Do you remember when Parker Pens were all the rage growing up?

[rlk]

i

The desks were wooden and we were told that you had to push a little harder to write with a ballpoint as opposed to ink flowing very easily with a fountain type pen. Pressing harder would mske impressions on the wooden desks, or so we were told. It was a big no-no to use, or bring a ballpoint to school. Remember, this goes back to the 50's, over 70 years ago.

Some things in life have lasting impressions.

@rlk

Thanks for the answer. I started public kindergarten in 1965, so not too far behind you. All I remember are the exploding Bic pens.

 

[_19disnA]

Cross and Monte Blanc were the brands I can recall that people would give as gifts and were considered as a prestige item. Don't remember Parker as a brand. I think most people nowadays probably use email or text (i.e. computer or phone) to communicate and rarely write formal letters like in the past. The need to use an expensive pen to do what little actual writing still gets done is probably done with cheap ballpoint pens for most people.

 

[bcla]

Sure I remember Parker, but not necessarily as anything used all that well. The big ones in my day were the PaperMate EraserMate erasable ink pen. Over the years I remember some classes didn't allow them because they tended to smudge since it was still removable for maybe up to 2 weeks.

 

[bcla]

Cross and Monte Blanc were the brands I can recall that people would give as gifts and were considered as a prestige item. Don't remember Parker as a brand. I think most people nowadays probably use email or text (i.e. computer or phone) to communicate and rarely write formal letters like in the past. The need to use an expensive pen to do what little actual writing still gets done is probably done with cheap ballpoint pens for most people.

Parker had some higher end ones. Cross was kind of mid brand really. Waterman and Mont Blanc eventually became the real prestige brands.

 

[Imzadi]

I don't recall them.
I did have a cartridge pen at home for calligraphy, but never at school.
Always used Bic pens in school

Me too. The name sounds vaguely familiar, but I never had one. We had to get the BIC ballpoint pens.

And I too, had a cartridge pen with a wider nib for calligraphy. Then they developed angle tipped, flat, wide markers specially for calligraphy. That was a game changer and I never used a cartridge pen again.

I do remember Mont Blanc pens, with a white star at the top, were the rage for a while. But, they were insanely expensive for basically a ballpoint pen. I happened to find one on the floor in a hallway once. So, I finally got to own one. But, it was super heavy to write with. I think it's still in a drawer somewhere, never used.

I do journal writing for The Artist's Way process, called "Morning Pages." They have to be handwritten out. So, having a free-flowing, lightweight ballpoint pen is very important to me. But, I work a lot of events where we are given free pens all the time. When I find good ones that are free-flowing, I will swap out the ink insert from the free pens into my two favorite ball point pens as the ink runs out. There are basically two different kinds of ballpoint pen inserts and they are interchangeable with all other like ballpoint pens.

 

[clh2]

I miss the “nice pens”, and have had Cross pens.
We toured the Sheaffer Pen Museum in Fort Madison, Iowa last year…very interesting. Such a great collection of beautiful of pens!

 

[DodgerGirl]

I am pretty sure that the Parker pen I used in grammar school had an ink cartridge and that made it preferable to using ink in a bottle.

I think my mother's Parker Pen had an ink cartridge because she really liked how easy it was to change the ink cartridge in it. But as I mentioned Mom's Parker Pen got lost at school but was never found. Parker Pens are still made today? I find that hard to believe and maybe i'll get my mother a Parker Pen set for Christmas this year
Thanks for the wonderful reply Bobbiwoz
Dodger

 

[NotUrsula]

Among fountain pen users back in the 1960s, when ballpoints were starting to take over, Parkers were considered a decent but not special brand, they mostly had steel nibs instead of gold and usually had aluminum or hard plastic barrels, so they were less delicate than pens made of natural materials such as bone or wood, and were indeed a popular gift for high school students. You can always spot them because the pocket clip is shaped like a stylized arrow. The plastic cartridge design was a new innovation started in the early 1950s. Parker fountain pens are still widely available (and they make plenty of refillable ballpoints as well.) Just search "fountain pens Parker" on Amazon; you'll find a wide selection at several price points, or you can usually find some in stock at any good office supply store. They are definitely nicer than semi-disposable plastic pens that you can buy in a multipack this time of year.

My Dad was a bit of snob about fountain pens, and we all learned to use them. I regularly used a fountain pen up through high school, but once I started working I needed a pen that could handle carbon copy forms, so I pretty much gave them up, except for special calligraphy projects. The favorite brand in our house was Schaeffer, and always, always, a model with a gold nib. (Gold nibs are softer; they create a much nicer line and are less likely to accidentally puncture the paper, especially if you are writing on onionskin paper, which we usually were for correspondence, because we often sent letters to family in Europe.)

I still like fountain pens; they flow very nicely, and I usually use them for things like Christmas cards where you want the penmanship to look as nice as possible. I'll warn you, however, that they can be difficult for left-handed writers, because the ink tends to dry more slowly than ballpoint or gel, and you have to be careful not to smear it with your hand. (My DH is left-handed; he hates fountain pens for this reason.)

Cross ballpoint pens had become the usual American "special" pen gift by the mid-1970s, and it was common to have them engraved with a name or monogram. Cross' big style trademark is an extra-slim barrel design, and they became especially popular with women for that reason. I've received several of them as gifts over the years, mostly from employers, though I did get them as gifts for my Confirmation and my high school and college graduations as well. (They made wider-barrel models, but the slim ones are probably the most commonly gifted.)

 

[bcla]

I do remember Mont Blanc pens, with a white star at the top, were the rage for a while. But, they were insanely expensive for basically a ballpoint pen. I happened to find one on the floor in a hallway once. So, I finally got to own one. But, it was super heavy to write with. I think it's still in a drawer somewhere, never used.

The Mont Blanc Meisterstück fountain pen is the one that their reputation is based on. I believe that has to be filled through the nib. Something about twisting the barrel where it sucks up ink through the nib.

I owned a fountain pen once. Parker actually. But I didn't have a lot of money to spend and it had a plastic barrel and used hermetically sealed cartridges that were pierced. If I transported it anywhere I'd put it in a plastic bag since it would leak like crazy through the nib or where the needle pierced into the cartridge.

I remember seeing a fountain pen at home when I was a kid. It was empty, but when I unscrewed the barrel, I saw a plastic bladder and a metal frame. This kind I suppose was squeezed and then released where it would suck up ink into the bladder. Didn't seem terribly effective. I think other kinds had a lever.

 

[Cadiewampus]

I remember when these came out. If you had one, you were cool

 

[NotUrsula]

I remember when these came out. If you had one, you were cool

View attachment 881738

Right now they are cool again, only not for ink; recently it has become trendy to package makeup products in them.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

Parker Pens are still around. I don’t remember them being all the rage, but I got a few in college because they were popular in my sorority. They were well known for their arrow clip and our sorority symbol is an arrow.

Most people I know outside of those circles got Cross pens as gifts. Mont Blanc was the corporate gift pen of choice for a while.

 

[Genie+]

No experience myself but my mother went to school in the 50s and told us the desks had a hole cut out for the ink well, and as a girl you’d have to be careful when wearing ponytails or braids that the kid behind you might stick the tip in the ink and not all kids do that but back then you had to be careful, and that’s the only kind of pen situation I know about from before the ballpoint pens became the most popular thing for adults and students to use.