I love retractable fountain pens. So when I found that Platinum had one I had to give it a try, and I’m glad I did. Overall experience is this is a pretty decent pen, it feels good in hand, and it writes very well. I also got this pen for about half the price of the Pilot Capless. I’m hoping this pen does well as an every day carry. Right now I’ve been using my Lamy Safari for that, but having a retractable that’s both high quality and relatively inexpensive I think might bump my Safari out of that position. The ink also seems to be pretty solid. it’s a good looking blue/black. Though I did read that the ink is on the acidic side.
I really shouldn’t buy more pens, but I kind of want to try the Majohn A2.
I’ve heard both good and bad. From what I’ve gathered quality control is still an issue for Majohn pens. So if you get a good one, they’re actually pretty good, but it’s a dice roll as to weather you will or not.
Glad to hear you like yours! The price is definitely attractive for people. I know some people also don’t like the idea of buying the Majohn VP clone. The plastic design is a plus over the VP. I feel less guilty about treating mines roughly because it’s plastic.
Personally, I don’t like mines. It’s probably the least used FP in my collection. I’m not a fan of how long the knock is, but I can look past that. The actual issue is how quickly mines dries out, far from the promised 6 months. I notice quite a bit of darkening of the ink from evaporation within a few days of no use. The cartridge/converter dries out very quickly considering mine is an EF and my use rate. My VP evaporates much slower in comparison. The VP will last weeks longer at the same rate of use. I suspect the design flaw is that the flip hatch inside the pen does not have enough downward pressure to make a good, airtight seal against the silicone sleeve. I’ve had two so far with the exact same problem. I had the first one replaced since it completely jammed in the silicone sleeve after being used once. I used it once when I got mines, and it jammed immediately when I used it a second time two years later. The sticking point was the silicone sleeve that is supposed to keep the pen sealed. The second one came with a bottle of silicone grease/oil, so I guess that’s how they solved that problem. If yours did not come with a bottle, it’s just an eyedropper of silicone grease, similar to the viscosity of the TWSBI bottles. Platinum packs it with a few cotton tipped sticks.
My experience is not all bad though.
Platinum USA was great about replacing the pen though. It was long out of warranty, but they replaced it for free, no questions asked.
I will give my Curidas one thing, both EF nibs is/were incredibly smooth considering how fine it is. It’s a Japanese EF, so a nib that fine will be scratchy, but wow. One of the smoothest I own at that small size. My EF 3776 is a bit scratchier in comparison.
It’s not a pen I would recommend unless someone has a very specific set of needs and use case. If someone is a high volume user who wants a retractable beater pen and feels uncomfortable about using a clone, the Curidas is a no brainer. I can’t emphasize enough how smooth that EF nib is for its fineness.
I hope you continue to like the pen.
My Curidas dries out faster than my Vanishing Point or my Majohn A1. I think the plastic trap door sometimes doesn’t close fully, which I think is a design flaw. Too bad, because the EF nib is really great.
I have no idea what sort of testing they did to come up with this 6 month number, but I would love to know. It’s like they didn’t actually test the production version or something.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone would argue that the Vanishing Point is a better pen. I have a Capless (Japan market only Vanishing Point, but with “special alloy” nib.) and just about everything about it is a little better. But the Vanishing Point at least as far as retractable fountain pens go is pretty much the gold standard, so the fact that it’s even close says a lot.
I find the plastic design a mixed bag, Overall the construction feels a bit like it won’t have the longevity that some of my other pens will, but maybe it’ll surprise me. It doesn’t feel bad, just not quite as good as say my Lamy Safari. But that kinda’ makes sense considering the Safari was meant for school kids, so it was designed to get bashed around a bit. Like if I were to drop my Safari I think the most I’d be worried about is maybe having the ink spatter inside the cap. I’m not sure the Curidas wouldn’t actually take damage if I dropped it. But, that’s part of the draw of an inexpensive pen, if it does break, it’s easier to replace.
I’m not as concerned with the ink drying out, and so far in normal use I haven’t had any issues with mine acting oddly. That said I usually take the ink out of my pens and clean them if I’m going to not use them for a while. I don’t like to store them inked. I do appreciate the heads up though, and will keep that in mind if I have any troubles of that nature with this pen. It’s probably going to get used every couple days though so it won’t have a lot of time to dry.
And yeah, the knock is surprisingly long on this, almost double that of the Vanishing Point. But I don’t find it makes the pen too unwieldy. One thing that does get me though is that it’s thicker than my Vanishing Point, so it won’t fit in the pen loop of my notebook. That’s not a deal breaker either though, as I’m just as happy to carry it in my shirt pocket and stick a pencil in there for the notebook. It’s handy for putting in tentative dates anyway.It’s good to hear Platinum stands behind their pens, that says a lot about them as a company. Nothing makes me less interested in being a repeat buyer than poor customer service.
I noticed this too. Mine’s a medium but right from the start it’s very smooth. I also kind of like that it’s a fatter pen. While it’s not great for fitting in my notebook pen holder, it is pretty comfortable (at least to me) to write with. Those two things together make it something I’ve enjoyed using the last couple days. I’ve put down about 6 pages with it in that time and my hand didn’t get tired of it.
I guess we’ll see what the future brings. If it holds up and keeps working well I can overlook it’s negatives and overall continue to like the pen quite a bit. And I will admit as someone specifically liking retractable fountain pens I’m definitely a “specific set of needs” case.As a first experience with Platinum pens I’d say for me it’s been a good one.
Unfortunately, my use case with the Curidas is 1 to 2 paragraphs most days with an EF nib that barely sips ink. While I use it enough for it to not clog, mines remains filled for long enough and uses little enough to really notice the evaporation issues. If I bought this pen again, I would definitely go for the medium or broad nib so I could cycle the ink quicker.
I find even the medium I have tends to sip ink. Maybe it has to do with the Japanese pens writing thinner in general.
