I could have sworn I wrote about this pen before. I’ve owned a couple of them and I’ve known the story forever but, no, I didn’t write about it!

If you think of Platignums as cheap and shabby pens this one will come as a surprise. It’s soundly made throughout and it has a good hooded nib, common at the time and perhaps helpful in preventing drying out. The chromed cap was fashionable in the fifties. Altogether a great pen from the house of Mentmore, one would say.

Except that, like the Parker 61 and the Waterman X Pen, it’s a capillary filler. These pens aren’t entirely disasters though their faults were discovered early which affected sales. There are plenty of capillary 61s around but the Platignum 100 and Waterman X Pen are uncommon. All capillary fillers are hard to flush. I would go so far as to say that the Platignum and Waterman are utterly impossible to flush to clean water, so whatever ink you begin with you’d better like, because you’ll have to continue with it – unless you like strange unintended mixtures.

I haven’t found a good explanation but Mentmore must have come to some arrangement with Waterman (or maybe they hoped Waterman wasn’t looking) as the Platignum is very similar to the Waterman patent. Capillary fillers work well enough, to a point. Attempts at flushing will revive them for a time but ultimately the capillary material will grow tired and hold less and less ink. So this isn’t a vintage everyday writer; more a historical document in steel and plastic. Every collector should have one of these: the British capillary pen! This one’s a splendid example with box and papers.

Thanks to Penny at stillmorestuff. Item is here: https://rb.gy/kknnau