Jim Pingle

Father, geek, serial hobbyist.

Still working through fountain pens trying to find the finest of the extra fine w/o custom grinding. I think I've reached a satisfactory conclusion for now.

Platinum Century 3776 UEF wins by a (very thin and costly) hair but the Kakuno EF is not that far behind. The Jinhao EF#08 is decent but a tad thicker. All of them are better than the Platinum EF02 which is significantly thicker.

tl;dr: 3776UEF is best but expensive, Kakuno EF has best price/perf @ ~1/20th the cost.

Image of writing on paper next to a US Penny coin. There is a drawing consisting of a set of four lines starting from four vertical points and forming intersecting peaks and valleys. The lines are from thinnest to thickest, top to bottom. To the right of the drawing are four lines of text corresponding to each of the neighboring lines from the drawing. They are, in order from top (thinnest) to bottom (thickest): * Platinum Century 3776 UEF (Diamine Sapphire Blue ink) * Pilot Kakuno EF (Pilot Kon-Peki ink) * Jinhao 9019 EF (Pilot Fuyu-Gaki ink) * Platinum Preppy EF02 (Pilot Ama-Iro ink)

All that said, no regrets here. The Platinum Century 3776 is a beautiful pen and the UEF nib is great.

A picture of a fountain pen on top of a journal. The pen is a Platinum Century 3776 in Chartres Blue with Gold Trim. The writing on the nib is: "3776 P 14K UEF" The background is a "Novel Journal" for "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". Words are visible embossed into the journal cover, they are excerpts from Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes works.

A couple more inexpensive pens arrived and they are surprisingly good so far, so I added them into the mix.

- Jinhao 80 with "Iridium Ultra Fine" nib marked with "03", $10

- Asvine Forest(?) EF, $17 (Mine is "Matte Black Forest [...] by Asvine")

The 3776 UEF is still the winner but the new ones give the Kakuno ($13) a run for its money both in width and in price/performance.

Image of writing on paper. There is a drawing consisting of a set of six lines starting from six vertical points and forming intersecting peaks and valleys. The lines are from thinnest to thickest, top to bottom. To the right of the drawing are six lines of text corresponding to each of the neighboring lines from the drawing. They are, in order from top (thinnest) to bottom (thickest): * Platinum Century 3776 UEF (Diamine Sapphire Blue ink) * Pilot Kakuno EF (Pilot Kon-Peki ink) * Jinhao 80 UF 03 (Diamine Sapphire Blue ink) * Asvine Forest EF (Pilot Momiji ink) * Jinhao 9019 EF08 (Pilot Fuyu-Gaki ink) * Platinum Preppy EF02 (Pilot Ama-Iro ink)

The new arrivals look really nice, especially for being low-cost as these things tend to go.

I like the look/feel of this Jinhao 80 much more than the Jinhao 9019. The 80 is a Lamy 2000 clone but I don't have a real Lamy to compare.

The Asvine/Hongdian is all metal and has nice a weight, but not overly so. It's entirely matte black, including the nib, which is fun as well. Not everything has to be shiny and silver/gold!

The Kakuno's smiley nib is still the best, though.

Three pens and their caps on top of a journal. Top left is a Jinhao 80 in Denim Blue with a gold trim and ultra fine nib. Top right is an Asvine/Hongdian in Matte Black Forest, the entire pen is matte black, including its EF nib. At the bottom is a Pilot Kakuno with a smiley face on its EF nib.

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