the like doesn't give any information about the page number, they all focus on the fact there are are some cheap Platinum pens with it.

Certain is that this is not the exact version of the anniversary book. I have heard that the book was hardcover but the MOOK format here is magazine (the M in MOOK) format.

Hopefully the contents are the same. But it could be different too. On the 18th, I will know.

Edited December 8, 2019 by mke

January 2, 2020

Did anyone find out if it was in English and Japanese?

January 3, 2020

I have a copy of the book, if it can be called one. It is in Japanese only except for some titles of pens and topics and about 16 pages. It pretends to be a history of Platinum Pen Co. Except for some small images from a poster there is little of the many pens of yesteryear.

I have several books on Japanese pens. Both Nakazono and Sunami/Lambrou's FPOJ do a much better job. If I were to guess, Platinum does not have any historic pens in their vault and has little to show. Am hoping this is wrong and a comprehensive history can be printed.

The book is in my opinion an advertisement for the Preppy model. You get two 100th Anniversary model Preppy's with the book. I'm not up on Preppy design and colors. It seems they are standard issue with some 100th Anniversary printing on the barrels. The pens come wrapped in plastic. Did not open mine. It may be the nibs are anniversary nibs.

Unless you are hard-core pass on the book unless you can get it at or lower than the price of two Preppy's.

January 3, 2020

Another FPN member saved me from getting this book - just an hour or so before it was sent to me.

Regarding old Platinum pens, I think they still have some in storage. There was an exhibition at Itoya last year where they showed a number of them. I also saw the real anniversary book which is an add to the high-priced anniversary pens from last year. That book has some really nice pictures.

It is a pity that Platinum (and other companies, authors) need to make LEs even of books, like the Namiki book e.g. - I am sure they would even earn more money if they sold them without being LE. But these publishers/editors/authors do not care about the average person.

January 3, 2020

Thanks everyone, after posting here I looked through some of the reviews on Amazon Japan (using the built in machine translation). Most of them were complaining about the value for money. One did mention it only being 16 pages, but I wasn't entirely sure I believed the translation!

Sixteen pages is indeed rough, and doesn't seem in keeping with what one expects from the 'mook' format.