Given these prices my expectations were not high. The Parker Jotters arrived in assorted colors, two black, one blue and one red. Two of the pens had medium nibs and the other two were fine points. The pens were sleek and slim and, if the Hero 329 would consitute a light-weight pen, these would have to be classified as "ultralight". The plastic barrel looked "budget" and the silver cap with the memorable Parker clip was the the best exterior feature of the pen (and that wasn't much). Upon opening the cap, the pen displayed a steel nib and a relatively comfortable grip area. Quality seemed okay; the cap fit with the notable click and the plunger type converter seemed to work well. Shaking the pen led to a pronounced rattle as the ball bearing in the converter moved up and down.
Eager to try out my new fine-pointed budget pen, I filled it with Quink blue-black. One filled, the bearing in the converter continued to rattle when shaken, sloshing the ink and eliminating flow problems due to surface tension. Amazingly the pen started immediately and wrote a wonderful relatively smooth fine line with no problems starting or skipping. In fact, I prefer the writing of this pen to the Hero 329; it isn't as scratchy and has equally good ink flow characteristics. The surprise was the medium point version of the jotter, which put down nice wet lines, that were remarkably smooth, almost buttery. Incredible for such an inexpensive pen.
In sum, the Jotter is my new $4 favorite. It writes as well if not better as the Hero 329, but unlike the latter, comes with a choice of nibs and a removable converter if you prefer ink cartridges.
So how about the $8.50 Frontier? My Frontier was silver and must say looked more expensive than its $8.50 price tag would suggest. It had a medium point gold plated nib and gold trim. The seller shipped the Frontier with a converter, even though in the ebay ad he said that the converter was $1.50 extra. The Frontier, despite its aluminium look, was a lightweight pen, but had a thicker, much more substantial feel than the Jotter.
When I inked the Fronier with Quink green, it started writing immediately and had an incredibly buttery smooth nib, far smoother than any other sub $10 pen I own (the Baoer 3013 is a distant second). It did, however tend to skip very slightly, a problem that dissapeared with a thorough cleaning of the pen. The net result was a pen that I can say with conviction is my new sub $10 favorite.
In size and performance, the Frontier reminds me of my metal Sheaffer Blue-Azure Javelin. The Javelin's fine point isn't (predictably) as smooth as the Parker's medium point, but it is probably a bit more comfortable for my hands. Both pens are great budget writers (can you tell that I'm both a Parker and a Sheaffer fan). However, such a comparison isn't fair since the Javelin, with a converter, cost me $19 from Isellpens.com, more than double the price of the
Parker Frontier.
As my teenaged daughter, who has good writing style, and prefers fountain pens to boys (thank goodness), commented, "Why buy a cheap Chinese or Indian copy when you can get an original authentic American pen for less?" I didn't feel like telling her that the Parkers were made in the UK and the Sheaffer Javelin was made in Japan. Fortunately, her favorite pen, the Sheaffer fashion in bright orange, is made in the USA
.
