Parker Brand Prestige?

[MakitRight]

I've always been a bit of a Parker fan since I was a kid in the 80s/90s. I always thought of them in the top tier of fine pen brands.

 

But I hear apparently the brand has suffered in recent years and no longer as highly perceived?

 

Where does Parker stand in terms of brand prestige relative to its competitors? (MB, Pelikan, Waterman, Sheaffer, Cross etc).

 

Thanks

Hey Pingu - Parker must have seen your post and liked it so much that they named their re-launch of the Duofold line with your suggestion - "Prestige" - congratulations.

[welch]

The "writing instrument" market has changed and changed again and changed a third time (at least) since 1900: dip pen to fountain pen to ballpoint to supplement to a computer keyboard.

 

- Pens are not used int the same way they were used in 1960, when the Parker 51 / 61 and the Sheaffer PFM were the top-of-the-line writing instruments: high-priced and widely sold

 

- Mont Blanc became a luxury item, like an expensive watch. That's one answer to the rise of the ballpoint and the typewriter.

 

- Parker and Sheaffer continued as before, offering fountain pens and ballpoints from luxury down to student / economy price-points. Other pen companies did the same -- consider the great British companies -- but only Sheaffer and Parker were strong enough to survive...in some way. Even Sheaffer sold off to Textron in the late '60s. The Parker family sold the business to executives at Parker Newhaven, UK. Sheaffer went into BIC, and now belongs to Cross. Parker is now part of Newell Rubbermaid (NR)

 

- In 2011, NR reorganized, putting Papermate into an office-products division, and creating a "fine writing division" for Parker and Waterman.

 

- The 2014 NR Annual Report has Papermate, Parker, and Waterman in the Writing division, along with several related brands. That division accounts for $1.7 billion of NR's annual $6 billion in revenue. The Writing Division and another (I can't remember which) division, about the same size, amount to about 2/3 of NR's sales. "Everything else" just looks like odds-and-ends.

 

- NR says its strategy is to capture the market of young professionals and bring them up to fine writing. I think that means they want to sell throwaway Papermate stick pens and pencils, then sell a customer a Sonnet or Carene, and finally a prestige pen, like the Duofold. It seems like a reasonable strategy. I love the Parker 51 and the Vacumatic, but NR has to sell what the market wants. People seem to want glitz, unfortunately. The market seems to like size, gold, swirly patterns, eye-catching designs.

 

- Within the luxury market, the modern Duofold is pretty good. Is it as good as the MB146? If not, it's not far behind, and MB is over-priced.

[pajaro]

I never heard of the Duofold until I joined here, so I think the Duofold is likely to be a prestige item to other pen connoisseurs and rich Parker lovers. Everybody seems to know Montblanc. I love 51s, and I have had enough of the Sonnet and Duofold. The Montblancs I have are as good as a 51 and better than the other Parkers, and the masses know they are pocket jewelry. A win-win.