Out of Production (II)

When speaking about the problems to find proprietary cartridges to ink a Morison pocket pen, I ended the text with a negative conclusion—those pens, that Morison for instance, lose a lot of value in the second hand market, those pens have become almost useless.

The Morison pocket pen whose cartridges are almost impossible to find.

But there is also a positive conclusion—some brands still provide support for their old products. That is the case of the three big Japanese pen manufacturers with regard to the very popular idea of pocket pens. Current ink cartridges by Pilot, Platinum and Sailor can be used in those pocket pens from the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, cartridges are the only way to ink some of those pens, mostly Platinums and Sailors, as the old converters went out of production. Pilot is particularly exemplary on this—the CON-20 converter fits perfectly on those pocket pens and is a good alternative to cartridges. And Pilot, as well, still produces the CON-W to be used on those old pens (1960s) that needed the long gone double spare cartridges.

The original Pilot Myu-701 and its reissue, M90, can use the CON-20 converter.

The Pilot Capless from 1965 can still be used todays, in absence of double spare cartridges, by using the CON-W converter.

Some could say that the only difference between Morison and the big three is that Morison is out of business. And that is true, but true as well is the fact that some still-active companies did abandon some of their old products. Case in point, the beautiful Waterman C/F pen uses a specific type of cartridge and converter now out of production. And this makes us value a lot more those other companies.

The Waterman C/F, equipped with its converter, now almost as valuable as the pen itself.

For those unfortunate cases we have two options. The obvious is to look for those old cartridges and converters in second hand shops, flea markets and online auctions. The other is to adapt other ink deposits. That is what I did with my pocket Morison. Now it is inked with an adapted Pilot cartridge.

But the bottom line might be that self filling pens and eyedroppers do not have this problem.

Pilot Ladypearl – Diamine Graphite

Bruno Taut
Shinjuku, February 24th, 2013
etiquetas: Morison, Sailor, Platinum, Pilot, Waterman, soluciones técnicas, conversor