what WAS Parker's equivalent/competition for the Sheaffer school pen?

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

32 minutes ago, Estycollector said:

It had never been inked. The gold and silver cap caught my eye. 

long as the price was right? good call!

[Estycollector]

59 minutes ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

long as the price was right? good call!

The price was right! Thanks. 

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

32 minutes ago, Estycollector said:

The price was right! Thanks. 

I'm glad it's with someone who appreciates it for what it is: a time capsule of what it was like to get one new back in the day.

whenever I see an unlinked original pen I'm a little sad that it never got to do it's job, but at the same time happy that there is a pristine example showing what they were like when they were new.

[Estycollector]

46 minutes ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

I'm glad it's with someone who appreciates it for what it is: a time capsule of what it was like to get one new back in the day.

whenever I see an unlinked original pen I'm a little sad that it never got to do it's job, but at the same time happy that there is a pristine example showing what they were like when they were new.

It is definitely in my rotation. I've only used Waterman Serenity Blue. 

 

I imagine it was a gift that a kindly aunt or grandmother had gifted it to an adolescent or adult relative who really little or no use for a fountain pen, so it was put into a dresser and laid there for decades until an event occurred for which it was seen and put into an estate sale by the family. I remember finding Christmas gifts to my grandfather like pajamas still in their wrappings and a pair of overalls carefully folded and lying in a dresser drawer just as they were when given. 

[Beechwood]

1 hour ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

I'm glad it's with someone who appreciates it for what it is: a time capsule of what it was like to get one new back in the day.

whenever I see an unlinked original pen I'm a little sad that it never got to do it's job, but at the same time happy that there is a pristine example showing what they were like when they were new.

 

I can understand that. 

 

Today I am using a 1935 Parker Moderne, Made in Canada all original but nothing special apart from an amazing Oblique nib.

 

But I think of the long passed worker at their bench 90 years ago assembling this small Parker and what they would have thought about their work being admired and enjoyed so far into the future

 

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

1 hour ago, Estycollector said:

It is definitely in my rotation. I've only used Waterman Serenity Blue. 

 

I imagine it was a gift that a kindly aunt or grandmother had gifted it to an adolescent or adult relative who really little or no use for a fountain pen, so it was put into a dresser and laid there for decades until an event occurred for which it was seen and put into an estate sale by the family. I remember finding Christmas gifts to my grandfather like pajamas still in their wrappings and a pair of overalls carefully folded and lying in a dresser drawer just as they were when given. 

I think we've all seen stuff like that

 

1 hour ago, Beechwood said:

 

I can understand that. 

 

Today I am using a 1935 Parker Moderne, Made in Canada all original but nothing special apart from an amazing Oblique nib.

 

But I think of the long passed worker at their bench 90 years ago assembling this small Parker and what they would have thought about their work being admired and enjoyed so far into the future

 

 it's a fun thing to wonder about that's for sure!

[inkstainedruth]

22 hours ago, Beechwood said:

But I think of the long passed worker at their bench 90 years ago assembling this small Parker and what they would have thought about their work being admired and enjoyed so far into the future

 

I have often wondered something similar when I find a pen in the wild that has a name or initials engraved on it.  I've only been able to track down information about the original owner (I think) of one pen -- a third tier pen that a guy at a flea market GAVE me a few years ago, on the grounds that (as the guy claimed) he couldn't sell it -- I don't know whether it was because of the engraved name, or because it was a Wearever pen.  I did a Google search for the name, and it traced to a jewelry store in Canonsburg, PA in a newspaper ad from the late 1940s or early 1950s on a website that had the image of the page that the ad was on.   More recently, that location had been an antiques shop, but I never got a chance to get down to the store and show off the pen (the antiques store either went to "online only" or closed up shop entirely before I got a chance to get back down there with the pen).

I did have an interesting conversation at the Commonwealth Show a few years ago, with a vendor who turned out to live in the town my brother-in-law had been the Postmaster for).  I don't remember the guy's name offhand, but he said that he had been able to track down the person whose name was engraved on a pen he had acquired -- and that the original owner had been an Army (IIRC) nurse during WWII.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Beechwood]

28 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

I have often wondered something similar when I find a pen in the wild that has a name or initials engraved on it.  I've only been able to track down information about the original owner (I think) of one pen -- a third tier pen that a guy at a flea market GAVE me a few years ago, on the grounds that (as the guy claimed) he couldn't sell it -- I don't know whether it was because of the engraved name, or because it was a Wearever pen.  I did a Google search for the name, and it traced to a jewelry store in Canonsburg, PA in a newspaper ad from the late 1940s or early 1950s on a website that had the image of the page that the ad was on.   More recently, that location had been an antiques shop, but I never got a chance to get down to the store and show off the pen (the antiques store either went to "online only" or closed up shop entirely before I got a chance to get back down there with the pen).

