Out of Production (I)

I can think of a very big reason to rather self-filling over cartridge-converter. With self-filling pens, the owner will never run out those essential elements, cartridges and converters, to use the pen. An acceptable alternative might be standard/international cartridges whose manufacture is shared by a big number of companies.

A Morison pocket pen from the 1970s.

The risk is clear—should the maker of that particular pen disappear, its proprietary cartridges and converters might also become extinct from stationery shops. That is the case of the following Morison. It is a well made pocket pen with a semi-hooded 18 K gold nib. But it uses Morison-proprietary cartridges, long gone and very hard to find after the company stopped the production of pens in the early 1990s.

In an attempt to ink this pen, I tried to use Sailor slim cartridges (for the Chalana model). These are thin enough, but too long to fit inside the barrel. On the side, the plastic tassie of the barrel.

Some other models of this brand can use Platinum cartridges, and in fact, the cartridge nipple of this pen accepts Platinum cartridges, but not the rest of the pen. Its body is too small –both short and narrow— to host it. And neither can this Morison be used as eyedropper as the tassie at the back of the barrel does not seal the body and can easily be removed.

Therefore, this pen is not usable without the proper –and missing—cartridge or converter. And it is frustrating as the pen is in perfect working conditions with only minor cosmetic defects. This issue obviously reduces the value of this pen in the second hand market.

Platinum P-300, music nib – Diamine Graphite

Bruno Taut
Taito (Tokyo), January 27-29th, 2013
etiquetas: Morison, conversor