Frontier Stainless Steel Gold Trim Fountain Pen Fine Nib

No issues so far with the product. Works fine. Had to pay delivery fee, which got reimbursed.

It doesn't look like an original parker pen. It's leaking ink and not good in writing like the know Parker quality.

Caneta lindissima, veio na caixa da parker. Meu pai já teve uma parker vector tinteiro e disse que a pena dessa nova é muito melhor, além de ser mais bonita.

I have a lot of fountain pens to compare this to. I'm giving this one five stars for the value versus cost. Which is to say I'm reviewing this sub $15 pen as a sub $15 pen, I'm not comparing it to pens that cost well north of $100 because this pen is not that and it's not represented as a pen in that range. You get what you pay for, hopefully, and if you want a Ferrari you're not going to get it for the price of a Chevrolet sub-compact. So let's be real about what this pen is in the cost range that applies to it. There were some initial issues, nothing major for me but some people might have some trouble. The very first thing you should do with a new pen is clean it. There are volatiles and distillates that condense on the pen parts during manufacture. These contaminants tend to interfere with ink flow by defeating the capillary action that a fountain pen needs to work properly. There are lots of videos on how to clean a pen, go watch a couple and then clean your new pens before you ink them up. This pen is no exception, clean it first. The nib had something on it that even after cleaning blocked the ink flow down the nib tines. It looked like the kind of protective coating that in the Marines we used to call "quartermaster" and needed to be removed for the pen to work. I had to gently pry the tines apart with a razor blade and whatever that was it needed to be broken loose so that it wasn't holding the tines together and blocking ink flow. It was actually in the ink channel between the tines of the nib so that it blocked ink from flowing and I cannot imagine why a pen manufacturer would do this. This is NOT a usual condition for a pen to have coming out of the box and I had to do some tinkering to find it. Nevertheless, I DID find it and carefully separated the tines. I'm willing to bet that a lot of people have this problem and so give an otherwise good pen low marks in their reviews. This may explain some of the less than positive reviews of this pen. Looking through a jewelers loupe I could see that the lobes on the end of the tines were not perfectly aligned and that is a biggie. You need for that little "ball" on the end of the tines to be perfectly even or the nib will be scratchy. This is because one tine is digging into the paper and one tine isn't touching the paper. You need to bend the nib tines so that ball on the end is even on both sides. The more perfectly you can get that nib end aligned the better your pen will write. That was a little bit of a pain but I had a jewelers loupe to help me get that taken care of. After I took care of those two problems the pen worked as it should. When you buy a cheap pen you usually have one or both of those problems and I always check that after cleaning and before inking the pen. I like this pen and since buying it I use it a lot. Like I said, I have a lot of pens and I don't want to carry around a multi-hundred dollar pen in my shirt pocket for everyday use. This pen allows me to put a Parker pen, gold arrow clip and all, in my pocket and if I lose it I won't be nearly so upset as if I had lost my Great-Grandma's Waterman, Grandma's Parker Vacumatic, my Dad's Parker 45 or one of my newer more expensive pens. The expensive pens go in a pen case in my briefcase when they're wanted for something, the heirloom pens stay on my desk. This is why I bought this Parker, it's a cheaper more easily replaced pen and keeps my good pens out of harm's way. The fit and finish of the pen is on a par with other Parker pens in this price range. Which is to say it's very good. Everything is where it should be, nothing is out of alignment and there are no marks or mars on the finish. The gold band the cap closes on is a nice accent as is the rest of the gold-colored furniture on the pen. The pen looks like a Parker in this price range should. I see some people complaining about the weight, saying it is too light. People, the weight of a pen is not an indication of quality, it's just the weight of the pen. I have a Pilot E95S that has a gold nib and it weighs next to nothing. It is extremely lightweight and is a VERY high-quality pen. I have Jinhao pens that weigh several times as much as this Parker Frontier and they are really, really cheap pens. If you think you absolutely must have a heavy pen go buy one of those Jinhaos. There is nothing wrong with the weight of this Parker Frontier and it does not drag my pocket earthward to carry it around. The section and feed are plastic. The pen is very comfortable to hold and use. The section is "grippy" enough that it doesn't slide around while writing. I always post pen caps if possible and this cap posts OK. Not "great", just OK. It will stay posted where I put it and it doesn't fall off on the floor or get