I did have an interesting conversation at the Commonwealth Show a few years ago, with a vendor who turned out to live in the town my brother-in-law had been the Postmaster for).  I don't remember the guy's name offhand, but he said that he had been able to track down the person whose name was engraved on a pen he had acquired -- and that the original owner had been an Army (IIRC) nurse during WWII.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

 

I do something similar, I bought a pen, actually a wreck of a pen with an engraved name on the cap that was so unusual that I did some research. He was a commercial artist who painted many of the posters for US War Bonds during WW2, prior to that he had worked for the Indian Railway Company painting their travel posters, very good they were too.

 

His granddaughter lives in the US and I asked if she wanted the  pen as a keepsake, a reminder of her grand father not thinking that I was opening a can of worms.

 

'My grandfather was a philandering rogue who left my mother and me and took off with a floosy from the local bar, we later found out that he was a serial adulterer and had more husbands chasing him than Usain Bolt ever did', if you have anything of my grandfathers you have my full permission to hit it with a hammer in place of him'

 

As if turned out, the plastic was so brittle that it went into a thousand shards when I took it apart so she got her wish, the cap with his name lives on.

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

11 minutes ago, Beechwood said:

 

 

I do something similar, I bought a pen, actually a wreck of a pen with an engraved name on the cap that was so unusual that I did some research. He was a commercial artist who painted many of the posters for US War Bonds during WW2, prior to that he had worked for the Indian Railway Company painting their travel posters, very good they were too.

 

His granddaughter lives in the US and I asked if she wanted the  pen as a keepsake, a reminder of her grand father not thinking that I was opening a can of worms.

 

'My grandfather was a philandering rogue who left my mother and me and took off with a floosy from the local bar, we later found out that he was a serial adulterer and had more husbands chasing him than Usain Bolt ever did', if you have anything of my grandfathers you have my full permission to hit it with a hammer in place of him'

 

As if turned out, the plastic was so brittle that it went into a thousand shards when I took it apart so she got her wish, the cap with his name lives on.

wow... that's one heck of a story to go with a pen!

[inkstainedruth]

@Beechwood WOW!  That's some story -- you weren't kidding about the "can of worms" part!

Even better than the one I heard about on the new news today -- some guy couldn't figure out why he didn't look anything like his siblings, so he had a DNA test done.  And THEN found out that he'd been accidentally switched at birth by the hospital where he was born for some OTHER kid with the same last name, but whose parents lived in a different part of NYC or out on Long Island.  The hospital is now apparently facing a major lawsuit (only I'm not sure -- since the guy I think is probably roughly my age at this point -- whether the statutes of limitation have run out...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Beechwood]

10 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

@Beechwood WOW!  That's some story -- you weren't kidding about the "can of worms" part!

Even better than the one I heard about on the new news today -- some guy couldn't figure out why he didn't look anything like his siblings, so he had a DNA test done.  And THEN found out that he'd been accidentally switched at birth by the hospital where he was born for some OTHER kid with the same last name, but whose parents lived in a different part of NYC or out on Long Island.  The hospital is now apparently facing a major lawsuit (only I'm not sure -- since the guy I think is probably roughly my age at this point -- whether the statutes of limitation have run out...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

There has just been a UK TV series on that subject , Playing Nice, "a  psychological thriller by JP Delaney, follows two couples who discover that their toddlers were switched at birth in a hospital mix-up and face a horrifying dilemma: do they keep the sons they have raised and loved or reclaim their biological child?"

 

It could be that the Statute starts from the point where you become aware of the problem.

[inkstainedruth]

I don't know how NYS law works, so I don't have a good answer for that.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[welch]

On 4/6/2025 at 10:03 PM, inkstainedruth said:

Any clue as to when the Sheaffer school pens were first on the market?  Because I'm thinking that the Vector *might* have been Parker's answer (but they might also be too new -- I just checked on Tony Fisher's site and the Vectors first came out in the mid 1980s).

I know that there are people on FPN who sneer at Vectors as being "school pens" -- but all of mine are little workhorses.  They're inexpensive, they're fun, they come in a bunch of different designs and colors, and, well, they just WORK....  And the Parker twist converters fit in them (and while the price of those have gone up, at least they're still AVAILABLE -- unlike the Sheaffer equivalent for their school pens; someone at the Ohio Pen Show last fall had a couple of them, but wanted $25 US *apiece*.... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

I suffered with a Sheaffer School Pen from 4th grade, which was about 1957. We were a Parker family -- Mom had saved to give Dad a marbled Vacumatic when he was sent to the Pacific on an aircraft carrier. "I wrote a lot of letters with that pen".  He was left-handed and had been forced to write right-handed in school. Dad bought a first-model Parker Jotter in the 1950s. I still remember the non-arrow clip on it. 

 

I got a Parker 45 for Christmas in 1960, and kept it for years. So much better than the Sheaffer School Pen. 

 

Did Parker have a competitor to the School Pen? The Parker Super 21 was their economy pen in the late 1950s, but I never saw one. From Parker Penography, it seems like the Super 21 was price around $5, or about five times more than the Sheaffer. Thus, not really a competitor to the School Pen.

