I like Platinum pens. I have a few, and they've all been great and reliable and I use them very frequently. The affordability is a huge plus (Platinum's budget pens all clock in at under 20 USD), but if you're looking to burn a little more money, there's the Platinum 3776 Century, a pen that retails in the US for around $200.

I had my eye on the 3776 because one of the nib options is the "soft fine," which has been described as "springy" by multiple people. What does a pen have to do to be called springy? I had to know!

Luckily for me, my local art store carries the 3776, so I got to try it out instead of perpetually wondering. The store justifiably only lets you test fountain pens on a water pad, but even then, I could feel the springiness that everyone was talking about. I was sold! Unfortunately, they didn't carry the 3776 in green and neither did the store's flagship location, so I reluctantly had to resort to online shopping. If I'm paying this much money for a pen, I'm not settling for a non-green color!

The 3776 is a resin pen with a screw-on cap. It's a generic cigar shape in a solid color with a simple clip and a bit of metal trim. Many brands have pens that look like this. It's not a pen that you buy for looks. Despite that, I'm actually a pretty big fan of the design. The green resin is nice and dark, but the translucency ensures that it's still readable as green. Also, I love finding pens with gold-colored hardware.

The 3776 isn't notably big or small. It's about 5 and a half inches long with the cap on and just under 4 inches without the cap (not counting the nib). It's lightweight, but not in a cheap way. A lot of the weight comes from the metal clip on the cap, so posting the cap helps balance out the weight if it feels too light. For me, it writes comfortably either way.

One of Platinum's trademarks is the anti-drying mechanism in the cap. It's pretty much impossible to photograph this in the 3776, so I'm using the clear cap on the Preppy as a visual aid. There's a spring-loaded inner cap that connects to the grip section of the pen when it's closed, which creates an airtight seal and, according to Platinum, prevents the pen from drying out for up to a year. I have no desire to test this, but I've never had any issues with hard starts on any of my Platinum pens.

Onto the nib: It's made of 14k gold, the primary reason why the pen costs $208. It doesn't have super elaborate embossing on it, but it has a fun Mt. Fuji pattern that follows the curve of the edge. (The 3776 is so named because Mt. Fuji is 3776 meters tall.) And it has a fun heart-shaped breather hole, which is objectively adorable. The punched out metal gets melted down to make more nibs!

The pen comes with a converter and some cartridges. The Platinum converters are piston fillers. They're fine, they hold as much ink as you'd expect from a converter. The piston feels a little dodgy sometimes, so I bypass that and fill them with a syringe instead. I syringe-filled the converter with Sailor Tokiwa-matsu ink, and it took just a few minutes for the ink to travel through the feed.

The pen worked out of the box and was just as springy as I remembered it being. It's not a flex nib, but the tines give just a bit before springing back into their normal positions. The line variation is subtle but noticeable even when you're not making a conscious effort to modify your pen pressure. It adds a bit of character and, dare I say, whimsy to your grocery lists, letters to your elected officials, meeting doodles, etc.

Platinum is known for giving their nibs feedback, and this one is no different. This nib has a ton of feedback, but not in a scratchy or dry way. It's almost like writing with a pencil. It can be an acquired taste if you're used to really smooth writers, but I think it's a fun tactile experience. The feedback and springiness combined make me feel very expensive and luxurious when I write. (Believe me, I'm very pleased that the most expensive pen I own makes me feel expensive.)

To get an idea of the line width relative to other pens, I put the soft fine nib next to the steel Platinum fine and medium nibs. While Japanese-made nibs tend to skew fine compared to their Western-produced counterparts, Platinum's nibs are more or less faithful to Western sizing. You can get a pretty skinny line out of the soft fine because of the pressure variation on it.

If you're just looking to try out a Platinum pen, you'll be enormously well-served by their budget pens. But if you want to try out a gold nib or are looking for a unique writing experience, the 3776 is a reasonably-priced workhorse that feels completely different than any pen I've tried. I'd advise trying and buying in person, but Platinum's QC is pretty good, so buying one and hoping for the best will probably work out.

Footnotes

1. Refer to these reviews: Hand Over That Pen, Pen Addict, Fountain Pen Network thread 1, and Fountain Pen Network thread 2... to name a few! ↩