Reviews Written by jhinkel

  Bought these inks for..., August 1, 2011

Bought these inks for a quick and easy way to force myself to try colors other than black, blue and blue-black >_< ... as it so happens, these inks come in cutesy little bottles that close nice and tight, and happen to write rather nicely in the quick test with a Zebra G-Nib that I did. The colors are nice and bright/vibrant and the scents are spot on... or so my mother, who loves/grows flowers, confirmed since a flower is pretty much a flower to me. I can attest that the apple and the orange are nice and fruity. The colors seem to vary in their water resistance as well. I was particularly impressed that you could not only smell the scents while writing, but you could smell them from a foot or two away even about half an hour after drying on the page! I can imagine someone taking notes would freshen a classroom with this stuff. All in all this is a great deal if you can't seem to break into different colors, and don't want to commit to a larger vial of a single color. Of course they would also make a fantastic gift for anyone who is into scrap-booking or making greeting cards, etc. I only took a point away because the little ink bottles are not individually labeled, so just grab out some paper and write up labels for them as you test them out and tape the sniffable strips to the vials.

  The Platinum Preppy is..., February 2, 2011

The Platinum Preppy is one of the first few fountain pens I've owned/used, and as cheap as it is... this is a great pen. I give it good marks for having a very buttery writing experience, as well as good flow even after you ignore it for a few days. The Blue-Black is somewhat light but I still like the slight variations in the shade of blue. If I have anything that I would improve in this pen... well I love fine lines so an extra-fine nib would be ideal, because for me the fine nib seems fairly thick almost like a .5-.7mm ballpoint/gel pen line. Also, probably attributed to low cost and being clear, the plastic in the cap and barrel is pretty fragile. The second time I used my pen, I slightly twisted the cap as I removed it. This cracked the barrel about 3 places, easily remedied with some clear tape... even If I got a defective barrel, I think a matte finished black body on these pens would not only help aesthetics but probably allow more durable plastics to be used. If I return to the Platinum brand on my next order, I might give their Plaisir line a go... they seem like a more robust version of these little beauties.

P.S. the coloring on my nib started coming off almost immediately, now I have a half blue, half silver colored nib... this did NOT effect performance.