Platignum pen

April 9, 2014

liked the color, nice pen.

April 14, 2014

I would doubt their life span if used on a daily basis. I have others too, my Silverline doesn't screw well to the barrel or the cap, others I have are fitted with nasty plastic tops to the clips which are painted silver to mimic chrome, and comes off on your hand like glitter. Loads for sale at giveaway prices. I remember these pens as stocking fillers for Christmas that you never used, or gifts from seaside holidays.

I have a Platignum Silverline. I bought mine in the mid-'70s, I think. I was just hankering after a fountain pen and that had been advertised in the New York Times by the company with copy that sounded like it was written by a true zealot for writing with “the Italic hand.”

I went to Manhattan and got it from the place, although it looked like they were a mail order operation. I plunked down my cash and they gave me a box with a pen and some nib/feed/sleeve assemblies in it.

I used that fountain for quite a few years after that. It kept on working. It was an aerometric filler. I still have it.

About 35 years after I'd bought it I looked at it again and the sleeve of the nib and feed that I'd preferred had cracked, probably from the plastic aging. So I found that I could remove the nib and feed and slip them into one of the four uncracked sleeves and the pen worked just fine again.

I don't use it now, I have a sufficiency of fountain pens that actually have tipping material on them now, but I have it around and could use it again if I wanted to. Tipping material on a nib is definitely a step up. Maybe I got a really good Silverline, and that's why it lasted with daily use for years.