In Search For Perfect Pen , Old Parker

[Aidin]

Well, after buying near 100 pens including roller balls , Gel inks , semi Gels , hybrids , felt tips and ball points I still am not satisfied with my pens ! The story comes from 20 years ago when I was a medico. When I used to buy parker blue fine refills for my cheap blue jotter and writing with them 24/7. They were made in Uk and ...oh ! My god ! Excellent writing instruments ; the best writing experience I had ever had. Solid , fluent , colorful , and smooth and crisp.

Recently I ordered some Lamy fine refills (M16) . Not a good purchase.

Then I ordered Parker Quink flow refills from Amazon. And was pretty in choke that how weak they were. Very pale and washy writing and with different color than original parkers.

Then I bought a Europen , with no success.

I tried pilot G2 , uniball jetstream and others..... Nothing came even close to my old experience of those glorious days with parker.

Then I pulled the trigger... In search for perfect pen I searched the whole net for finding old and original parker refills. Eventually I found it ! On ebay I found original parker refills made by USA in 1987-1991 !

Thrilled and excited , I waited for delivery.... And then , again a nightmare.... !

The ink color is good , but the quality of writing still far from those elegant old Uk parker refills...

I post a picture of these recent old refills which have disappointed me.

Any one please ? Can you help me with my disaster ?

Edited July 30, 2015 by Aidin

[______Zaphod_Beeblebrox]

Could it be a case of your memory, how do you say, is making the old days seem better than they were.

 

what i am trying to say is that maybe, just maybe those old Parker pen refill really are not all that you remember and you are searching for something you will never find.

 

Have you tried Pelikan or Montblanc Ball Point refills? When it comes to Ball points the best i have ever used, and still use it the Montblanc refills (there is a way to get them to work in other pens besides Montblanc).

 

Hope you find what you are looking for!

[Aidin]

Zaphod ,

 

At first I was thinking like you , thinking it's just a matter of time and remembrances ( and psyche). But hopefully I had kept some manuscripts from past and could compare. The lines are still vivid , crisp and colorfully blue! So this is not the case.

[______Zaphod_Beeblebrox]

See, I do not usually keep thing like that around, and my memory is terrible!

 

I alway remember the Good things and forget the bad, that why I make the same mistakes over and over.

 

Enjoy colors but just not all at once! (In other words no black ink!)

[ac12]

Enjoy colors but just not all at once! (In other words no black ink!)

 

Being into photography, I had to think about this statement for a while.

- In light, black is the absence of color, and white is ALL colors.

- Whereas in pigment, things are reversed; black is all colors, and white would be the abense of color.

 

 

To the OP.

How is the Parker gel refills? I had planned on getting some of those for my old Parker ball pens, cuz the gel pens write so much smoother and easier than a standard BP refill.

My memory of the old F size ball pens (both blue and black) were that they looked faded, because of the narrow ink line. And it was dificult to find a F pen that wrote dark enough, so I suffered with a light looking ink.

Edited July 31, 2015 by ac12

[Aidin]

My memory of the old F size ball pens (both blue and black) were that they looked faded, because of the narrow ink line. And it was dificult to find a F pen that wrote dark enough, so I suffered with a light looking ink.

Great explanation ! This is the same thing that I'm suffering from it , for 6 monthes or so . But it's not true always ! And my main point of starting this topic is just remembering that there are some fine ball point refills out there with excellent quality and strong vivid colors. But unfortunately I can't find them at present. and so requesting help !

 

about gel ink refills ; they dont give me a feeling of pen-man-ship writing things. It's something like hydroplay on ice. They are also very short-life and rapidly running out and exhausted ... Not a good choice.

Edited August 1, 2015 by Aidin

[Wolverine1]

Aidin- i usually use Pilot G2 refills, but, for ballpoints, I tend to like the refills made by Cross. No, they are not like the refills Parker used to sell in the 1990s, but, they are a close second. Try out a Cross ballpoint pen, you might like it.

[Chthulhu]

I'm partial to the Monteverde P13 "SoftRoll" refills for Parker ballpoints in blue-black. Kaweco's bp refills are also pretty good.

[Tberry010]

Give the Caran D'Ache fine blue refills a try. I am not sure how close they are to the old Parker Jotter refills but the are pretty nice. A little pricey, but .... .

[BFU]

This is a UK supplier info page and sales page for Parker style 'G2' refills. Not sure if they ship to your country or the shipping cost, but the information is useful and you could use an alternative supplier.

 

https://www.cultpens.com/c/q/explore/product-type/refills/parker-type-g2-refills

[Aidin]

Thanx for your great suggestions ; and here comes some new point to my mind .

 

1-What's so especial about G2 refills ?! Having bought several Pilot G2 pens, I have to say that they were the worst pens I have ever picked. Every thing I bought from Pilot was a garbage , even Hi-tech series.

In contrast , Zebra Z1 was the best disposable pen I have ever used in my life.

