Meet The Parkers, Part I

Last month I report­ed that I got my hands on my old favorite pen, or the same mod­el of pen any­how. It was­n’t easy to find but I do now have a stain­less steel-bar­reled Park­er Vec­tor foun­tain pen. I won­dered how it would com­pare to some of the sim­i­lar mod­els of Park­ers, and since they were pret­ty inex­pen­sive, I ordered some. I had to (vir­tu­al­ly) go to Great Britain to find a Park­er I.M., which in the UK is mar­ket­ed as the Park­er Pro­file. Haven’t found any stores in the US online or oth­er­wise that sell the I.M. foun­tain pen. So I paid almost as much for ship­ping as for the pen, but it sat­is­fies my curios­i­ty. Even shipped from the UK it’s an inex­pen­sive pen

The first to arrive, how­ev­er, was the stain­less steel Park­er Jot­ter foun­tain pen. I have a Jot­ter ball­point that was giv­en to me as a gift, and it’s one of the few ball­points I’ll actu­al­ly use. If I were smarter, I’d have ordered a gold trim Jot­ter foun­tain pen instead of the chrome trim, as then I’d have a match­ing set.

I was quite sur­prised at how light and small the Jot­ter is. At 14 grams, it’s even lighter than the Vec­tor, and 5½ inch­es long to the Vec­tor’s almost 6¼” (mea­sured with the cap fit­ted to the bar­rel and the nib exposed, as they would be when writ­ing with them).

The real sur­prise came with the Pro­file aka I.M. It’s 6¼” long and weighs 18 grams — slight­ly heav­ier than the stain­less steel Vec­tor despite being con­struct­ed of plas­tic. It has a bit more diam­e­ter as well, mak­ing it a more com­fort­able writer for me. It’s said to be the replace­ment for the Vec­tor, and I can see the sim­i­lar­i­ties. The Vec­tor, Pro­file, and Jot­ter are fit­ted with very sim­i­lar nibs. The price point seems to be about the same, and the pack­ag­ing sug­gests the same mar­ket­ing tar­get and place­ment. As much his­to­ry and love as I have for the Park­er Vec­tor, The Pro­file is quite the wor­thy suc­ces­sor. It’s good-look­ing, puts down a great line, and has a bet­ter heft than the Vec­tor, at about the same price.

As men­tioned, All three of these inex­pen­sive foun­tain pens have a sim­i­lar nib, but the Jot­ter’s is just a bit shinier, indi­cat­ing a bit more pol­ish. At first I thought the dif­fer­ence was cos­met­ic, but writ­ing with the Jot­ter I was very pleased with the smooth feel of the nib on paper. While the small size and light weight of the Jot­ter make it my least favorite to hold and write with, I have to give a nod to it for how it writes. If you’re try­ing to decide between a Pro­file and a Vec­tor, pick based on your size and weight pref­er­ences, and the looks of the pens. The nib char­ac­ter­is­tics are indis­tin­guish­able from one anoth­er. But if you pre­fer a small and light­weight pen, the Jot­ter is a supe­ri­or writer.

Park­er Stain­less Steel Jot­ter: 14 grams

Park­er Stain­less Steel Vec­tor: 17 grams

Park­er Black (plas­tic) Profile/I.M.: 18 grams