During my rookie year as a pro writer I spent $110.00 to buy a fountain pen on sale at Levenger. While that sounds insane, the pen retailed for $450.00, so I thought it was a good bargain. At the time I wanted to make the jump to using only fountain pens for hand writing, as my arthritis was starting to make it difficult to use anything else. Also, I fell in love with the pen, so that decided it. Back then I had no idea that my Platinum Koi would be my faithful companion for the next twenty-two years. I've written thousands of letters, hundreds of journals and autographed Lord only knows how many of my books with this pen. If you work out the price with the endurance, it only cost me around $5.00 a year, which is probably what a person spends on crap pens. It's certainly always been the finest writing instrument I've ever owned . . . until it started to skip and clog this year. I nursed it along with frequent cleanings and sparse use, but eventually I had to accept ...