Platinum Cool, Medium Nib Vs Fine Nib

[bluebellrose]

I've fallen in love with the Platinum Cool and decided to get one. I like being able to see the ink flow inside a pen. Now I'm debating which nib size to get. And if I'd be happy with the medium nib or not.Thing is a pen shop all the way across the country over in Quebec is selling the Platinum Cool at a discount with free delivery. And since I don't have access to a Platinum dealer as Mine seems to have stopped being a Platinum dealer despite still stocking Noodlers, albiet a very tiny selection last I was there, I'm left with ordering online sight unseen. Although i could ask Vancouver Pen shop if they consider getting the brands. >_> Might as well, Perks ain't stocking the stuff anymore.

 

I'm not sure about which nib size I should settle on. If I settle on the fine, then I get to pay more and deal with shipping but at the same time, I'd be ordering other stuff as well like ink samples! And if I settle on the medium then I actually pay less with free shipping thrown in since the free shipping threshold is 35 dollars.

 

Help! Some advice please! I even looked at Brians review and I still can't decide. I like writing small. My paper selection isn't all the best. And I do want to use up my hoard of paper that bleeds with 0.7 energels and doesn't bleed with the 0.3s.

 

And then I'm wondering if I should get preppies instead, Platinum changed the plastic to polycarbonate, that indestructible stuff for water bottles.

[iruciperi]

Is it gonna be your first fountain pen? if not, what's the pen you are using? It strongly depends on your writing style.

 

Platinum is in my experience one of the manufacturers producing the finest nibs in the market. Their "F" means really fine.. I don't have Platinum Cool, but my Platinum Preppy with "F" nib and Platinum 3776 Century with "SF" nib draws a lot narrower line than any other pen I've experienced. Most of "EF" from European manufacturers would be broader than Platinum's "F".

 

 

If you have no reference, I would recommend you to go with the medium nib. It would be fine enough for most peopel.

[eawtan]

I recommend getting preppy F and M to check out the line width first.

I have 3x Cool in F and always wished the Cool had an EF option. Currently preppy EF is still my fav width..

[ParkerDuofold]

Hi BBR,

 

You might find this video helpful:

 

http://youtu.be/u51HSPFterw

 

 

Personally, I would opt for the medium on most Asian-branded pens since they typically run finer to start with. I like Platinum's medium nibs... their smooth and wet... most of the time.

 

 

- Anthony

[senzen]

I have a Platinum cool in FM and another one in M; the FM is "ok", not scratchy but nothing special; the M is much smoother, wetter and brings out the best of inks, currenlty Asa Gao but also Souten; unfortunately the M pen always had starting problems which I could never fix, not even with the crazy "break the feed" method. I ended up swapping nibs and giving up on the old M body. It's no scientific way of determining if all Cool M nibs are this nice, or if 50% of all Cools fail to start... It's been such a bad experience I've put off all Platinum pen purchases and would rather try Pilot or Sailor demonstrators, which sell for even less (speerbob sometimes has the Pilot).

 

All three Platinum converters I got were stiff, I would recommend getting some silicone grease to make them smoother. That M nib is still equivalent to european F nibs.

 

[ENewton]

I have the Platinum Balance, which is the same as the Cool but opaque. Mine is a medium and writes a line of about the same width as my Western fine points.

 

I have found the pen itself to be very reliable, with an interestingly soft nib.

 

I would, however, suggest that you immediately get an extra converter. I have written with fountain pens on a daily basis for more than twenty years and never had a converter fail until I got my first Platinum about 2 1/2 years ago. I am now on my third converter.

[bluebellrose]

  On 1/8/2018 at 10:35 AM, iruciperi said:

Is it gonna be your first fountain pen? if not, what's the pen you are using? It strongly depends on your writing style.

 

Platinum is in my experience one of the manufacturers producing the finest nibs in the market. Their "F" means really fine.. I don't have Platinum Cool, but my Platinum Preppy with "F" nib and Platinum 3776 Century with "SF" nib draws a lot narrower line than any other pen I've experienced. Most of "EF" from European manufacturers would be broader than Platinum's "F".

 

 

If you have no reference, I would recommend you to go with the medium nib. It would be fine enough for most peopel.

techically no, I started with a dollar store fountain pen, a Wing Sung for the Selectum Brand to be precise. Then I moved onto the Daiso demostrator fps. However the Platinum Rivivere I bought from Daiso had no getting and going, Only works as a dip pen. And a couple of platinum preppies in fine point apparently.

I just got preppies in the mail that I ordered last month. Was a couple of hello kitty preppies. I was interested in the capped cart that came with the preppy.

Edited January 9, 2018 by bluebellrose

[bluebellrose]

I'm leaning towards a fine point mostly because the Platinum preppy fine point has a similar line width visually with a daiso medium point fountain pen. I don't have another fine point japanese pen to compare it with though. Maybe with a pilot metro in the same vein

Edited January 9, 2018 by bluebellrose

[almoore]

  On 1/8/2018 at 11:08 AM, eawtan said:

I recommend getting preppy F and M to check out the line width first.

I have 3x Cool in F and always wished the Cool had an EF option. Currently preppy EF is still my fav width..

+1

 

Definitely get a couple of Preppy's and try them out, they're not expensive and I've had them running on converters for testing inks, although the advice I read was to load the converter separately and this worked for me. They should help you decide.

