ince the closing of Newhaven India and China has produced a multitude of Special Editions. Hence it’s virtually impossible to cover all the Vector designs in this article.

It is an excellent pen for the money and but is narrowly misses out on a 10 because it is rather on the small side and, frankly, is a bit boring, still, it is easily a 9/10 . Parker Jotter". Unsharpen.com. Archived from the original on 14 February 2021 . Retrieved 31 January 2021. Welcome to Parker". www.parkerpen.com. Archived from the original on 15 March 2018 . Retrieved 26 April 2018. The feed and nib are quite nice. The feed has two channels, even the old ones do. Some old ones don't even have Parker written on the nib. It's certainly a very nice pen. I really liked it. If you want to clean it, you can use an ultrasonic cleaner. It does really well with these nibs. You don't need to take it apart since the nib and feed are very tight and can be damaged when you pull them. eterson had given Manville Smith six months to get the Arrow Park running again, but it was soon clear that it would not be finished for the Christmas season of 1983. The new factory was to be computer-automated but it broke down repeatedly and Parker eventually had to hire manual labour again to fulfill the Christmas demands, which cost Parker millions of dollars. After the Vector, Manville Smith had planned goto even deeper into the low-price market with the Itala, which would be Parker's first disposable pen. George Parker reacted fiercely against it, and was in fact so enraged about the idea of diminishing the Parker trademark by offering a throw-away pen that he had Manville Smith fired, even though his RB-1 strategy had proved very profitable. According to Smith himself the failed Janesville-Vector time-line provided George Parker with a good reason for letting him go.Availability : This is about the easiest fountain pen to lay hands on in the UK and, as I understand it, it certainly isn't difficult to find in many other parts of the world, either, whether in a high-street shop, a supermarket or on the net. The price hasn't risen too much in the last decade, either. If you want a fine nib you may not get one quite so easily, though, and extra fine stopped being made ages ago!

Malcolm Troak tells us how Smith decided to close the Janesville's Arrow Park factory in the US from May to November 1983for the remodeling. This meant that Newhaven had to supply the world demand for six months. Incredibly enough Newhaven rose to the challenge and at times managed to produce more than a million pens pen week! While the RB-1 was taking a large chunk of the roller ball market, the Systemark was silently phased out. The average score is 8/10 . T hat seems about right – it has its faults, but over all I have never had serious complaints. As hardy as this pen has proved, I'd recommend the flighter if you want extra toughness – as long as the cost difference remains negligible it's worth it. There are other (more expensive, more attention-grabbing) contenders for someone's first fountain pen, but this one is so easy to lay hands on, pleasant to use and so reliable that I think anyone could (and should) consider it – it's not “excitement, adventure and really wild things!” but it will get the job done, and do it well .

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All in all, it's a great nib for the money. A true medium, smooth, on the wet side; I can't fault it. I'm giving it 10/10. John F. Kennedy Parker Jotter Pen". John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. JFK Library and museum. Archived from the original on 5 September 2015 . Retrieved 3 February 2017. President Kennedy's Favorite Pen Pen factory closure plan revealed". 16 July 2009. Archived from the original on 9 August 2019 . Retrieved 26 April 2018– via news.bbc.co.uk. Kenneth Grange: A very British modernist". the Guardian. 19 July 2011. Archived from the original on 22 November 2022 . Retrieved 22 November 2022. In summary, it's a compact pen, but posted it's a very good length for even the largest hands. Unfortunately, even if it was 20-25% fatter, it still couldn't be called a wide pen. It's light, which is often easier, but it's not ideal for prolonged use, unless you have small hands. I don't feel it can have more than 6/10.

here was a wide sense of resentment towards how Parker was run and of the management, and following "very stringent cuts" in all areas, morale was low and the production so problematic that Peterson resigned the day before New Years Eve in 1985. It has almost no spring. However, for a cheap steel nib, it is smooth and a real pleasure to write with. This one has had a lot of time to adapt to my writing style (and for a good proportion of the last decade it was one of only two fountain pens I regularly used, so it has been well broken in) but I don't recall it ever being at all scratchy. My two much newer Parkers with the same nib bear this out. This is a medium, and as this nib was also on my first fountain pen, it is, I think, unconsciously the standard by which I judge whether another medium nib is truly medium or not. When compared to half a dozen other mediums I own, this actually seems quite fair (though my “identical” Jotter nib is a very broad “medium”, so they aren't 100% consistent). Anyway, here is a sample to give you an idea of how it writes (the ink is Diamine Amazing Amethyst, though the colour is slightly off in the photo):

Subsequently, Parker has abandoned its traditional retail outlets in North America. While some of its former staple Jotter pens may be found in retailers such as Office Depot, the Parker line has been moved to upscale "luxury" retailers in an abandonment of its former business model of quality manufacture combined with mass market appeal and pricing. [ citation needed] With this commercial strategic move Parker also altered its traditional product warranty on its high end pens, changing the former lifetime guarantee to a two-year warranty limitation. [15] The Systemark was test marketed in Winnipeg in Canada in the spring of1974 and became very popular.