Platinum "Gathered" variant of #3776: old vs. new

[awa54]

I recently found a tolerable price on a current production Platimum Gathered, so I gritted my teeth and ordered one in a medium nib from a Japanese Ebay seller... The buying experience was lousy, as they dragged their feet for over two weeks before shipping it, but in the end I received exactly what was advertised.

Then just last week I spotted an early production Gathered in mint condition from a US seller at a *really* nice price, also in medium. What to do? ...I bought that one as well.

This will probably be an evolving post/review and it looks like it will echo previous new vs. old posts on these pens, but so far my impressions are:

The new pen is very nice, but has one nagging issue: the cap doesn't really seal perfectly, there is a tiny amount of play, which I believe is contributing to the fact that it sometimes starts (or rather *doesn't*) with a few millimeters of failed ink flow before writing. Once that issue has passed (usually only on the first letter of a writing session), it writes a very smooth line, with softness, but no real flex, it's essentially a wet writing fine by Western standards, "M" stamp on the nib aside. The plastic on the new pen is slightly gray and/or translucent in some light, where the older pen is dead opaque and shoe-polish black, metal work is indistinguishable between the two (nib excluded).

The older pen has a perfect cap interface, with zero play, it also starts without fail. The nib on the original is a bit broader, but still finer than any Western medium nib, it also writes a wet line, but with a bit more flex than the new flat-tined nib. There are subtle dimensional differences, but in hand, they're functionally identical as far as I'm concerned.

Both very nice pens, but if I had to keep just one, it would be the original issue version, with it's superior cap fit and slightly more flexible nib. On top of that, the ebonite feed is more aesthetically pleasing as is the rounded nib shape and the more opaque barrel plastic.

[amk]

I have one issue with my briar and 'gathered' pens, which is remembering that unlike my other 3776s the caps don't unscrew :-)

Thanks for an interesting post. I had no idea there were such differences!