Tim Wang's eLearning Blog

03/04/07

Fountain Pens – Parker, Mont Blanc, Wahl Eversharp...

Filed under: Hardware — timwang @ 08:47:19 pm

Found a nice old fountain pen made by Parker in the storage box today. Wow, I can't remember when was the last time I used one of these to write. Then I came across with this Chinese article on the top ten brand names for Fountain Pen products: Parker, Mont Blanc, Wahl Eversharp, Waterman, Cartire, Sheaffer, Ideal, Aurora, Cross and Montegrappa.

My father has always favored the Parker Pen. I think he received a pair of Parker's Pen with golden tips as the wedding gift over 30 years ago. It was (and still is) a quite luxury and delicate gift in China. I believe my grandfather owns an original collector's edition of the “Lucky Curve” Parker's fountain pen which he bought from a British business man whom was leaving Shanghai in a hurry back in 1949. Why is it so famous in China? Well, one of the reason could be that it was the very first gift the People's Republic of China received from the president of the United States - Richard Nixon back in 1972 for the opening of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China.

Parker Duofolds from the 1920s used the Lucky Curve feed system
Parker Duofolds from the 1920s used the Lucky Curve feed system

Comments:

Comment from: Attente [Visitor] Email · http://mont-blanc-pens.info
What technology progress achieves actually ruins some of the basics of the society. What was a pen a hundred years ago? It was a thing. A precious thing. I think few people could afford writing just because they had nothing to do. Pens were made to express thoughts, ideas, feelings. And now, costing pennies, those ballpoints are just as ordinary as safety matches. Nobody cares about them. Yet if people knew how many efforts were put into developing a reliable, comfortable pen, they would care about cheap writing instruments. Well, just my opinion.
PermalinkPermalink 05/05/07 @ 14:34
Comment from: Jerry Wilson [Visitor] Email · http://parkerpens.blogspot.com
I purchased two Uni-Ball Signo 207 Pens from my College Bookstore. After a quick test of the pens on my notebook I thought it would be a good pen. The next day during class it came time to put the pens to the test and see how well they perform. The results speak for themselves. They are literally the Worst Pens I have ever purchased. I could not complete a sentence without having the pen skip. It got to the point that I had to switch to a basic Bic Ball Point Pen.
Bottom line if you don’t mind having to go over your writing to correct any letters and add letter’s to complete words due to the skipping then you might find this pen ok.
PermalinkPermalink 11/09/07 @ 08:25
Comment from: Cathy Cassell [Visitor] Email
I have a Parker Sonnet Rollerball pen. I've had it for years.

I think it is a special edition or something because the signature of "Arnold Palmer" is on the pen. I have tried to google it, but can not find anything on this pen.

Any experts out there that know anything about this edition? Seems like a pen they tried to promote, but never saw production or something.
PermalinkPermalink 12/13/07 @ 14:32

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