 

I was too young to pay close attention in '57 or '58, but my hunch is that only third-tier pens competed with Sheaffer, and the School Pen beat them. Hands down. Our mothers wanted us using a clean-filling pen, and the cartridge pen fit that. I don't remember another cartridge-filler until the P-45. Further, Sheaffer had a well-developed sales campaign to put the School Pen in the hands of as many young kids as possible. Someone here or on FPG wrote a long story showing the materials that Sheaffer gave away to schools. It included a School Pen for every kid, cartridges, practice notebooks. The strategy: make children Sheaffer-users as soon as the graduated from pencils, and they would be Sheaffer users for life.  Sad that in a few years, fountain pens would no longer be the primary writiing instrument.

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

2 hours ago, welch said:

 

I suffered with a Sheaffer School Pen from 4th grade, which was about 1957. We were a Parker family -- Mom had saved to give Dad a marbled Vacumatic when he was sent to the Pacific on an aircraft carrier. "I wrote a lot of letters with that pen".  He was left-handed and had been forced to write right-handed in school. Dad bought a first-model Parker Jotter in the 1950s. I still remember the non-arrow clip on it. 

 

I got a Parker 45 for Christmas in 1960, and kept it for years. So much better than the Sheaffer School Pen. 

 

Did Parker have a competitor to the School Pen? The Parker Super 21 was their economy pen in the late 1950s, but I never saw one. From Parker Penography, it seems like the Super 21 was price around $5, or about five times more than the Sheaffer. Thus, not really a competitor to the School Pen.

 

I was too young to pay close attention in '57 or '58, but my hunch is that only third-tier pens competed with Sheaffer, and the School Pen beat them. Hands down. Our mothers wanted us using a clean-filling pen, and the cartridge pen fit that. I don't remember another cartridge-filler until the P-45. Further, Sheaffer had a well-developed sales campaign to put the School Pen in the hands of as many young kids as possible. Someone here or on FPG wrote a long story showing the materials that Sheaffer gave away to schools. It included a School Pen for every kid, cartridges, practice notebooks. The strategy: make children Sheaffer-users as soon as the graduated from pencils, and they would be Sheaffer users for life.  Sad that in a few years, fountain pens would no longer be the primary writiing instrument.

That's the part that blows my mind, and why I posted the question in the first place. I was kind of aware of Sheaffer's efforts to create life long Sheaffer users by getting them young... and I just couldn't believe that Parker just ... let them have the market unopposed! Which it very much seems they did. I wonder what the decision making process for that was like!? 

[Beechwood]

7 hours ago, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

That's the part that blows my mind, and why I posted the question in the first place. I was kind of aware of Sheaffer's efforts to create life long Sheaffer users by getting them young... and I just couldn't believe that Parker just ... let them have the market unopposed! Which it very much seems they did. I wonder what the decision making process for that was like!? 

 

Parker was always brilliant at marketing, they focused on Parker as a brand, I can imagine that a low priced low profit pen placed into a competitive market could have had a negative effect on the pricepoint and image of their premier pens.

 

 

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

9 minutes ago, Beechwood said:

 

Parker was always brilliant at marketing, they focused on Parker as a brand, I can imagine that a low priced low profit pen placed into a competitive market could have had a negative effect on the pricepoint and image of their premier pens.

 

 

that is an excellent suggestion. 

"we're Parker Pens, we don't DO ultra low end, that's simply not our brand." 

 

it does make sense in a way. still... man I wish we had the board room meeting notes about that conversation...

[welch]

On 4/12/2025 at 3:26 PM, IThinkIHaveAProblem said:

That's the part that blows my mind, and why I posted the question in the first place. I was kind of aware of Sheaffer's efforts to create life long Sheaffer users by getting them young... and I just couldn't believe that Parker just ... let them have the market unopposed! Which it very much seems they did. I wonder what the decision making process for that was like!? 

 

I think Beechwood is right: Parker did not want to compete in the cheapest market. One part of the reason, I would guess, is that Parker thought the profit margin on a school pen was too low. The 51 was a high end gift pen, and so was the P-61. And that's why Parker wanted the Parker 75, and why they made the Cisele. Somewhere on Tony Fischier's Parker Penography he quotes a Parker senior manager as saying that Parker never knew how to make a profit on super economy pens. They sold an awful lot of Parker 45s, but it was not as profitable as they wanted. 

 

Best I understand the prices in 1960, when I got a 45, the Parker 51 and 61 were selling at about $15, the 45 at $4.98, and the Jotter was about $1.98. 

 

We see the same thing since about 1980 or 1990. It costs almost as much to make a medium priced pen as a luxury pen.  

[IThinkIHaveAProblem]

ill have to try and find that quote

[Targa]

On 4/12/2025 at 9:42 PM, Incertus said:

 

Parker was always brilliant at marketing, they focused on Parker as a brand, I can imagine that a low priced low profit pen placed into a competitive market could have had a negative effect on the pricepoint and image of their premier pens.

 

 

And Sheaffer vanished faster.  Too bad.  They had such great pens.    I very much enjoy my plethora of vintage (even unto the 80s) Sheaffers.