Parker still good?

[Flexxx]

My go to for pens...........Parker is the only pens I carry

[Monocrom]

Just bought a Sonnet RB yesterday. Nice pen but the cartridge sucks. It skips and blobs. Will try a new cartridge, because it LOOKS like a nice pen and I've had good luck with their fountain pens in the past.

Their rollerball refills have always been crap. Parker makes a nice fountain pen. But yeah, their RB refills have always been horrible.

[StuntDouble]

I've noticed that I can't find Parker Stainless Jotters in WalMart, and the last time I saw one in a drug store it was on clearance. Any idea if they may have discontinued that one?

[Monocrom]

Highly unlikely that Parker would discontinue one of their most popular models, in their most popular variation.

[Merrib64]

Parker Ballpoint refills are the pits pure and simple. I have shifted over to using Hauser brand.

[Carvenstein]

Bought a sterling rollerball, a sonnet I believe. Had to polish the surface for a proper look. Removed some plastic coating. I had to tighten up the twist mechanism. My customers are always impressed, however, when I jand it to them to sign on the line.

[Rainiers]

Nope, not made in the USA anymore.I don't know where the cheapies are made, but Parkers are still well made, overall.

My Jotter still says "Made in UK." Will have to try the Hauser refills.

[JDPUSMC]

Parker has had licensing agreements to make them in a large number of countries including South American. I have never really seen any major variation in quality of vintage pens from country to country. It is interesting that they still can afford to make them in the UK and France but not the US. They make them in China to import to us. I have heard of the Chinese ink being crap. As for the pens some have said they were great others have said they were flawed so I guess the notorious lack of quality control means you could get a good pen or a lemon.

The good news is that ebay is full of vintage pens for the US, UK and France. In 1980 the jotter changed the threading inside the part wiht the button was metal until this point in time but was changed to plastic to save money. The plastic end that screws in was also changed accordingly. A little u was added in the plastic at the top of the screw instead of being perfectly even all the way around. Despite the change they are still rugged though. I had one post 1980 pen run over and while the metal was squshed some so that it was no longer perfectly round it still worked and the plastic part didn't crack just got some dings.

As far as refills go many companies make generic parker style refills and fisher spance pen refills come with an adapter to make them work with parker pens.

[Kripto]

I tend to be a fountain pen guy, and would say that Parker (Rubbermaid) is in the FP world on the lower side of quality..

Monteverde makes refills for most pens, including Parker.. So if you get a Vintage Jotter for example and don't like the current parker refills, you can get the Monteverde refills at a decent price.

Another way to go is a lot of pen manufacturers are making refillable rollerballs. (using fountain pen ink) ... While this isn't permanent (unless you use something like Noodlers inks) it's a good solution.

My EDC pens are a Pilot M90 Fine point fountain pen, a Pelikan 600 Extra Fine point FP, and a vintage Pilot Elite pocket pen.
When I need to go through carbon copies (NCR forms) I occasionally use my Fisher X750 Pen

[termite]

You may want to look at Caran D'Ache 849 pens. Swiss-made, all metal (aluminum) and a huge refill that writes very well. There are also lots of colors to choose from.