What ever happened to Parker Penman ink?

[Spats McGee]

Please let me apologize in advance if the following questions have been asked and answered over and over. I ran a search through the fora and didn't see any answers. A few years back, probably the late 1990s, my wife and I ran across Parker Penman ink and loved it. The ink was gorgeous, as were the bottles. But then it just seemed to vanish from the market. We haven't seen it available in years (except for the few lucky individuals down in The Marketplace). What happened to it? Does anyone know why Parker quit making it?

[Jimmy James]

The competing theories seem to be that it clogged pens leading to complaints and that it may have had a substance in it they can't really use any more for some reason.

[Goodwhiskers]

Parker Penman inks were thick with dye. This caused trouble with some pens. The buzz against Penman became intense; for example, the Pendemonium store is still staunchly anti-Penman today. Parker pulled it off the market. Some people who have nursed their Penman supplies (or collected and hoarded the stuff) still report no trouble using Penman today. The Penman bottles are good-looking and contain a useful internal well.

 

At the risk of starting a flame war, I'll ask (since I really don't know) whether Penman inks behave(d) worse than the thicker inks among the colors by Private Reserve, Noodler's and Levenger.

[Jimmy James]

I think we can predict what Pendemonium must think about your question based on their dislike of Penman versus having more Noodler's exclusives than anybody else I'm aware of.

[dcwaites]

The Penman ink range was discontinued (probably in the early 2000s) because at least the black (Ebony) dried out in pens and clogged them up.

 

The clogging happened for two reasons --

 

1) The inks were more saturated than earlier Parker inks, especially Quink. This meant that they dried up in the pens more easily than Quink.

 

2) At about the same time the Parker Penman inks (not to be confused with the Penman inks made by Scribbler and Roberson) came out, pens made to conform with EU laws had to have breather gaps in the caps. If the inner cap in a pen cap did not fit properly, then the ink would dry out more quickly than usual.

 

Recently Parker have re-issued Parker Penman Ebony, calling it Parker Penman Black. It has the same chromatographic pattern as the original Ebony, but it seems to be a little thinner. Either my old stock of Ebony has dried out somewhat, or the new stock of Black is addressing the clogging issue, perhaps with some solvent, or a thinner concentration of the dyes.

 

 

People on the FPN who use Parker Penman Sapphire continuously for several years have not had problems. Either the problems only applied to the Ebony ink, or regular use doesn't allow the pen to dry out. As well, normal care and cleaning for any pen that is using a highly saturated ink (Parker Penman, Private Reserve, Noodlers) keeps the pens going. It is just that any pen with any highly saturated ink will dry out more quickly than a pen with ink in it like Parker, Waterman or Skrip.

Edited April 6, 2008 by dcwaites

[Ondina]

Very interesting review. I agree Parker Penman was a good ink series. Maybe if they have reissued the Black, they will do with the whole series? (Keeping fingers crossed....)

[Limerick]

Very interesting review. I agree Parker Penman was a good ink series. Maybe if they have reissued the Black, they will do with the whole series? (Keeping fingers crossed....)

Oh that would be really great! Since I started to compare ballpoints with fountain pens, I recognized that fountain pen ink often looks "washed" out. I'd really appreciate to see more saturated ink on the market to choose from, and as Private Reserve and Noodler's are quite popular, maybe Parker could join in

[Beechwood]

I bought a bottle of Parker Penman Sapphire last year in Portugal, by the state of the box I think it must have been very old stock. Perhaps its a keeper!

[wimg]

I think the problem specifically arose with Penman Ebony, and I was certainly one who suffered from this.

 

When I came back to the Netherlands in 1998, after 15 years of absence, I got myself my first fountain pen in about 25 years or so, a Parker Duofold Centennial, in classic black. I also got a bottle of Penman Ebony.

 

My pen did clog up fairly rapidly, as in, it started to refuse to write, which got worse and worse, until it stopped writing completely over a period of less than 6 months. At the time I didn't really know what was wrong, as I didn't know anything about fountain pens, and blamed the pen. You can imagine how disappointing this was.

 

In 2003 I received a Waterman Edson, and that was how I finally ended up here, and probably own about 80 fountain pens now ( I need to count them I think). I also found out, in that same year, that this was indeed a problem with the ink used, and that that was why Penman inks were discontinued, so did the people at the B&M store tell me (different place to where I bought the Centennial). Anyway, it was sent off to Parker eventually, and indeed, I got a new feed and even a new nib, after which the pen was functional again. I was shown the old nib and feed, and indeed, gunked up, to a degree where even the nib didn't get clean anymore without abrasives. After the fix, it did dry out rapidly, still, so I fixed that myself .

