Parker Pen Fault

[mcgonis]

Hi everybody. I was hoping to get some advice from you. In 1997 I bought a Parker Pen Sonnet for my mum's birthday. I bought it from Debenhams in the UK. The assistant told me it came with a lifetime warranty. When I had bought some Parker roller ball refills by mail order recently, I told my mum I would find her pen and put a refill in as she had not used the pen for years. She has poor memory now and completes a diary everyday so the loves having a nice pen. I take the pen apart and put the refill in. Then I screw a blue plastic cover onto the base of the pen, but the metal outer part won't stay connected to the pen. When you take the lid off, the pen spits in two.

 

I have no receipt now as I have moved home several times and I want my mum to enjoy this pen. Do you think it is likely Parker Pen will repair the pen? It seems to me that the blue plastic cover should actually be attached to the outer part of the pen and not seperate from it.

 

I would like to thank you very much for any help you can give me.

 

Bye for now.

 

Stephen

Edited November 27, 2016 by mcgonis

[PaulS]

Hi Stephen - regret to say I only have f.ps., ball pens and propelling pencils from the Sonnet range - not unfortunately a roller ball - and am assuming the construction of a r.b. is sufficiently different to leave me rather in the dark as to visualizing the problem, from your text description alone.

 

My thoughts are............ you might consider visiting a Debenhams store (fortunately they are still in existence), and asking their pen department to assess your r.b. - it may well be that it's not broken, but just needing some professional knowledge to re-assemble correctly.

If it does in fact need repair, then to be candid it's unlikely that this will be cost effective for you - and probably a non-starter anyway as you don't have the original receipt............. regret I don't buy new pens so unaware as to types of guarantee that manufacturers currently provide, but would suggest your pen may well have originated in France judging by the date you mention, so this would add to difficulties of repair. Sorry to say I've no idea if in fact Parker did offer lifetime guarantees on their pens around the date you mention.

Appreciate the sentiment of this pen, and no idea as to cost when new, but you may find that, in the long run, purchasing a replacement pen for Mum is the best option in the circumstances.

 

Whilst sourcing a gift from pre-owned items is not everyone's cup of tea when buying their Mum a gift, you might consider the possibilities of an ebay purchase, and you might find the identical model for a lot less than a brand new retail purchase.

Sorry this is not particularly helpful.

Edited November 27, 2016 by PaulS

[tamiya]

Post a pic of your pieces.

 

Might be shoddy manufacture but it's probably less hassle to DIY repair, probably just needs a touch of Araldite perhaps.

 

 

Don't recall Parker ever offering a lifetime warranty, probably gone by way of UK manufacturing and France, and USA... biggest brandname that supposedly did offer "forever" repairs IMHO was Cross... have accumulated a bagful of Cross ballpoints whose twist mechanisms have derailed, but have no idea where's the nearest across repair centre theseadays.

[mcgonis]

Hi. Thanks for very helpful replies.

 

This is the pen as it should be

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1994-PARKER-SONNET-STEEL-FLIGHTER-CT-ROLLERBALL-PEN-FRANCE-EXWO-/162296403784?hash=item25c99e9748:g:BlUAAOSwImRYOQPH

[Jerome Tarshis]

Don't recall Parker ever offering a lifetime warranty, probably gone by way of UK manufacturing and France, and USA... biggest brandname that supposedly did offer "forever" repairs IMHO was Cross... have accumulated a bagful of Cross ballpoints whose twist mechanisms have derailed, but have no idea where's the nearest across repair centre theseadays.

 

You are probably too young to remember when Parker offered a lifetime warranty. They stopped in 1947. Nothing to do with the UK or France. It was costing them too much to do free repairs, in their opinion, so they began charging for warranty work. Their customers (and Sheaffer's, the Sheaffer experience being the same) complained to the United States government, which took action.

 

The action was a ruling by the Federal Trade Commission that if the customer was going to be asked to pay for repairs, that fact had to be stated in advertising, in letters the same size and prominence as the words "Lifetime Guarantee." For Parker and Sheaffer that took all the fun out of it, and they stopped offering lifetime guarantees. (But in later years Sheaffer started up again, with the more expensive pens.)

 

Cross, as you say, has always offered a lifetime guarantee. (There never was a prohibition against lifetime guarantees.) I've taken advantage of it myself. They took a long time to return the pen, but the wait was worth it. I should think the Web site cross.com would tell you where is the nearest service center. Or they may have separate Web sites for different areas of the world. Up to now I've been favorably impressed by Cross, though not equally by all their designs.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Jerome Tarshis

[PaulS]

Sterling £35.00 for a rollerball sounds expensive to me, but then value of anything is subjective, and we all have different reasons for wanting something, so we tend to overlook the cost if it's wanted badly enough................ is Mum worth £35? - of course she is - so bite the bullet Stephen and lay out the dosh and you will have a great gift for the lady. If you want a spare refill, I have twenty - Lord knows why but I do, so you can let me know, with a PM, if it's wanted.

 

Presumably you can't now buy a new Sonnet Rollerbal - no longer making them I expect, and they may have had a smaller print run to start with, so possibly always a less than easy item to find. Had you opted for the repair route, that wouldn't have given you much change from £35 either I expect.

Edited November 29, 2016 by PaulS

[Chrissy]

I'm having difficulty with the part of your post where you say:

 

I take the pen apart and put the refill in. Then I screw a blue plastic cover onto the base of the pen, but the metal outer part won't stay connected to the pen. When you take the lid off, the pen spits in two.

 

 

Let's say you have the same Parker Sonnet RB that you have shown us pictures of. There is no 'blue plastic cover' associated with that pen, unless it is something that is inside the cap. It's not something that should ever be screwed onto the base of the pen, unless you mean you are 'posting' the cap onto the pen barrel. Even then there is no 'blue cover' that should be separate from the cap, that needs to be screwed anywhere before posting the cap.

 

However, if you are suggesting that you've bought Parlker RB refills, then they may have come with an adapter that makes them fit other brands of RB. If that's blue and you are screwing it onto your refill before using it in your Parker RB that may be the problem.

 

Please can you show us pictures of your pen?

[tamiya]

Sterling £35.00 for a rollerball sounds expensive to me, but then value of anything is subjective, and we all have different reasons for wanting something, so we tend to overlook the cost if it's wanted badly enough

Presumably you can't now buy a new Sonnet Rollerbal - no longer making them I expect, and they may have had a smaller print run to start with, so possibly always a less than easy item to find.

why not look toward the Baoer 388 aka Sonnet clone, they come in FP & RB too!

 

And priced so you can buy a dozen and stash them all over the house, put one within reach wherever mum may wander.

[mcgonis]

Hi. Thanks for helpful replies. I have a Microsoft mobile and a Google Chromebook and am having problems getting the picture upload from phone to netbook. I will keep trying. The shot I sent you from ebay shows both metal parts of the pen connected. However with this one, the top part of the pen does not connect to the bottom. There is a plastic tube that screws on to the bottom part. The metal casing then goes over the blue tube. But wont stay connected. It's like the blue tube should be attached inside the metal casing. God I wish I could explain it better.