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Parker Big Red Centennial For $224 On Amazon


katerchen

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I wish you luck with the Wancher nib. I asked for a Fine 18K, and while it said that on the nib, it wrote like a Western medium or broader (along with hard starts and skipping). I sent the nib back to be reground, and what I got back wasn't that much better. That pen is now fitted with a Diplomat steel fine which writes finer, smoother, and more reliably. YMMV.

 

I ordered a broad (they're currently out of stock in F and M) so If I don't love it, I'll just have it custom ground.

 

https://www.wancherpen.com/products/rising-sun-maki-e-dragon

 

Gorgeous true (not single artist but in-house studio) maki-e, 18k in-house nib, and a red ebonite feed for $480 shipped was not a bad deal. I've wanted a true maki-e pen since I started the hobby. I'm a sucker for asian dragons (I'm a year of the dragon in the Chinese zodiac, and my grandmother always enjoyed giving her grandkids' things related to their chinese zodiac) so I couldn't pass this one up. It's more than I want to spend, but I'm going to sell a few of my smaller pens soon anyways.

Selling a boatload of restored, fairly rare, vintage Japanese gold nib pens, click here to see (more added as I finish restoring them)

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Newell Brands got back to me earlier this morning, apologised for "the mix up ... and lack of communication", and issued me with an RMA number so I could send the pen back at my expense to let their technicians examine the pen.

What's sad about it is:

  • They still can't (or won't) tell me, by looking at the company's records, which nib is now fitted on my pen — so how can they claim there was a "mix up", instead of actually having fitted a nib of the "required" type that just happened to be incompetently made?
  • They still can't tell me whether Parker produces, and/or has the capability and willingness to produce, 18K gold Fine Italic nibs for the Duofold "hand-made in France on demand" at all.
  • I have to wear the return postage yet again because, "Parker normally uses UPS and will send the customer a prepaid shipping label, but UPS does not offer domestic delivery service in Australia." Other companies that operate here (e.g. Under Armour, New Balance) has no issue with organising Reply Paid returns through Australia Post for their customers.

... Wancher may (I'm actually confirming this right now) be fitting their pens with an 18k nib that's in-house made (or made custom for them). They also offer standard JoWo 18k nibs.


I would have a lot more "respect" for Wancher if it had been fitting its fountain pens with Sailor or Pilot nibs all along, in the absence of an in-house nib production capability. Some other Japanese boutique pen manufacturers offer exactly that, and Wancher has worked with Sailor on "collaborations", so there must be some sort of established business relationship that can be leveraged. I'm sure Taizo has good business reasons for not going down that path and I don't question his judgment on that at all, but from my perspective as a fountain pen enthusiast Wancher products are downgraded for prospective purchase. The only Wancher product I have bought — from Engeika way back — is a leather pen case that didn't feel premium to begin with, and held up pretty poorly over time, so that hasn't helped raise my esteem for the brand either.

I wish you luck with the Wancher nib. I asked for a Fine 18K, and while it said that on the nib, it wrote like a Western medium or broader (along with hard starts and skipping).


That's a worry. Even though every company may produce dud nibs as anomalies for their brands, this sort of thing just raises red flags in my mind. There should be "nothing easier" than to produce a nib at the factory, test it (i.e. write with it), and start grinding it down to become finer if it isn't quite there — then rinse and repeat. It's not as if they made the nib too fine upfront and the only way to remedy involves re-tipping it. For a company that seems to have pretty labour-intensive production processes and close attention by expert workmen as its chic, failing to deliver a fine enough nib befitting the (Japanese?) Fine nib width grade is a poor showing.

I ordered a broad (they're currently out of stock in F and M) so If I don't love it, I'll just have it custom ground.


That's absolutely your prerogative. It just isn't my approach to buying fountain pens. Even if I never expected to like, or want to keep, the Fine nib that came originally fitted on my Parker Duofold Centennial Big Red Vintage, I still expected it to write like a (Western) Fine leaving lines that look sharp and crisp; and I would send it back to Parker in good condition, in exchange for an Extra Extra Fine nib that is two width grades finer; or, better still, a Fine Italic that writes no wider than the original Fine nib for downstrokes, but produces hairlines for cross-strokes.

