Evolution

Let us remember now that all the Presidente pens I have seen were aerometric fillers. And they were based on the first cartridge pens ever made in Japan—the Platinum Honest 60 and its later evolution the Honest 66.

Two Presidentes.

Platinum Honest 66, on the back, and Honest 60 on the front.

How do those filling structures compare?

On the top, a Platinum Honest 60 with its Honest cartridge. On the bottom a Presidente with the squeezer removed from the section.

A further step in disassembling the pens. Again, the Platinum pen on the top, and the self-filling Presidente on the bottom.

The answer is both easy and revealing. On two of the Presidente pens, the squeezer device can easily be removed from the pen, and, inside, the breathing tube remains attached to the feed. The interesting detail is that these squeezers could work as converters on the Platinum Honest 60 and 66 pens. On these, the breathing tube is much shorter and is covered by the nipple where the cartridge is attached. This makes perfect sense—this tube is never strong enough to open the cartridge. Its shorter length, however, makes the filling system less efficient. On the opposite direction, the Platinum Honest cartridge could be used on the Presidentes if the breathing tube were removed, which is not difficult to do.

On the left, the Platinum Honest cartridge; on the right, the squeezer of one of the Presidente pens.

All this illustrates the logical evolution of filling systems. Some sources (Ron Dutcher, Kamakura Pens) speak of a bulb filler Platinum Honest in 1955. However, in view of the similarities among the Presidentes and Honest pens, I think of the Spanish brand pens as the early self-filling versions of the Japanese models.

(Athena Basic Line – Sailor Yama-dori)

Bruno Taut
December 31st, 2011
[etiquetas: Presidente, Platinum, conversor, soluciones técnicas]