Sometimes email brings exciting news. If you have been waiting for the new Platinum #3776 pens, Pen Chalet has just the thing for you. Not only do they have the Century Chartres Blue with rhodium trim and the Century Black Diamond, they have lots of nib sizes in the other models including my favorite music nib on three Century models, Black with gold trim, Bourgogne and Chartres Blue. I’m tapped out, but you aren’t, right? So what are you waiting for? Oh, Pen Chalet has free shipping on orders over $50. Go for it, pen friends. Go for it!

Little “No Name” kept me company over an extra long week. Hope the coming week is shorter and that she gets a real name. Either way she is sweet, vocal, cuddly and eager to learn more tricks like today’s surprise, jumping into my lap and climbing up to my shoulder without assistance. She’s a Havanese and only a year old as the puppy coat will attest. I am lucky to have found her after three years scouring the listings of rescue groups and attending adoption events. Expect to see more of her in future even if she isn’t into fountain pens which is probably a good thing. One addict in the family is quite enough.

Platinum makes excellent pens that easily rank amongst my favorites. Thanks to the generosity of Carol at Luxury Brands LLC, I now have the #3776 Century Nice (rose gold) and Nice Pur (rhodium) to enjoy and review. Note that I placed “enjoy” before “review” which says a lot.

Century Nice pens have an unusual design that reminds me of cut crystal. The resin is not smooth like my Chartres Blue, but has diamond cut stripes along the transparent barrel and cap. The section is smooth and fits comfortably in my hand. The threads line up under my thumb which might be a problem for some users. However, with my light grip, this went unnoticed.

#3776 Century pens are medium sized and do not require posting to be well balanced. They have the “Slip and Seal” mechanism that keeps ink fluid despite long lapses in use. There is a brochure in six languages that explains how it works as well as how to maintain it. Just for the record, the five Century pens I’ve taken for a spin have all worked perfectly right out of the box. None have required special care and all have performed as well as any pen in my collection.

Here is where the two pens differ. The Nice has rose gold trim and a 14kt rose gold nib. The Nice Pur has a 14 kt gold rhodium plated nib with rhodium trim. If you are hooked on matchy-matchy, the converter has stainless bits that suit the Pur, but are slightly at odds with the rose gold Nice. The light reflective nature of the barrel reduces the contrast so that the color difference is minimized.

Note that there is no discoloration of the rose gold nib, but there is a significant reflection in the photo. It really is rose gold as you can see in the other photos. The diamond cut stripes are about the width of a finger nail and very smooth which makes them light-reflective. It’s an attractive effect.

The Nice came with a medium nib, my first on a Platinum pen. It is a bit wider than expected with very good flow and is a real treat on Clairefontaine and Rhodia paper. It offers good control over letter shapes and I found it a fine complement to my natural letter forms. The broad nib on the Nice Pur is quite substantial and very wet. Both nibs work best with a light touch. Digging in too deeply will cause the them to become chatty. With light pressure neither nib produces feedback though with a heavy hand, the medium will give a hint of it. They don’t skate over paper, but do provide orientation.

The Nice filled with the aqua colored Waterman South Sea Blue is a delightful addition to the various tools on my desk, but it is lovely with burgundy, blue and some greens as well. Catching a glimpse of colorful ink gives a lift to any writing task so the Nice adds a little inspiration to my day.

The clear resin body combined with rhodium furnishings makes the Nice Pur a neutral colored pen except for the ink visible in the converter. For those who match ink to pen, this model presents no restrictions. The writing sample is Diamine Emerald though any ink will suit and that’s the ultimate in versatility.

Want a little attention for your refined and discerning taste in pens? Just place a Platinum Century Nice on your desk and watch the reactions. Even in my fountain pen friendly family, these pens earned an unusual measure of comment and admiration. Pretty cool, eh?

(The Platinum #3776 Century Nice is PNB-20000R #5 ROSE and the Platinum #3776 Century Nice Pur is PNB-20000R #4 PUR just in case you want to order one from your favorite retailer.)

In case you wondered what happened to reviews, my Canon A700 has been producing degraded images of late. Getting things in focus has been a challenge and color accuracy has been iffy at best. To get things back on track, I’ve borrowed a Canon SX160IS that makes images that are much more clear and detailed. We are just getting acquainted and there is a learning curve to be negotiated, but I hope to get back to business in a few days.

In the interim, here are links to some of the products that will get individual posts in the next few weeks. To get the reviews to you as quickly as possible, the text will be pithy but enough to convey the good, the bad and the ugly should there be any.

Few new pens have landed on the Inkophile desk in recent years resulting in a scarcity of pen reviews. So a bit of pen praise will have to suffice.

Much as I enjoy a wide variety of fountain pens, certain ones stand out. The frequency with which they find slots in my rotation is the proof, but the ease with which I use them is just as telling. For stock nibs, Platinum is the clear winner especially the Century broad nib and the #3776 Music nib models.

My Platinum pens came from Dick Egolf of Luxury Brands a year and a half ago. Best gift ever!

The Century has never found its perfect ink companion. The #3776 has never met an ink it didn’t make look good. Funny how some pens struggle to find the perfect mate while others will mate with any ink perfectly.

The Pelikans took many years to collect and came from auctions and private parties. The M250 has a fine italic nib that might or might not have been modified. The M215 was ground to an italic as was the nib on the blue M200. The gray M200 has an oblique broad nib that was not original to the pen. The M400 has a stock fine nib that is amazingly smooth.

The Pelikans are a bit more finicky though work well with Waterman, Diamine and J. Herbin. Not that any brand won’t do, but I like less saturated inks in the Pels, especially those with ink windows.

Efforts to enable aside, both pen manufacturers make well-constructed pens of very different styles. The nibs from Platinum are more narrow than those from Pelikan, but that is typical of Japanese and western pens.

So that’s the core of my rotation. Other pens come and go especially the Namiki (Pilot) Falcons, a couple of custom Lamy Safaris and an assortment of single pens. I’m not a brand snob though I would gladly become one with enough of the right pens. Or at least I would like to try.

Just for fun, drool over these Pelikan and Platinum maki-e fountain pens. Are they not gorgeous?