Anyway, I'm not entirely against giving small, boutique pen manufacturers a go, so I've ordered a pen from Santini Italia. What I ordered is a piston-filler made of ebonite with an ebonite feed, but frankly none of those things earn extra points with me. That the company makes its gold nibs in-house, and is prepared to customise the nib on request prior to dispatch, is what sealed the deal. I've sent then writing samples produced with very narrow italic nibs that Dan Smith customised for me, to make sure my expectations are well understood. We'll see how that goes.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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I don't know how Amazon.it prices products sold by Amazon, but it certainly looks like you can order the pen from Amazon.it with free delivery (on the basis of having Prime membership?) to Italy.

 

When I ordered the pen sold by Amazon US on Amazon.com.au, with "free delivery" because I have Prime membership, the price I paid was effectively Amazon.com's price in US dollars plus about US$7 in shipping, then add 10% Australian GST (Goods and Services Tax) to the whole lot, and then converted to Australian dollars. I also got about 5% "cashback" from a third-party scheme on the purchase.

 

still fun to watch this :)

I did at the time check amazon.it, price was 340 euro... not a bargain despite I have Prime free delivery

today price is 331 euro for the red or the blue, the other colours are more costly, the chiselled is 420 euro...

Amazon prices can sometimes be interesting (and I agree they have some kind of sofisticated algorithm which is certainly governed by complex financial analysis).

As you also experienced, I got a few nice prices on some usually high priced pens, latest was the Pelikan M101N blue grey for less than 300 euro (full LE box with ink).

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I would have a lot more "respect" for Wancher if it had been fitting its fountain pens with Sailor or Pilot nibs all along, in the absence of an in-house nib production capability. Some other Japanese boutique pen manufacturers offer exactly that, and Wancher has worked with Sailor on "collaborations", so there must be some sort of established business relationship that can be leveraged. I'm sure Taizo has good business reasons for not going down that path and I don't question his judgment on that at all, but from my perspective as a fountain pen enthusiast Wancher products are downgraded for prospective purchase. The only Wancher product I have bought — from Engeika way back — is a leather pen case that didn't feel premium to begin with, and held up pretty poorly over time, so that hasn't helped raise my esteem for the brand either.

 

 

 

Well, actually, they did exactly what you are describing man. Their earliest maki-e pens were actually just housings that were made specifically for a king of pen section (they couldn't get them from sailor so they just made the bodies at really good prices)

 

And since then, they now offer sailor nib units on their more expensive pens. But I don't imagine they get a particularly great deal from sailor, otherwise there'd be no point using the JoWo stuff.

 

You're backpedaling again. You said you would respect them more if they made in house nibs. They do. Now you're saying that you just don't respect them when they were using a standard, well known nib that a small retailer would be able to get its hands on when they were trying to grow their premium line initially.

 

If it's not for you, it's not for you. But don't fabricate reason on reason why you think they're beneath you. Your language is treading hard back towards confirmation bias.

 

Also, when I said I ordered a broad, I meant in the wancher. That was just because I really wanted the dragon mak-e. If it wasn't a dragon themed maki-e, I would have likely waited until the F stock came back.

 

I'll report on mine when I get it. But I have had two experiences with wancher in the past, one warranty work that they couldn't possibly have handled better, and they're literally restoring a nearly priceless antique pen for absolutely free just because. Soooooooo, my personal experience is the absolute antithesis. But if the B nib stinks, I'll report on it.

 

But we're derailing this subject. Let's not talk about wancher anymore. Y'all can talk about it when I get mine and I post a thread about it.

Selling a boatload of restored, fairly rare, vintage Japanese gold nib pens, click here to see (more added as I finish restoring them)

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You're backpedaling again. You said you would respect them more if they made in house nibs. They do. Now you're saying that you just don't respect them when they were using a standard, well known nib that a small retailer would be able to get its hands on when they were trying to grow their premium line initially.

 

If it's not for you, it's not for you. But don't fabricate reason on reason why you think they're beneath you. Your language is treading hard back towards confirmation bias.

