Parker 88 Place Vendôme

[amper]

I was watching a video about the Parker Vector, and it made me think about my old Parker, which I haven't used in over 20 years.

It's been kicking around in a box full of old cheap pens from my younger days, and it's very 1980s in style, but I honestly am a little confused, because if you had asked me, I would have said I paid very little money for this pen at a local drugstore when I was a teenager, but after doing a little research, it is indisputably a Parker 88 Place Vendôme Corinth Silver, a model which one website says sold for $135 USD back then. There is no way that I would have ever spent that much money on a fountain pen. This was perhaps my second fountain pen, my first being a Sheaffer No Nonsense Calligraphy set I purchased when I was about 10 years old. 

This model was apparently released in 1987 or 1988, so I would have actually been 19 or 20 years old then, and a Theatre Design student at Carnegie-Mellon. Although I did spent a lot of money on art supplies, there's no way I could have afforded an expensive pen. I suppose it's possible that I simply bought it on a clearance sale, but I honestly do not now remember exactly where or when I bought it, or how much I paid for it, but I definitely bought it new at retail at a price I could easily afford.

In 1991, I started working at an art supply store, within a couple of years becoming the Purchaser for the store, where I had access to Pelikan and Tombow fountain pens, among others, and those became my daily writers around about that time, so the Parker would have been relegated to disuse since around that time.

 

[PithyProlix]

This site says that pen was $60 in 1989 and $70 in 1991. But those prices are equivalent to about $140-$170 today so still a fairly expensive pen.

 

https://parkerpens.net/parker88.html

[John Danza]

My very first exposure to fountain pens was an all-black Place Vendome fountain pen and ballpoint pen set that I bought for myself back in the late-80s. I got it from a store that sold "gifts" in the mall, with most of their products being engravable, which they of course did. It had a hard-as-a-rock steel nib that was gold plated/washed. I liked it enough to buy a Duofold Centennial, and then the rest has become a very expense hobby. 🤣  That said, it's at best an entry level fountain pen.

[amper]

7 hours ago, John Danza said:

That said, it's at best an entry level fountain pen.

Yes, that has always been my impression of it, which is why it has been sitting in a box for close to 30 years, instead of being used.