Category: The Office Desk



Pen Review, Platinum Preppy, Fountain Pen

Posted on February 3, 2016 by - Fountain Pens, The Office Desk

The Platinum Preppy is a common recommendation for people interested in getting into fountain pens or trying out a fountain pen for the first time. At $3.00 per pen, it’s a great way for someone to hold, try and test a starting level fountain pen before investing in something a little more expensive. With that having been said, the Preppy is a good starter pen, but it is just that.

The Platinum Preppy Pen Stats

Model: Preppy
Make: Platinum
Type: Demonstrator Fountain Pen
Tip Size: 0.3mm, Fine
Nib Type: Steel Nib, Standard
Body Material: Plastic Body
Tested On: Kokuyo Lined, Rhodia Dotted & Staples Lined Paper

The Pictures

Platinum Preppy, 0.3 Fine on Staples Lined.

Platinum Preppy, 0.3 Fine on Staples Lined.

Platinum Preppy, 0.3 Fine on Rhodia Dotted.

Platinum Preppy, 0.3 Fine on Rhodia Dotted.

Platinum Preppy, 0.3 Fine on Kokuyo Lined.

Platinum Preppy, 0.3 Fine on Kokuyo Lined.

Platinum Preppy, Top View

Platinum Preppy, Top View

Platinum Preppy, Deconstructed Side View

Platinum Preppy, Deconstructed Side View

Platinum Preppy, Nib View

Platinum Preppy, Nib View

Platinum Preppy, Side View

Platinum Preppy, Side View

Platinum Preppy, Side View

Platinum Preppy, Side View

 

Review of the Platinum Preppy Pen

I had a fountain pen when I was much younger. It was a sac-fill system which means that you have a sac that you use to draw ink into in order to use. This was in the late-80s to early-90s in Vietnam. I remember having to clean it, dispel the ink after a week and soak it before re-inking it. This was a long time ago when I was in grade school so I don’t remember much about that pen, what make or model or even the kind of ink. And I only know what color the ink was because saw some of my old notes from when I went to school back then. For a long time, I figured fountain pens were too expensive to get into and I had resigned myself to pens that you could buy in a pack of 20 at the grocery store. So when I discovered the world of affordable, starter fountain pens, I was thrilled.

I noticed the Platinum Preppy was a common recommendation for beginners or people just looking to get started in fountain pens (it really can be a slippery slope) so I decided to give it a try. At $3.00 per pen, the Preppy is marketed as a starter and while you can buy refills for it and even use a converter (more on that later), it really works well as a disposable pen to test the waters before you dive in.

From my writing tests, the Preppy does very well for a fountain pen at this price range. I have two pictured above, but only tested the 0.3 or Fine nib. It will lay down a decent amount of ink, especially given that it’s a fine nib and has a fair amount of glide and smoothness. People who have gotten into other fountain pens will be able to tell you about this “buttery” writing feel where the nib glides so smoothly along the paper. The Preppy lacks that in my opinion. But at the same time, you can’t really expect it to have the feel and it does a good enough job that this will still feel better than scratching your way around with a fine tipped rollerball.

It skipped a couple of times on the Kokuyo paper, skipped several times on the Rhodia dotted, but was fairly consistent on the Staples paper, however I noticed a lot of unintentional line variations on the Staples paper. Probably due to the quality of the paper more than the pen itself.

When you purchase the Preppy, you’re getting the pen and an ink cartridge included. Platinum has a wide variety of colors and nib sizes. You can get the pen and cartridge in black, blue, green, purple, pink, red and blue black (as far as I know) and nib sizes come in extra fine, fine and medium. You can also get refill ink cartridges with whichever color you’d like, these are typically inexpensive and come in packs of 2, 6 or 12: Platinum Preppy Ink Refill Cartridges

If you decide that you really love your Platinum Preppy and want to keep using it but don’t want to use cartridges or feel like you need to have more color options, the Preppy is compatible with Platinum’s twist-style converter: Platinum Fountain Pen Converter

All that having been said, as far as writing feel for a fountain pen goes, pushing aside the price point and the fact that this is a starter pen, the Preppy is only OK. It’s not anywhere near as smooth a writer as other fountain pens, it has a nice form factor but there’s a lot of branding covering the demonstrator body (that’s when a fountain pen has a clear body so you can see through to the cartridge, converter and sometimes the other elements of the pen too) and a giant warning label on the side, so it defeats the purpose of a clear-bodied pen a little bit. It also skips more than other fountain pens I’ve used and tried, and it really struggles and skips a ton when I’m trying to lay down a line really fast like a signature for example.

Available On:
Amazon, Platinum Preppy, Fine Nib (0.3mm) 7 Colors SetJetpens, Platinum Preppy



Pen Review: Morning Glory, Mach 3 Pen

Posted on January 4, 2016 by - Rollerball Pens, The Office Desk

The Morning Glory, Mach 3 was one of the first pens that presented itself when I went digging in my stash. The one I have is an emerald green that lays down the same color ink. It has a nice form factor, with a decent balance and is somewhat reminiscent of a semi-skeleton or semi-demonstrator fountain pen. It is, however, a liquid ink rollerball. That means it has a body filled with ink and dispenses it through a ball mechanism on the tip.

The Mach 3 Pen Stats

Model: Mach 3
Make: Morning Glory
Type: Liquid Ink Rollerball
Tip Size: 0.38mm
Body Material: Plastic
Tested On: Kokuyo Lined, Rhodia Dotted & Staples Lined Paper

The Pictures

You’ll have to excuse my terrible photography skills. I haven’t done anything photography related in almost a decade. I’ve tried to get the nicest, clearest and decently lit photos I could!

