Ambitous, But Rubbish
Written: Mar 01 '09 (Updated Mar 02 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Well constructed, and stylish. You could pay a lot more for an "executive" fountain pen.
Cons: Hard start problems, doesn't come with ink, rough writing. Honestly, just not all that good.
The Bottom Line: I wanted to like the Latitude, but its knockoff-pen performance with executive-pen pricetag doesn't win it any favors.
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| zero_'s Full Review: Parker Sanford Brands Sanford Latitude Fountain Pe... |
It's sort of a bad time to be an American and fancy fountain pens. This presents a bit of a problem to those of us for whom "ballpoint" is a dirty word; Fountain pens retain considerable popularity in Europe and Japan but are increasingly becoming relics in this particular area of the globe. Fountain pens in general are rare enough, but it seems that good ones just aren't made these days, or at least they aren't imported.
I've been a die-hard member of the Wet Ink Brotherhood for ages now, and have preferred (and still do) to employ my Sheaffer Targa from the late 1970's. But long gone now are the halcyon days of the '70's and '80's along with their stylish and sensibly proportioned fountain pens. My Targa isn't manufactured anymore, nor is anything like it. Slim, elegant, and importantly metal fountain pens functionally don't exist anymore, as the market's gone back to chintzy plastic and faux marbled abominations of the size and shape that look as if Sigmund Freud ought to be puffing on them.
You can still buy an inexpensive fountain pen that'll write very well, take standard cartridges, and stand up under use if you know what to look for. You might even be able to do so in a plain old office supply or stationery store, and probably even one in this country. But it'll be plastic, and it'll look and feel cheap. It won't be swank, it won't have the heft of quality, and it will probably be in a big-fat-and-wide form factor that you may not exactly find elegant.
I was interested, then, when I laid eyes on Parker's relatively new "Latitude" line, which seems to recall that silver age of the '80's with its swish, shiny accoutrements, slim profile, and stainless steel body.
The Latitude is billed as an "executive" pen and it's sold as such; You'll find it alongside gold-and-chrome plated Cross, Parker, and Waterman models at the office supply store. It's prohibitively expensive from the point of view of your average workaday stiff at 80 dollars but well within the reach of the Poser Accessory Budget of your garden variety salesguy or pointy-haired-CEO.
It is, of course, possible to spend any amount of money you like on a fountain pen even in this day and age, and that's just counting new-manufacture models and completely discounting the antiques market. If you want to spend four figures on a writing utensil Parker, Sheaffer, or Waterman will certainly let you do it. And many of their best models start at two to three hundred dollars, so a mere eighty bucks for the Latitude starts looking like a great bargain.
And it looks the part. The Latitude, especially the silver model, is gorgeous. With its flawless brushed stainless steel finish, mirror polished and gently angled endcaps, and sweeping avant-garde pocket clip it looks as if it's been dug up from a silver age time capsule. I'm not particularly fond of the sky blue version, but the Latitude's black model is also quite striking. And to each his own, of course.
But then, once you have the pen in your hands and its receipt in your pocket things begin to unwind.
The Latitude takes Parker's proprietary ink cartridges. This is a play that the fountain pen makers have been executing decades before the printer manufacturers stole it from their book: Hook them on the pen, screw them with the ink.
Parker's cartridges almost look like they'd be interchangeable with standard International Short cartridges, but they're not. The Parker cartridges are longer, but that's not the issue -- the neck design is clearly lifted from the International Short design but is slightly wider, to prohibit the use of the cheaper and more readily available cartridges. And the Latitude, to its credit, doesn't come with a single cartridge.
It does come with a converter cartridge, though, to fill the pen from an inkwell. It's a plunger style job that's the same length as a disposable Parker cartridge, but it holds about half the amount of ink. It also works very well, which is more than can be said for a great deal of pack-in converters, but using it gets ink all over the nooks and crannies beneath the nib of the pen and I find it much more efficient just to fill the converter (or better, an empty disposable cartridge) with an eyedropper or syringe.
Problem #2 comes with the fact that Parker's ink just isn't very good. Instead of coming out black with the Latitude it comes out sort of grey. Enough ink is coming from the pen, so that's not the issue - The ink is just... Cheap. But you wouldn't know it by the price. "For best writing performance, use only Parker brand ink cartridges," indeed.
There are more issues that belie the underlying cheapness. The grip barrel, for instance, has moulding seams on it. Seam lines, on an 80 dollar pen! Pick up a twenty five cent throwaway Bic ballpoint and check it for seams - even on such a cheap pen you won't find any. Worse, the seams are exactly where you put your fingers when you're writing, making the thing feel cheap and nasty. And the cap seals against the body to keep the ink from drying out, which is good, but it clings much too tightly to the barrel and you find that it's nearly impossible to wrestle off without banging the cap against the nib. The shiny collar between the body and cap is meticulously engraved, but off center. Etc., etc. These little details all add up.
The Latitude's nib is on the bold side of "medium," throwing a line that's about 0.6 mm, depending on the paper. It's not exceptionally smooth, and it's not exceptionally responsive. As a matter of fact, it's not exceptionally anything at all. It's just not that great.
The Latitude's nib has a considerable hard start problem. If you leave the pen unused for even just an hour or two you'll find it simply won't write and you're resorting to shaking the pen or tapping the tip against the paper (complete with resultant inkblots, if you're not careful). Once the ink flow is started the pen never seems to skip, but sometimes its line thins a little, especially with fast horizontal strokes, and the line is often unclean and raggedy.
The hard start problem can be traced back to the ornate double-chevron scrollwork engraved on the pen's nib, which unfortunately does not terminate before the split in the nib. Left to its own devices the ink will flow back and stop at the point where the engraving intersects with the split, and it'll take a shake or a tap to get it past this point and writing again.
The Latitude's nib is stainless steel and clearly not very lovingly crafted. Purists will deride stainless nibs over 14k gold or other soft and exotic materials, but a well designed stainless one can work exceptionally. My dusty old Targa, for instance, is stainless steel through to the core but writes beautifully. The Latitude, by comparison, is just... Off. Rough, unpolished, and mediocre.
There'd be nothing wrong with a mediocre pen if it were placed at a mediocre price point. The Latitude's not the most expensive modern fountain pen you can buy by a long shot -- Sheaffer's Heritage series and others prove that easily -- But there are cheaper pens that write much better. Sheaffer's own Viewpoint series, for instance, with nasty translucent polycarbonate bodies and all, have nibs that write far better than the Latitude.
There's not much at a realistic price point that looks as nice as the Latitude, though, and that's the point of the entire exercise. Realization starts creeping up on you when you notice that the Latitude body is also offered in (marginally cheaper) rollerball and ballpoint models. It's not designed for premium writability: It's designed for premium fashionability. It's designed, priced, and sold at the right retail outlets so the PHB can buy one and toy with it while he's sitting at his desk. It's so he can clip it to his lapel and say "Why, yes, I am refined and distinguished enough to write with a fountain pen. Just look at this one! It's so shiny. I'll have you know, it was the most expensive pen in the office supply store."
So it's not an exceptional writer. It's not exceptionally practical, and it's not exceptionally priced. It's not bad, by any stretch of the imagination. Just a little daft. If I were you I'd give it a miss.
Unless, of course, you find that now and again your hair points up on the sides. Then, maybe, you won't be able to resist.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
zero_
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: Robert "Zero" Drendall
Location: Claymont, DE, United States
Reviews written: 102
Trusted by: 19 members
About Me:
Providing your semi-regular dose of extreme verbosity since somewhere around the turn of the century.
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