Comparison of Parker 45 with the Parker Frontier

December 8, 2009

Hi all. First post.

Bought myself a Parker Frontier several months ago because i wanted a good reliable fountain pen. I was VERY pleasantly surprised because every fountain pen(i'd bought a LOT) i'd used in the late 1970s and early 1980s when at Junior and High school was somewhat scratchy, yet this Frontier was anything but. I still have an unknown Sheaffer fountain pen from sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s, but that's fitted with a medium italic nib (the original nib has long since been lost) and i wanted a regular nib.

A few weeks ago, i decided i wanted to get a gold plated broad nib for my Frontier, but i couldn't find one anywhere, so i decided to buy a new fountain pen that was already fitted with a broad nib. Hence my purchase of the Parker 45 with a gold plated broad nib.

As an aside, in the late 1970s i could go down the local stationers in a large village with a population of around 10,000 and quite readily buy myself a whole range of fountain pens, inks of any colour, and nibs of any type (oblique, italic, regular of all types). Fast forward to 2009 and i can't even get an italic nib in a medium sized city with a population of about 300,000. What on Earth has happened to the fountain pen market in the last 30 years?

Nib

Both the 45 and the Frontier have excellent nibs in their own different ways.

Parker 45 - Gold plated broad nib. Writes beautifully and buttery smooth, BUT the sweet spot is very unforgiving. Rotate it 5 degrees either way and it wont write. Ink flow is excellent, but it has a tendency to start wet and spend the rest of the the page(s) writing dry when writing continuously.

Parker Frontier - Gold plated medium nib. Not quite as smooth as the 45 due to it's medium nib. The sweet spot is very forgiving and can be rotated as much as 30+ degrees in either direction and will still write well. I would say that the Frontier probably has one of the best nibs of any pen of any price (note that there is no correlation between writing performance and price). Writes consistently wet.

Neither the 45 nor the Frontier has any problem with skipping whatsoever, and both write reliably.

I consider the Frontier to have the better nib of the 2. It's consistency, smoothness, and extremely wide sweet spot make it a pleasure to write with, day in day out.

Because i tend to write with my fingers close to the nib, i sometimes end up with a small ink blob on my fingers after using the Frontier - the 45's hooded nib means that this doesn't happen.

Filling system

I've fitted both with a converter - the 45 has a plunge type converter and the Frontier has a twist type converter. The only reason why i got the plunge type is for reasons of flushing, but i consider the twist converter to be superior because it's easier to use and potentially less messy. I find it to be more elegant.

When i was using pens in the 1980s, virtually all of them had a rubber sac with a piece of metal curved around the sac. What's happened to them? They don't seem to exist any more.

Aesthetics

Both looks pretty much the same because they both have stainless steel casing and gold trim, and both look elegant. I prefer pens to be made of metal, both for reasons of endurance and aesthetics. What matters most to me is how a pen writes, so aesthics are just an added bonus.

I think that both the Frontier and the 45 look stylish.

Design

The 45 is slightly lighter than the Frontier, but both can be held in the hand and written with equal comfort (with caps on or off).

A problem i have with the Frontier and other pens with non-hooded nibs is that i always end up with inky fingers because of my tendency to hold the pen close to the tip.

I've heard that the Frontier has a problem with the cap. Mine has no such obvious problem - perhaps it will manifest itself over time.

Both feel quite sturdy with no obvious design problems.

Price & Value for money

Both were about £10. As mentioned previously, what matters most to me is how a pen writes, so considering that both pens write far better than most costing many times as much, i consider them to be superb value for money. These days, the price of a pen is much more closely tied with it's adornments and pretty-extras than with it's performance and quality, and that's why there are many poor writers costing £100 or more.

Summary

The Frontier is the better writer of the two pens and has a superior nib, but i consider the slimness, the slightly lesser weight, and the hooded nib of the 45 to be a plus for the 45.

Here's a (rubbish) photo of them taken with my phone (EDIT: just tried to upload one but it doesn't show up in my post)

Edited December 8, 2009 by Exquisite

December 9, 2009

What on Earth has happened to the fountain pen market in the last 30 years?

Ballpoints.

December 9, 2009

You have a point, but weren't ballpoints almost as plentiful then as they are now? They were certainly the standard for writing during that time.

December 28, 2009

Nice review Exquisite!

May I venture to suggest that it was the roller pens, mostly Pilots, that caused a huge shift in the writing preferences of the consumer population. The 0.5 mm Pilots had the smoothness of a finely tuned fp, while the lines still resembled the fine nibbed fountain pens. After having used jotters and fountain pens since elementary school, I changed to roller pens, after graduating college.

It was only recently that I rediscovered fountain pens, and released that it was the feel, the quarkiness and exhilaration of writing with simple, yet artistic device, that had been missing from my life. Fountain pens are not just utilitarian, but actually entice you to write, to feel the ink flow on to paper, and the ideas to be born just so that you could write them down for the first time. None of the other writing instruments have that, in my opinion, not pencils, not ball points, not typewriters not even computers. I guess that makes me old fashioned, but it is what it is.

Best regards,

thepusher.

January 5, 2010

Parker 45 - Gold plated broad nib. Writes beautifully and buttery smooth, BUT the sweet spot is very unforgiving. Rotate it 5 degrees either way and it wont write. Ink flow is excellent, but it has a tendency to start wet and spend the rest of the the page(s) writing dry when writing continuously.

Good review!!!my parker 45 does the same thing you just mentioned above,but I really like using it as long as I am on the sweet spot,I think you just have to get experience to accommodate to any pen you own...

January 5, 2010

Very nice comparison!

Being a student, I am always on the lookout for pens which perform flawlessly and don't cost a fortune. IMO, these are two champion pens from parker. Incidentally, I acquired both of these together recently.

I would rate my Frontier very slightly higher in terms of smoothness, though that might be due to the fact that my Frontier has an M nib, whereas the 45 is F.

But in the design and ergonomics department, I would give the edge to the 45. Unposted,the weight distribution is just perfect for me and I love using it for extended periods.

January 5, 2010

Nice review. I don't have a 45, my tastes having moved toward the German end of the spectrum over time, so I'm less interested in Parkers, but I used Frontiers almost exclusively for quite a few years, and found them to be very smooth and reliable, one of them even after having been dropped nib down (ouch!). Their caps do get loose over time, which is a bit of a pain, and I'm not a fan of the plunger convertors, but for the price, they're good pens. Maybe I'll dig one of mine out in a day or two...