The Parker Jotter

The decade is over. Time for a new one. This one went out with a rough year, both financial and medical. But I'll post about that another day.

So far, I haven't written about pens so it's high time I start. My current and favorite hobby has been collecting, restoring, selling, trading and acquiring fountain pens. Primarily vintage going back to the turn of the last century. I do not typically get involved with ballpoints, with one exception. The Parker Jotter.

When I was in elementary school in the early sixties, we were allowed to write with pencils only until about 3rd or 4th grade. We were then introduced to the ubiquitous ballpoint. I and my fellow classmates had just missed the age of the fountain pen so we never got to try out an Esterbrook or Sheaffer, typical student pens of the time.


The ballpoints were available at the principal's office for each student (imagine that, giving out ballpoints!). We were even allowed to replace one as it wore out, got lost or was damaged. It was an inexpensive, institutional looking gray plastic bodied pen that had a long, thin taper and indentation just above the end for your thumb, index and middle finger to grip. It even had ribs formed into the plastic where you grip it. Basic-basic. And yes, they all leaked and left blobs of ink where you didn't want it.


As time went on, the kids began bringing their own from home as they were now allowed to use ballpoints. THE primo, uber-cool ballpoint to have was none other than the Parker Jotter. Nobody knew it was called the Jotter. We just called it "a Parker". There was only one to us. If you had a Parker, you were respected. You were COOL.

As I got older and the Bic Cristal (no one knew it was called that either) led to more throwaway pens. The Parker Jotter never left my possession; even with the genesis of the throwaway.

However, the Bic was anachronistic. It was immediately a legend because of it's capability to be converted to a spitball shooter. All you had to do was forcefully remove the ball point end from the clear plastic barrel. You were left with a clear, hollow barrel. A weapon. One that lent itself well to....well....shooting spitballs! But, I digress.


I played with other pens as I got older. Multi colored pens, cartridge filled fountain pens, felt tips (that was also cool when Papermate introduced the FLAIR). The Jotter, however, was always there in my rotation.

It wasn't until I was much older that I discovered that the Jotter was made in a host of different colors as well as a few unusual styles. There was a couple of "Ladies" Jotters; from the feminine metal patterns without a clip (a purse pen per se) to "Mini" Jotters, a scaled down size of the full size Jotter. Those did not last long as they were not runaway successful in the marketplace like the full size Jotter.

As I learned more about the colors and styles available, I discovered that a mini-collection could be put together resulting in hundreds of variants of the basic Jotter. I then expanded my Jotter collection to augment my fountain pen collection. Here is a sample of my Jotters.






As you can see, there are several different styles shown. Besides the standard colored-barrel Jotter (the barrel is made of styrene), there are the Calendar Jotters, the Window Jotters, Logo Pens and even a few matching mechanical pencils in the top row.



The bottom row consists of relatively modern (90's & 00's) colors with a sprinkling of Window Jotters. The latter is a standard Jotter with a message printed on a white ink cartridge. There were four messages placed 90 degrees from each other imprinted on the ink cartridge. Every time the button is pushed, the ink cartridge rotates 90 degrees. This shows a different message in the window each time the button is pressed. Obviously, four messages could be used. The rotation was designed into the cartridge with a ratchet-style plastic top to the cartridge in order to equalize wear on the Tungsten-Carbide ball (hence, the "T-Ball" Jotter cartridge). Ingenious.



I will write more as I feature different Jotters. Fountain pens will debut soon. The Jotter collection continues to grow. This is just a portion. :)