Honest Cartridge

Some Chronicles ago I spoke about the Platinum Honest 60 pen. That was, let us remember, the first cartridge/converter pen made by this manufacturer.


Now we might not like the system that much, but it was a great improvement at the time—and even now. “Good bye, ink bottle”, was the argument of the advertisement campaign. Little did they know about marketing ink bottles fifty-plus years later, and that despite the fact that Platinum/Nakaya does not sell any self-filling pen.


Recently, I found one of those original cartridges from the 1950s. And sure it says it belonged to the Honest 60 pen.

"PLATINUM" / SPARE INK / HONEST "60" / BLUE BLACK INK. That is the inscription on the cartridge.

Much as the modern Platinum cartridges, this old one has a metal ball inside to favor the ink flow into the feed. But there are some important differences between old and new cartridges. Their openings have different sections and the current ones do not fit smoothly on the old Honest 60, and neither the current converter does. Certainly an inconvenient for those who wanted the use the first cartridge/converter pen by Platinum. Some arrangement should be devised.


I found this unused cartridge in the box of a non-Platinum pen from around 1960. The Honest 60 cartridge was its service cartridge. But this will be the argument of another Chronicle.

(Pilot Custom 74 Demonstrator – Diamine Teal)

Bruno Taut
August 17th, 2011
[labels: Platinum, conversor]