zero_'s Full Review: Sanford Parker Im Matte Black Roller Ball Pen
I decided not long ago that I wanted a rollerball pen. Normally I'm a fountain pen kind of guy but there are a few situations where my favorite bit of anacrhonism simply won't do. Triplicate write-through forms, for instance, and those stupid thermal credit card receipts. For those of us who consider "ballpoint" to be a dirty word, the next best thing is a rollerball pen.
"Rollerball" sounds like a doublespeak way to describe a regular ballpoint, but there's a difference: Ballpoints use the now familiar type thick and oily pigment based ink and aren't generally the smoothest or cleanest writers, despite their ubuquity and convenience. Rollerball pens, on the other hand, follow a similar principle but use a waterborne (usually) dye based ink, like a fountain pen. Like a ballpoint they'll work on a wide variety of papers and like a fountain pen they have a smooth feel (smoother, anyway) and produce nice clean and bold lines. A given rollerball will probably be better constructed than a ballpoint as well.
It's easy to buy a great looking and expensive but otherwise underwhelming ballpoint pen just about anywhere. It's also relatively easy, if you look at the right part of the stationery aisle, to buy an inexpensive plastic rollerball pen. Finding the intersection of cheap, classy, well built, and good writing is the tricky part.
But Parker's nailed it. Enter the IM (not "1M") series.
Suitably devoted readers may remember the new one I ripped for Parker's own Latitude fountain pen (which is also available in a rollerball version) not too long ago. This would be irrelevant if it weren't for the ease of comparison between it and the IM, and it would be otherwise uninteresting if it weren't for the fact that the IM just so much better at a tenth of the cost.
First impressions are the easiest. The IM is metal through-and-through, and impressively heavy for its size and cost. It easily weighs four times what the more expensive Latitude does and it feels much better in the hand. I would wager the body is brass and is lacquered via the same technique as the Latitude in a variety of colors including gunmetal, silver, blue, pink, etc. The grip section is metal, not plastic, and there are no seam lines anywhere on the pen. The whole thing has an underlying brushed finish which spirals gently down the length of the pen (including the cap and grip section) which adds a subtle bit of uniqueness. All of the fittings are mirror polished chrome and the pen sports Parker's trademark arrow shaped clip.
It also fits together flawlessly. While the massively more expensive Latitude has off-center and just plain oddly fitted parts (particularly the cap band), everything on the IM is perfectly centered and symmetrical. The cap locks very positively to the front and posts smoothly to the tail. All the threads are metal-on-metal and fit together neatly. The only caveat for you pen-fiddlers out there is that you shouldn't click the section into the cap when it's not screwed to the body -- you'll never get it back out again without a pair of pliers.
Inside is one of Parker's rollerball cartridges which are interchangeable across most of their modern non-retractable pens. The rollerball cartridges are harder to find in stores than their ballpoint brothers but by no means unobtainable. The cartridge included has a plastic plug on the end that could probably be carefully pulled out and the cartridge refilled with fountain pen ink, but I'm not about to try it until I'm sure it's good and empty. I get ink all over myself on a regular enough basis already.
The real meat of the matter is how the IM writes, of course, and it writes beautifully. The point is described as "medium" but as with most American liquid ink pens it makes a bolder line than an equivalent "medium" ballpoint. The included ink is rich and black as the ace of spades and lacks that nasty, uneven, lumpy, partially transparent look of ballpoint ink. And because the IM is a rollerball and not a fountain pen you can press down as hard as you like on the point to write through carbon copy forms. The only niggle is occasional hard starting, though this is a problem shared with ballpoint pens as well. We all know the way you have to scribble a ballpoint around a bit if it's been sitting around for a few days to get it started again. The same dance is necessary with the IM if you leave it sit for a while (usually more than a day) and is exacerbated by the little vent hole hiding beneath the clip on the cap that allows air in to dry the point out. The hole is there to benefit the toddler who's trying to choke on the cap, not to benefit the pen itself. If it bothers you it's easy to plug it up with a bit of kneaded eraser or blu-tack to mitigate the storage problem.
If you, like me, are sometimes forced to forego your fountain pen for practicality purposes and don't feel like breaking the bank to do so you could do a lot worse than the Parker IM. And if you just want an elegant pen that's better than a ballpoint you'll probably like it, too. I love mine, and at I price point between $8 (online) and $11 (retail) I can't recommend it enough.
The Parker I.M. Appeals to modern, stylish professionals seeking a high-quality writing instrument at an attractive price. Cap on/cap off supplied wit...More at Amazon Marketplace
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