Pros: Elegant. Refined. Built like a tank. Can take gel ink refills for fantastic writing.
Cons: Refills are somewhat expensive; Pen should be offered stock with gel cartridges but isn't.
The Bottom Line: There's a reason things like this are called "classic." The Jotter hasn't changed in 50 years because Parker had the good sense to get it right the first time.
zero_'s Full Review: Parker Pen Company Jotter Stainless Steel Ball Pen
It takes, I think, a particular kind of weirdo to get truly excited about writing implements. Pens and pencils, markers, brushes, and inks; These sorts of things don't even register on the radar of most people. But it's with a bit of pride I present that I'm exactly that kind of weirdo. Pens fascinate me - especially fountain pens - mostly because I'm a writer but also because I'm a diehard gadgeteer.
To most people, a pen is just a pen. It's the thing you chew on at the office. When the occasion calls to put ink down on something it's also the ghastly plastic thing with terrible ergonomics that cramps your hand, tends not to work when you need it to, looks tacky, feels tacky, and writes oily, lumpy, uneven lines.
Most people who aren't writers don't appreciate or even think about a fine pen, because most people who aren't writers don't write, or don't write often enough for it to matter. I blame two things for this: The proliferation of TV, and the proliferation of the disposable ballpoint stick pen.
The pen is no longer a tool. It is an inconvenience, and one that people are happy to have over with as cheaply and quickly as possible. Buy them in packs of ten from the drugstore or swipe them by the handful from the counter at the bank, it's all the same.
Following this came the natural rise of the "executive" pen, which also isn't a tool - It's a pose accessory. A fashion statement. The executive pen doesn't necessarily write any better than the disposable stick ballpoint, but it's much shiner and it sure costs a lot more.
It is thus, somewhere between the TV and the stick pen, that the working man's writing instrument disappeared.
Except for the Parker Jotter. In stainless, preferably.
I was tickled pink to discover one day that the Jotter is still carried by most of my local department and office supply stores. I'm not a fan of ballpoints (can you tell?) so I tended to skip right by the cheap and nasty ballpoint department and proceed straight to the minuscule fountain pen section, where I would buy some ink for my 35 year old daily writer (a Sheaffer Targa) and go home.
But there was the Jotter! In stainless! For cheap! I bought a bunch. For the specific situations where I'm basically prohibited from using my fountain pen, they're fantastic.
Here is a pen that has been virtually unchanged for an upwards of 50 years. Parker introduced the Jotter in 1954. At the time, it was the company's first ballpoint pen, and this was a time when ballpoint pens were new, exciting technology. This was when they occupied the same price bracket and demanded the same prestige as fancy fountain pens do today.
The rise and fall of ballpoints and fountain pens came and went, respectively. Every household in America bought a TV, and now people spend more time punching "lol" and "wtf" into their cell phones than they do writing anything on paper. But the Jotter has stayed the same, using the same refills, keeping the same refined and classic styling, and keeping it's excellently durable construction. It's a like a time capsule from the 1950's that you can write with.
There's a lot about the Jotter to like, even for a diehard wet-inker like me. For a start, retractable ballpoint pens are so much more convenient than rollerballs or my favored fountain pens, simply because they don't need caps and they don't dry out. When I go to work, for instance, a retractable ballpoint is practically a must. Pens with caps get their caps lost, and take too long to get out and put away. Pens without pocket clips get lost entirely. A retractable pen like the Jotter can be used entirely one-handed, while a capped pen can't.
Towards that end, the Jotter's clicky mechanism is fantastic and very unique. It, too, has remained unchanged throughout the decades. The click button is large and made of the same brushed metal as the rest of the pen. It's always under spring tension even when the point is deployed, so it doesn't go all flaccid and rattly like the buttons on disposable click-pens. It's got a long, smooth throw that lets you know work is being done, and it clicks home with authority every time. It's even captive, so if you spend your off moments taking your pen apart and playing with it the button can't fall out and get lost.
The pocket clip is all metal, wrapped around the body of the pen and not tacked on or crimped in some silly way that'll leave it falling off in a week. It's got the perfect blend of tension and ease of removal. It's rounded on the end so it doesn't snag. It's even got Parker's trademark arrow design, giving it the same air of class as classics like the Parker 51. It says, "yes, this is a nice pen."
And it's durable. The metal body is well finished and in my experience of a couple of months dropping, fumbling, and otherwise abusing mine is also quite dent and scratch resistant. The top and bottom halves of the body screw together with that same coarse, 1950's, Soviet-industrial looking thread from 50 years ago.
Underneath all the gleaming stainless steel and shiny arrow pocket-clips and all, the Jotter is still a ballpoint pen. It's a good ballpoint pen, given that it uses the same metal bodied refills as all other Parker retractable ballpoints and Parker makes some of the best. But that's sort of like saying a Radio Flyer is the pinnacle of modern vehicular design and quality when it hasn't got an engine and won't get you very far on the freeway.
But, interestingly, it can be made better.
The regular ballpoint cartridges for the Jotter are none too cheap, and by nature use the same unctuous, nasty ink as other ballpoints and leave the same half-filled, not-quite-black, inelegant writing with a gritty feel. But the Jotter can accept Parker's #7 gel ink refills as well, which don't cost much (or any) more than the regular refills but produce a much richer, blacker, more fountainpen-like line. The gel cartridges also write much more smoothly than the stock ballpen ones, feeling much more like a high class rollerball pen.
So with this combination the Jotter goes from just a cut above the rest to something truly unique: A clickable, retractable, capless, easy to use pen that's built like a tank but still writes well.
Better still, it's cheap. Well, by executive pen standards, anyway. You can pick one up for seven dollars or less if you shop around, and a pack of gel refills for it (they come in pairs) can run you as little as three or four dollars more.
And that for a durable, elegant, and convenient writing tool that's actually fantastic for writing is absolutely priceless.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.