Morning Glory, Mach 3, Tip

Morning Glory, Mach 3, Tip

Morning Glory, Mach 3, Staples Lined

Morning Glory, Mach 3, Staples Lined

Morning Glory, Mach 3, Rhodia Dotted

Morning Glory, Mach 3, Rhodia Dotted

Morning Glory, Mach 3, Kokuyo Lined

Morning Glory, Mach 3, Kokuyo Lined

Morning Glory, Mach 3, Cap Off

Morning Glory, Mach 3, Cap Off

Morning Glory, Mach 3, Body

Morning Glory, Mach 3, Body

Review of the Mach 3 Pen

The Morning Glory, Mach 3 pen has a nice glide for the most part. It dispenses a consistent line the majority of the time and the emerald green is vibrant and pleasant. One of the reasons why I test on lower quality lined paper as well as the higher quality papers is because some of these pens might end up surprising me in a write test. The Mach 3 is one such pen.

It laid the most even line on the Staples Lined Paper, and struggled a little bit on the Rhodia. It was mostly consistent on the Kokuyo, but I have to admit that its best and most consistent test came out on the lowest quality paper I tested it on, which just so happens to be the Staples. Happily, the chances of most people writing their notes on Rhodia or Kokuyo are less than people writing their notes on a sheet of Hillroy or Staples brand. The pictures above will show how it did on the Rhodia, you can see it struggled on ‘achieved’, ‘know’ and the loops, the Kokuyo went mostly well until it got to ‘that’, the loops and ‘fastly’.

The pen is a little tiring to hold if your grip has it resting on your middle digit. This only happens to me at around the half hour mark though. It’s a full plastic body, and the grip is of the same material. The sizing and weight are fine, tending to be a little lighter than most of the pens I have. Something about the grip doesn’t allow it to be comfortable in my hand. Though, I’m always of the opinion that what feels good to me might not be true for someone else, so always take my grip impressions with a grain of salt until you try it yourself.

I’m overall pleased with the Mach 3. It’s a nice feeling writer that’s mostly consistent and the line quality is pretty good. Generally what I noticed with these liquid ink pens is that if you don’t have a very quick writing speed, the lines will tend to be more consistent and you won’t experience any skipping as you go. Another thing that I might be experiencing here is the slant at which I tend to hold my pens, if you angle the pen so that it’s a bit more perpendicular to the paper, you might get a better consistency in line quality.

I love the color of the emerald green I have and this line comes in black, blue, green, lime green, red, orange, pink light blue, purple and more. The color selection alone is a winner in my book. Mach 3s sell for $2.00 each so you can freely experiment with colors or even get one to try out and see if it will fit your writing style. At the moment, I’m unaware of the Morning Glory, Mach 3 pen having any other tip size than 0.38mm, which most people would consider to be a fine line.

Available On:
Amazon, Morning Glory Mach 3 Roller Ball Pen – 0.38 mm-Fine Point Tip (Pack of 12)
Jet Pens, Selection of Morning Glory Mach 3 Rollerball Pens



Stationary and Writing Instrument Reviews, Ahoy

Posted on December 30, 2015 by - Generally Speaking, The Office Desk

As one of the sad side effects of website design, development and coding in general, my handwriting has suffered. I’ve been coding since middle school, and like many others, I type much faster than I can write. Therefore, I prefer typing whenever possible or when I need to note something down very quickly. Which in this line of work–is a lot. I’ve taken up writing my notes instead of typing them in an effort to do two things:

  1. Help me remember things better. I find the physical act of putting words and code onto a page helps them stick better than typing it up.
  2. Improve my handwriting and help me get better at hand lettering.

As much as I enjoy the code, I’m a designer at heart and hand lettering has been one of those late blooming passions that I discovered can be really relaxing and very satisfying. I’m not great at it, but it’s a hobby and hobbies are meant to be fun. I also enjoy trying out different pens, inks, brushes, brush pens that I’ve amassed and used quite a few by now. So I wanted to add another function and feature to this blog: stationary and writing instrument reviews.

I’ve used a lot of pens and have a lot lying around. It used to be a pretty simple exercise. Need to write something down? Reach for the closest Bic. And while Bics are easy to find, and they work well enough. I’ve found a little more satisfaction in other pens since then. I was also that kid in school who lamented having fun pens to write notes and was always on the look out for the “holy grail” pen that provided the best flow of ink, the best writing feel wrapped in a comfortable grip. So I’ve tried a lot of different pens as I discovered how much I really, really like to write things down.

This isn’t a new thing I’m launching into doing either. It’s a little known tidbit about me, but I’ve kept three to four blogs before. Most of them gone by now, but the one that still remains is That Smell, a fragrance and perfume reviewing blog. It taught me a lot about the fragrance industry, the science behind it, the trends, the big and small players and I met a lot of amazing people. That Smell is still going, though decidedly less strong than it used to since coding, freelancing and designing have (happily) taken up my life.

But putting perfume reviews here would be a little awkward since software, design and websites don’t have much to do with perfumes (unless a perfume house needs a new website *nudge nudge*). But stationary, writing, hand lettering and the tools used to write do have to do with my line of work. So starting in 2016, we’re going to see pen, stationary and office tool reviews and articles as a way to spread things out between software, coding and design related posts.

Long story short, it’s my blog and I want to have some fun. See you in 2016!