 

You're misrepresenting me again. I said I'd have more respect for Wancher if, as a Japanese boutique pen manufacturer, it only fitted Sailor and/or Pilot nibs in the pens it offers in the absence of an in-house nib production capability. Choosing JoWo or Bock — pedestrian, stock standard German nibs — is what I expect manufacturers such as Ranga to do for its sub-$100 pens, not a Japanese brand that wants to boast about how it employs expert and/or traditional craftsmen to produce pens worthy of a >$300 price tag. Wancher isn't making all its nibs in-house now, and neither is it sourcing other reputable Japanese nib manufacturer's products to cover where its in-house capability cannot reach.

 

In the same way, I have little respect for Leonardo Officina Italiana as a brand; but at least its pens are far cheaper, and have time and time again been sold discounted at around the US$125 mark. Even so, EndlessPens has stopped ranging Leonardo pens — at least for now — because the defect and return rates are unacceptably high, and QC and after-sale service are poor, according to Michael who runs the show there.

 

Now what @JosephKing wrote points to Wancher's in-house nib technicians not being up to the task of delivering for the company what the customers want, just as I'm discovering that Parker's in-house nib production capability in France is not confidence-inspiring either. While it isn't "all about the nib", and the quality of the nib isn't "everything", at MSRPs of over $300 I expect better; and those who fail to deliver better gets no respect from me as fountain pen manufacturers.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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So much for Newell Brands's (unsolicited) promise to give me some answers in writing by close-of-business on Thursday, after I quickly followed up on the phone with the representative who wrote to me on Wednesday morning. I sent another email at noon on Friday, just to remind him I still want answers before sending the pen back at my expense yet again, but so far that reminder has gone unacknowledged and I haven't heard back.

 

This just isn't looking good at all.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well an update from me. I did get my pen back. My initial experience was pretty good. Parker sent me an email with the tracking number and it arrived within 2 days. The pen was shipped in a branded plastic tube, within your standard bubble wrap envelop, and put in a piece of cloth within that tube.

The nib code itself is 98, and this means italic fine. So far so good.

I generally like to ink up my pens first to see how they write before looking at them under magnification.

To begin there was skipping... Lots of skipping. I figured the nib was out of alignment.. and it was lol. Beyond that, the down-strokes were pretty thick for an "fine" nib too; under the calipers, the nib measures at 1.12 mm.

I did notice when I put the pen in the sonic bath, that there was ink left in the feed.. so they do ink test nibs. Figuring a french person who did all this used french paper, I pulled out some rhodia and there was some improvement. The fact that the nib is so wet can disguise any alignment issues if you write hard enough me thinks.

Working in the nib with some micromesh did yield a significant improvement, but the nib is definitely too thick. It wouldn't be soo bad if the grind was actually italic. The nib writes like a stub.. even saying cursive italic would be generous. You can see this is much of the "slower" cross strokes that are prettty thick.

Oh and the barrel has a lovely scratch in it.. :rolleyes: I sent them an email with an image of the scratch and a request for a replacement barrel.

All that said, does anyone know how to remove the nib from the pen? The nib itself is really still out of alignment and fixing it will be easier with just the nib itself at this point. Nevermind. Got it loose.

Beyond that, I plan on having the nib ground at the upcoming Atlanta pen show. Or doing it myself.. we'll see lol.

Photos for reference - https://imgur.com/a/VB7NIq4

Edited by Penryn87
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@MalcLee, I'm truly glad you got your pen back and fitted with a nib you seem to like. The same individual you mentioned has assured me that the Fine Italic nib is indeed available for the Parker Duofold, and it was just "a mix-up" that caused me to end up with a nondescript (and supposedly) needlepoint nib, but if I return the pen Parker will fit it with the FI nib. I sent it last week, fully insured and with signature required on delivery; that cost me almost A$20 again. It was delivered and signed for early on the second business day after lodgement, and it only took another four business days and two phone calls to get confirmation in writing. This is the second time this customer service representative has promised to send me something in writing within a given timeframe he himself nominated, but failed to deliver until I keep chasing things up relentlessly.