 

I have the Cool with a medium nib and its just lovely to use, so I would recommend it.

 

Al

Edited January 10, 2018 by almoore

[bluebellrose]

  On 1/10/2018 at 12:55 AM, almoore said:

+1

 

Definitely get a couple of Preppy's and try them out, they're not expensive and I've had them running on converters for testing inks, although the advice I read was to load the converter separately and this worked for me. They should help you decide.

 

I have the Cool with a medium nib and its just lovely to use, so I would recommend it.

 

Al

Platinum changed the line width on their newer preppies so unless they also changed the line width on their higher end models as well, preppies can't help much. My .3 preppy writes like a .5 with similar line width that my Platinum Riviere produces. So now I can't tell between the medium and the fine points.

[Noihvo]

  On 1/10/2018 at 9:45 AM, bluebellrose said:

Platinum changed the line width on their newer preppies so unless they also changed the line width on their higher end models as well, preppies can't help much. My .3 preppy writes like a .5 with similar line width that my Platinum Riviere produces. So now I can't tell between the medium and the fine points.

Edited January 14, 2018 by Noihvo

[cattar]

The Cool has a different nib and feed than the Preppy.

Agree that the current F .03 Preppys write wider, like last edition's M .05
Good candidates for grinding to narrow stubs.

The GouletPens nib nook looks accurate for a comparison between the Cool/Balance and the last edition of the Preppy/Plaisir.

The nib tipping on the Cool F is narrower than on the current Preppy F .03, but the Cool is a wetter pen.

I have a Cool in F.
The pen wrote wetter and wider than I prefer with the Platinum ink.
So the pen gets filled with a drier ink so it will write a narrower line.
With the Platinum ink, the Cool wrote at about .05
With the Pelikan ink, the Cool writes at about an .03

Platinum converters work well. I'm still using the one that came with the pen. The gold cover starts to unscrew every few fills, but it quickly screws back in place so this is insignificant to me.

Sounds like you're used to the Preppy.
Both Cool and Preppy nibs write on a sweet spot, they're not round balls. When I hand a pen to someone, even newbies find the sweet spot easily on a Preppy, but not as easily on the Cool. I wonder if it's the big shiny chrome-plated nib that's so distracting.

 

Both Cool and Preppy will write a thinner line or skip when rolled off the sweet spot. It's not a problem with the pen, it's the writer. Most people tend to roll the wrist or roll the pen in the hand while writing, even I do sometimes. The pens are useful to practice writing without rolling.

Since they don't dry out, my Cool and Preppys are always inked. I often carry one in my bag.

A lot of folks on FPN prefer wet, wide and smooth nibs, and people often suggest what they prefer. Keep that in mind when asking advice.
If you like finer nibs, get the F. If you like wider nibs, get the M. Tune the line width with wetter/drier ink.
If you want something to use up bleeding paper, try a drier ink in a Preppy.

Edited January 15, 2018 by cattar

[inkeverywhere]

I have two Cools in blue, one being a fine and the other is a medium. I bought these two pens to try and decide on a nib for a 3776 purchase. I have owned them for a little while now.

 

My findings:

 

1. As others have said the fine is quite fine and I find it a pleasure to write with, it is not in constant rotation but I do use it now and then. The fine on the 3776 is finer than the Cool, BUT the 3776 is a gold nib. Overall not a bad steel nib. Remember a Japanese nib usually runs finer than western nibs.

 

2. The medium was not a nib I really liked, my opinion is there is a great deal of width difference between the two. The medium, as also stated by others, was much wetter and wider than I had expected. I have began "trying" to grind the medium into something I may enjoy more, and I emphasize the word trying.

 

You are about to learn a valuable lesson on buying online, you can't try before you buy. I don't think, if we are all honest about it, anyone hasn't bought online and found they bought the "wrong" size nib.

 

Good luck with your choice.

 

 

 

Greg

[Pichak]

I love them both. However if I have to choose I will keep the Medium one because sometime the Fine is too fine for me.

 

 

[Bluey]

With Sailor there's MF and with Pilot there's FM but Platinum doesn't have[at least not that I have heard of] any such equivalent width, so that may be the reason for why there is a large jump in nib width between Platinum fine and Platinum medium.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Bluey

[Quadratus]

I would recommend the medium nib as these are ‘fine’ by western standards, (Japanese nibs being generally one size smaller than their names suggest).

Enjoy the pen!

[bluebellrose]

It seems my luck has changed and I can get it locally, I am given the chance to get a free fill when buying the pen

[bluebellrose]

I settled on the fine and it seems to have the same width as the preppy extra fine. Having a little trouble with the sweet spot and it skipping. Not as much with the extra fine preppy. The wetness of the cool seems to have made the Parker Quink I put it come out black instead of grey

[A Smug Dill]

I have two Platinum Balance pens with Fine nibs. (Actually, three now, but one is still new in the box. By the way, while I understand the demonstrator models are marketed as Platinum Cool in some corner of the world, all seven colours – four opaque and three transparent – are Platinum Balance pens as far as the company's head office is concerned, with exactly the same design and technical specifications.) They don't write equally as fine as each other out-of-the-box. One is finer than the Platinum Plaisir (and therefore also the Preppy) Fine nib, and the other writes broader.