 

2- About the price and shipping prices , there's no problem with me. As a cardiologist working 24/7 , it's not a big deal ! Though I'm not Michael Jackson who once bought a luxurious 100,000 bucks pen just in a moment and I doubt he has written even a sentence with it !

As Lucretius says " money can't buy every thing , but you can buy things that may make you happy !"

Lucretius is right ! I live in a country which is under heavy sanctions . In fact I often envy you who can purchase a product just by one click on Amazon or eBay and it's delivery to your door a short time later.

 

3- as Blaise Pascal says " finding something that you have lost , delights and rejoices you more than finding things which you didn't own ".

 

yesterday I found an interesting seller on eBay who sells excellent original Parker refills from Germany , but UNFORTUNATELY he has no fine refills! Just mediums !Lucky me !

And here's the picture ;

Edited August 3, 2015 by Aidin

[OneRiotOneRanger]

1. G2 now refers to both the proprietary Pilot refill and ANY generic Parker-style refill, which means you can use refills by any manufacturer which is compatible (your Lamy choice was of one which does not fit).

 

2. Ink composition matters both as to color and how comfortably it writes. "Ballpoint" refills these days contain the conventional ballpoint ink, gel ink, and, now, hybrid (a mixture) ink. Take a look at the Cult pens site, under refills, for a discussion.

 

3. The width of the refill also makes a difference. Refills widths range from about .3 to about 1.6; they make a difference as to how the color line will appear to your eye.

 

I, personally, prefer the Visconti hybrid refills. Interestingly, they claim they do not make them and they are hard to find, but, for me, worthwhile putting up with some foolishness. I have also been pleased with the Visconti refills, both ballpoint and gel. Their choices of colors and widths give you lots of options.

 

Good hunting!

[Zookie]

While I haven't tried them as yet (I don't care for ballpoints), I've read good reviews about the Fischer Space Pen refills. If I'm not mistaken, they can be adapted to Jotters with an enclosed adapter.

 

Doug

Edited August 3, 2015 by Zookie

[Mike 59]

Hi, Here's a photo of a few Parker and Parker-fit writing sample, from refills I have.

The Parker T-Ball from around 1975 still writes in a Jotter, both pen and refill UK made.

I have used the new PaperMate Inkjoy ballpoints and the Pilot Acroball, both very good and smooth writers, but not Parker fit refills.

Edited August 4, 2015 by Mike 59

[Cryptos]

A while back I actually got a few Jotters from India (via eBay) for those times when I ballpoint is required. Anyway, they write perfectly well and the blue ink is satisfyingly rich in colour. In fact, they seem to be a lot smoother than I ever remember them to be.

Edited August 4, 2015 by Empty_of_Clouds

[Aidin]

Dear Mike 59 ,

 

A nice comparison.

From what you have posted it seems that your old Parker refill is something like mines ; washy and pale. It is very interesting to see those old day parkers in action today.( Nostalgia is endless..... As Susan Sontag says).

From those 6 lines , Quink flow seems superior than others to me , but it's not a Fair comparison at all . Why ?

Be cause they are not the same Color ! When we compare a black refill with a blue one , it's main weakness ( being pale and unrich in color) remains masked !

 

Meanwhile I dont like black pens much , 'cause recent medical studies have shown that subjects written by Blue color, dig in to our brains and will be absorbed much better than black ones.

 

Empty _of_clouds ,

The main part that does the act of writting is refill . I wish if you had examined the inside refill.

Edited August 4, 2015 by Aidin

[MrSpudboy]

Try a Schmidt easy-flow 9000 in blue ink. Very smooth, but not like a gel refil. I also have some Schneider viscoglide with a xb point that is nice. There are tons of different choices (tips and inks) with the Parker-type refils..called G2 refills. Schneider and Schmidt make most of them, whatever they are branded. I just tried a Monteverde refill that is almost liquid ink...you probably would not like that.

 

At any rate, I think the refills available are better than the old ones. Heck, i have even gotten some Chinese pens with pretty good refills...who knew!

[MrSpudboy]

I never liked the pressurized refills (Fisher). They do write in any position, and seem fine at first...but eventually they tend to "glob" .

 

Try some Schmidt easy-flow 9000 refills. If you don't like them, you can blame me. :-)

[Mike 59]

Here are some samples of the blue ink refills I have.

Paper used was the usual 80g white (ish) photocopier type. The lighting was natural daylight at 9am.

The lines with the green tick will fit Parker ballpoint pens or similar types.

* Looking at these samples with a magnifier, the Parker Powerpoint (1980), the Parker QuinkFlow (2012) and the Waterman (2011) have a small amount of red in them, making a slightly purple ink.

It's more obvious when next to the original Tungsten (T-Ball) jotter of the '60/'70's era which was a light blue.

Edited August 5, 2015 by Mike 59

[Aidin]

Excellent comparison !

 

As far as I can see The stabilo refill has some skips . The cross and waterman are pale.

But Papermate Inkjoy seems richest in color and crisp . I wonder if there is fine refill of it out there ? Seems promising to me .