 

BTW, the pen now leads a happy life, with yet another (italic) nib, in the hands of someone else, who absolutely loves it, after I made it into a cursive rather than a sharp italic, especially for him BTW..

 

Anyway, they also told me at the time that the problem was caused by the stuff that made it so nicely black, namely soot. Black ink generally contains ground soot to make it that colour, and since these are particles, they may block the ink channel if they get deposited in there. The combination of other stuff in the ink, and the rapid drying out of the pen (sometimes a matter of days), caused this phenomenon in my pen anyway.

 

I do think that the other inks in the range were taken out of production because they couldn't have a line of inks without black. Furthermore, certainly over here in mainland western Europe, most people do not use bottled ink, but cartridges only, which may helped the demise of these inks as well, especially as they were positioned as luxury inks, with a price tag to match.

 

I personally do like this ink (Penman Ebony) a lot, colour wise, but I do not care for its clogging properties, so it just sits there in a bottle, languishing together with a bottle of Penman Mocha ...

 

Warm regards, Wim

[inkypete]

I used Penman Sapphire in all my pens for a few years. Sensational colour and there is nothing like it today. Had no troubles at all. Seems like it was the black that caused problems. Wish they would bring the colour back.

[Spats McGee]

Thank you all for the replies. They narrow the timeline down for me quite a bit. My wife and I had bought some Parker Penman ink in the mid-late 90's, then went to Germany in ~1998-9. Since our return, we've been unable to find it. I don't recall having purchased any black, but there's a bottle of the Sapphire (empty, sadly) on my desk right now. We never had any problems with Penman ink, but, again, I don't recall ever buying any black. My wife might have, because she generally prefers black ink.

 

In fact, I've got an interesting anecdote about the Penman Ink. My wife own a Pelikan that she had received as a college graduation present. I'm not sure about the model number, but I think it may be an M600 or 800. At any rate, she'd used Pelikan ink in it, and it had become clogged. She'd tried every remedy known to her to unclog it, to no avail. If I remember correctly, she could fill and empty it, but it just didn't write properly & kept skipping. Anyway, we heard somewhere that the Penman ink had some kind of detergents in it. So she filled it with the Penman ink and, 10 minutes later, that pen was fine. Never had a problem with in since, either.

 

I'm sorry for all of you who suffered at the hands of the Penman Ebony, but I do wish they'd bring back the less troublesome colors.

 

Thanks again for all of the information.

[Jimmy James]

I think most around here would love for Parker or anybody else to re-release at least Sapphire and Emerald. I know of nothing quite like them to this day.

[PAKMAN]

Love that Sapphire Penman!! I've horded quite a number of bottles hoping never to run out! I ran it in a 400 Pelikan for 3 years straight and never a bobble!

[satrap]

I have 2 bottles of Emerald and 2 of Ruby

[Eric072691]

I have 1 bottle of Emerald at maybe 15 refills left.

[PAKMAN]

I've never tried the Black but I have several bottles of Sapphire, one Emerald and one Mocha.

[Eric072691]

Lucky, lucky, lucky. I never though they would discontinue Penman, I suffered for my naive thoughts.. although I'm thinking of getting the 3 bottles of Penman Black or Ebony (whichever it is) off of ebay. Should I get it? I mean are there any problems with Penman Ebony?

[dcwaites]

Lucky, lucky, lucky. I never though they would discontinue Penman, I suffered for my naive thoughts.. although I'm thinking of getting the 3 bottles of Penman Black or Ebony (whichever it is) off of ebay. Should I get it? I mean are there any problems with Penman Ebony?

So long as your pen cap seals around the section and nib properly, and so long as you use the pen regularly (at least once a day), you should have no problems with the original Parker Penman Ebony.

 

However, the new Parker Penman Black from melpens on eBay has the same dyes as Ebony, but seems to be a thinner ink. Perhaps they have modified the formula to minimise problems.

 

I wrote about the new Penman Black in this post.

 

 

[GirchyGirchy]

I have a couple of blister packs of Penman Sapphire. I'd love to see that ink brought back....it's gorgeous!

[KCat]

I have hoarded Emerald. It has been in one Pelikan 200 for years with only a few cleanings. Behaves flawlessly. I would love to see Parker bring back the Emerald.

 

Since I've only used Emerald religiously, Mocha a fair amount, Sapphire briefly, I'd be wrong perhaps to compare the Penman inks in general to Noodlers or PR.

 

I would say, Emerald is much better behaved than PR Sherwood and unlike some PR/Noodlers reds/burgundies/red-browns, has never clogged my pens.* Mocha was never an issue either.

 

*All clogs were resolved with flushing except one that required a new feed. I'm not sayin' which one because that was the first year of the ink's production and many people love that ink now.

Edited April 10, 2008 by KCat