 

This morning I was woken up by my building's front desk attendant to let me know he has signed for a parcel delivery on my behalf. As it turned out, it was sent from Newell Brands in Scoresby by Parcel Post in a padded mailing bag, lightweight, and sized and shaped suspiciously like a Duofold "gift box". Could it be that someone at NB (or Parker's head office) came through after all, to replace the tarnished original gift box it is "unable to replace" for me? Nope. It is a generic Parker gift box of the right size (for "premium" pens, I guess?), no cardboard sleeve (which is one of the things that got tarnished), no Duofold markings, and of a completely different (clamshell) design in a different material. "Please accept the enclosed items with our compliments. Kind regards, Your Newell Brands Customer Service Team." And of course no communication before sending me something. I have to consider that a complete non sequitur from NB that does not placate, given I was very specific (and I like to be very specific) about what was wrong last time, including the lack of communication and how (I believe) the outcomes of the nib exchanged eroded the Parker product's resale value for me, including in what ways the original gift box showed signs of mistreatment at Parker's offices (marks that could not have been acquired in transit) and in transit. Unless Parker has stopped producing and supplying those boxes completely for retail of the Duofold Centennial Big Red Vintage, it can either send me one (if it has proven capable of sending me my pen back directly from France) or just stick with the story of, "we have no capability of replacing what we failed to protect from damage, sorry," and leave it at that.

 

I personally wouldn't recommend anyone buy Parker even if that pen was offered for A$200. I already told Newell Brands I definitely won't be recommending Parker, given my experience.

 

And, this is my prediction: my pen will eventually get sent back to me a second time, arriving out of the blue without advance notification or any other communication from Parker. Something else will be wrong with it, even though it will have an italic nib on it that writes broader than Pilot's CM and Monteverde's Stub nibs.

 

/rant

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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I started this thread to alert fellow pen enthusiasts about a deal which I found quite good. Most were indeed happy and satisfied.

 

As was I with my purchase.

 

Can you please take your Parker hate to the brand specific forum?

 

Thank you.

 

-k

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I started this thread to alert fellow pen enthusiasts about a deal which I found quite good. Most were indeed happy and satisfied.

 

 

Believe me, I'd hate for others to share in my misfortune of being in the alleged minority who bought this pen at this price with the primary intent of having Parker exchange the nib for a fit-for-purpose one, whether that's a needlepoint or a narrow italic from the individual purchaser's perspective. So far I've already wasted $40 in postage and hours in follow-up effort, in addition to weeks without the use of the pen, and still haven't got the intended outcome. Let me be the only fool who get sucked in, if I can help it.

 

Obviously, for people who are inclined to be happy with the F or M nib that comes directly from Amazon, it's not going to be a problem.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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Gil, your complaints alone would take up 2-3 entire pages of this thread. nobody's going to miss the posts that you had problems.

 

Let it go. You're not contributing anything useful to this discussion anymore.

Selling a boatload of restored, fairly rare, vintage Japanese gold nib pens, click here to see (more added as I finish restoring them)

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Gil, your complaints alone would take up 2-3 entire pages of this thread. nobody's going to miss the posts that you had problems.

 

Let it go. You're not contributing anything useful to this discussion anymore.

I appreciate Gil's negative posts as they help balance out, with highly specific complaints, the overly enthusiastic earlier posts of others.

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."

Oscar Wilde

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@Lloyd, thank you.

 

Let it go. You're not contributing anything useful to this discussion anymore.

 

 

I bet some of you fine folks are just as likely to find fault with me if and when Parker eventually come through and send me back something that isn't completely messed up but halfway acceptable. There should be no bias for the positive. If Parker delivered, I'd gladly tell you, so others can use that as yet another data point, by which to make an assessment of whether they're likely to get what they want if their intent is to get Parker to swap the nib to one of their choice. For as long as Parker keeps failing, I'd like to share that experience with others so that they can feel/imagine it along with me without actually having the same costs that I have to suffer. If it drags on for six months and takes four failed attempts, surely that's useful to help others to consider 1. whether they want to buy the pen, and if they proceed, 2. whether they actually want to go through with the nib exchange exercise? People who see my frustration along the journey may choose to at least hold off buying, and see how much one has to put up with and go through to get to the end. However, if that doesn't concern you, I'm not stopping you from contributing to this discussion thread with something else that has nothing to do with my negative customer experience specifically pertaining to the purchase of this pen on this deal from Amazon US.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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Smug's posts belong in this thread because they deal with this particular deal. The information he provides is relevant to the process of ordering a pen on Amazon and asking for the nib exchange.

