After having seen more than a few Liquid Lead pencils in sets with other utensils and after reading more about it, I'm still wondering why Liquid Lead failed in the marketplace. It seems like it should have been a success to me.

Was there some technical shortcoming that Parker couldn't fix? Were the instruments difficult to write with? Do the Liquid Lead pencils compare favorably to BPs and pencils?

Because it didn't make a dark line, the refills didn't last very long, and the liquid lead didn't work very well. At least that's what I've been told.

Also, at the time it came out, people still had enough sense to ask, "What's wrong with a wooden pencil? or a mechanical pencil?"

And, I'm probably wrong, but didn't the Parker Jotter come out about the same time? My guess is that Parker put its marketing department to work on moving the Jotters, and never mind the Liquid Lead. I remember as a kid seeing Parker Jotter ads ("Parker Jotter/with the/T-ball tip!") night after night on our old black and white TV, but never knew there was a Parker Liquid Lead until I saw them discussed here.

Incidentally, you can still buy "liquid lead" pencils. PencilThings.com sells the Pentech "Liquaphite" pencils. I have one. PencilThings is a great company, but the liquid lead pencils still suck. http://www.pencilthings.com/servlet/the-75...chanical/Detail

Exactly what Bill said...

Todd

I remember as a kid my parents went to New York City on a trips and I asked them to bring me back a liquid lead pencil. They did. It seemed to be a modern marvel at the time - developed to rival the ballpoint pen. I don't remember much more about it, except that it ran out of "liquid lead" very quickly, wrote lightly, and was hard to erase. I know I enjoyed my first T ball jotter a lot more, and for a lot longer.

AIR, Parker dumped some bucks on TV adds for the liquid lead product.

Performance was poor as most people don't seem to like a light line from a "pencil."

AIR, the PaperMate division tried a liquid lead "pencil" for a while, but I have not seen one in years.

Although the product sounds nice, it simply wasn't worth it. A mechanical pencil was, overall, more satisfactory.

I recall falling for the advertizing, and concluding after the first pencil it wasn't an advance at all, just another idea looking for a market.

The dissappearance of the concept wasn't a problem at all - just the marketplace working as it should.

Regards,

Gerry

To me, the Liquid Lead goes into much the same category as the rollerball pen, though the latter has managed to catch on far better -- most of the disadvantages of a ballpoint with scarce few of the advantages.

I'm truly interested to see the almost unanimous condemnation of liquid lead.
I had never heard of liquid lead until last Spring when I bought a cheap LL pen in LA.

I buy almost any writing instrument that I haven't seen before.
This one worked well and erased well too.

Unfortunately I left it behind (I can't carry everything around all the time) or I would be using it now.
Has the technology improved since the Parker LL pens?

I am puzzled

Soliltaire

I remember as a boy in the 50's we had handful of "pencils" around the house that we called liquid lead. I think my dad got them as a promo at work. They wern't fancy, rather they looked like a yellow wooden pencil. They were pencil sized, plastic, yellow with the maker's information printed on them just like a pencil. They even had a red rubber eraser attached with a metal ferule. The business end was definitely like an inexpensive ball point pen.

As I recall they wrote OK, pretty much like a cheap ballpoint of the era, nothing to write home about. Some skipping, requiring a bit too much pressure, and putting down a line not quite dark enough. They did erase if you waited a minute before trying.
They failed because, once the novelty wore off, they didn't do anything better than (or even as well as) the real thing.

Kind of reminds me of a few years ago when Dixie brought out 'Rinse and Reuse' plates. All the class of paper plates with the disadvnatages of china.

Hi,

Could those promo pencils have been the Scripto version of liquid lead?

I first came across a reference to the liquid lead pencil as a joint Parker/Scripto innovation a couple of years ago: a passing reference in 1950s article on fountain pens.

Today, though, I located a 1955 article (click to skip the ad, sorry) that provides a bit more detail. It seems that each of the companies initially had its own fluid graphite formula, but they decided to join forces - and share the Parker formula - in order to forestall a patent controversy. Interesting that the article references the difficulties of the early ballpoint industry; apparently liquid lead was seen, at the time, as a development as significant as the BP.

Cheers,

Jon

There was a newer version of a liquid lead pencil that came out a few years ago. I bought one such "pencil" on ebay maybe five years ago. I hated it -- as with the older Parker, the line was light yet hard to erase. After merely trying it out, it sat unused in a desk drawer until I finally threw it away.