 

However, to be honest, I think the ordeal reflects more of Gil's super high (likely unattainable) nib standards (modelled on Asian company performance) than Parker's failings. Parker is a western pen company that I know makes very good nibs otherwise.

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However, to be honest, I think the ordeal reflects more of Gil's super high (likely unattainable) nib standards (modelled on Asian company performance) than Parker's failings. Parker is a western pen company that I know makes very good nibs otherwise.

 

I certainly admit I have (super?) high standards when it comes to nibs being crisp and precise, lending themselves to very tight control by the user (but that trait is not inherently an obstruction to expressiveness), and putting down suitably narrow lines for the width grade (e.g. Extra Fine) and type (e.g. Italic). However, I must note that Aurora generally makes a good Extra Fine nib, just not consistently as narrow as each other (across the seven 14K gold and 18K gold EF nibs I have); and Nemosine offered 0.6 Stub nibs made by JoWo that is quite precise and can certainly pass for "cursive italic". To me, they are "Western" companies, brands and products through and through. I am sorely disappointed that Parker's "needlepoint" or Extra Extra Fine is even as narrow and crisp as an Aurora gold EF, Lamy Z55 14K gold EF or even Parker's own 18K gold F nib that originally came with my Duofold Centennial Big Red Vintage. I will be disappointed if Parker's Fine Italic nib turns out to be no match in terms of precision and crispness as the Nemosine steel 0.6 Stub nib. My one and only "Western" gold Fine Italic is an Aurora 18K gold F nib customised to an Italic grind for me by Dan Smith; and would it be fair to expect Parker's "hand-made" nib produce in France to match Dan's masterful work? (The one he did for me on the Pelikan M600 started out as an EF nib.)

 

A lot of issues I've had with Parker of late, though, were simply errors and failures in customer service. Promises that weren't kept (e.g. send something to me in writing by a specific date, not demanded or nominated by me, but volunteered by Newell Brands's staff), poor (or lack of) communication, failing to take due care in protecting what I the customer have sent back to the company (and they didn't ask, suggest or instruct me not to send the original gift box back in the first place), failing to take action (e.g. set up an Australia Post Reply Paid address for repairs and returns, or offer to reimburse the customer for return postage on presentation of evidence of the shipping charges paid) to cover postage for Australian customers, setting the replacement nib and section without observing how the imprinted text on the barrel was aligned with the scrollwork on the original nib, sending me paperwork in error and thus failing to properly protect its other customers' privacy, and so on. None of that has anything to do with the quality or performance of the actual nib that was fitted, but everything to do with the process of my getting Parker to honour its open offer of providing a nib exchange on new pens.

 

If I was truly selfish and/or vindictive towards Parker, I'd be encouraging fellow members on here to jump on the deal by the hundreds to demand your individual choice of nib widths/types — be it Extra Extra Fine, Extra Extra Broad, Medium Reverse Oblique, or Fine Italic — and watch Parker "sink or swim". How many mistakes will Parker make, how much will it cost the company to rectify those, and what proportion of customers requesting nib exchanges (per Parker's published open offer) get their satisfaction? But, like I said, it hasn't worked out well for me (at my cost and frustration), and I'd prefer to be the only fool sucked in by the "good deal" and choice of nib on offer, because I'm not going to bet on anyone else's chances of getting exactly what they want in the nib they requested from Parker and the company not messing something up.

 

I'll let you know when my case is resolved. Frankly, I'm not interested in sending the pen back a third time (at my expense again), if this second nib replacement doesn't work out satisfactorily, unless they return my pen with a scratched barrel, leaky section, nib with signs of corrosion, or some such. If the Fine Italic nib is not, in my opinion, fit for purpose but will write anyway, I'll either sell the pen or keep it around to show others how bad it is in comparison to Aurora and Pelikan, Sailor and Platinum.

 

If nobody is interested in how the Fine Italic nib performs when the pen is returned to me, that's okay by me; let me know, and then I won't show any writing samples here, but simply let you know the case is closed, with a succinct "resolved satisfactorily" or "without satisfactory resolution".

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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I'm interested, SD.

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."

Oscar Wilde

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