lost by dropping off the pen barrel unexpectedly. Some pens will not post at all and I don't like that, which is a personal preference. I have friends who are fountain pen fans and they NEVER post a pen cap. To each his own, if you like to post your caps this cap will post just fine. If you're not a cap poster then there's plenty of pen barrel for you to get hold of and do your writing. This pen doesn't post as stable as the Parker IMs, Urbans and Sonnets I have but it posts fairly solid and stable enough. The ink converter that comes with the pen is the type that uses a slide to operate the plunger rather than the more common screw-type mechanism that moves the plunger in the ink reservoir up and down. This is not my favorite kind of converter and I may change it with another one someday. I didn't take a star off for that because it's a personal preference and some people like this kind of ink converter better than the screw-type converters. I don't like it as much because it's hard to "prime". With a screw converter if the ink doesn't flow or the pen is hard to start I just twist that plunger screw knob a little bit to break everything loose and get fresh ink into the feed. With the slide converter, you have to be careful if you try to do that or you'll squirt ink all over the place. I can live with the converter for now. I may replace it someday in the future but the thing is ... a converter costs almost as much as the pen does and it seems a bit silly to me to buy a lower cost pen like this and then make it more expensive by accessorizing it. I knew what kind of converter it had in it before I ordered it and I'll probably just live with the one that came in the pen. The nib appears to be gold plated and is a #5 size nib. I don't know if it could be swapped out for another #5 nib or not, I have had no reason to try that yet. The next time I clean the pen very thoroughly I'll take it apart and see. I have some 14k gold #5 nibs I can try on it. After getting the pen good and clean, going over the nib to get it all dialed in then inked up I am very happy with the way it writes. It lays a smooth, full, wet line. This IS a fine width nib, I have other fine nibs and even more medium nibs (I usually prefer a medium) and the line this nib lays is closer to a fine than a medium. I checked the line width of this nib against other both fine and medium nibs, this is a fine nib. It may not be as fine as some fine nibs. There's a quite a bit of wiggle room in defining nib width. The European and American fine nibs are broader than a Japanese fine nib. This nib is closer to the European and America standards than it is the Japanese standard but it still is by no means a medium nib. The pen has smoothed out and gets noticeably smoother as I use it. With use, it has gotten more and more pleasant to write with. I don't mean "just a bit better" either, I mean a LOT better as time goes on. The cap is the snap on type as opposed to the threaded screw on type but it "snaps" on with a very positive and authoritative "click". This is a sign of a well-made pen, this cap goes on like it means it. Once the cap is on, it stays there where it's supposed to be. The pen stays "wet" and starts as it should if it sits unused for a couple of days. Most fountain pens will eventually dry out in the nib and feed area (Platinum claims to have overcome this with their "slip and seal" cap on the #3776 Century pens, I own one and so far it looks like that works as advertised) and will over time dry out completely leaving ink residue to clog up the pen which needs to be cleaned and removed. You can't leave a pen like this Parker laying around for a couple weeks without using it and expect to pick it up and have it start laying ink immediately. This pen performs about average as far as this goes and I have had no issues with it as long as I use it often enough to keep the nib and feed wet. Bear in mind that different inks behave differently also, some are more volatile than others. The pen came nestled in a molded plastic insert inside a gold or brass colored metal box with the Parker name and logo on the lid. All of that was inside a blister pack for retail sales. The blister pack was unopened and undamaged. The pen has nice, clean, classic Parker lines and it looks very good "in real life". I generally do not use Parker inks and I really hate cartridges. I NEVER use an ink cartridge unless I get a pen that has no ink converter in it. Then I'll use a cartridge as a converter just long enough to get a real converter shipped to me. This pen comes with a converter, I inked this pen with Levenger Skies of Blue ink when I got it and that's what I've been using in it.* One of the major reasons I use a fountain pen is the ink selection available. That's not the only major reason but it's a big one because I can select an ink from my collection that I deem suitable and pleasing in whatever pen I choose. Right now I have two dozen bottles of various inks on my desk. I cannot imagine why anyone would go to the trouble of using a fountain pen, and it IS more trouble than a ballpoint or a gel pen because you MUST know how to use them and maintain them... I cannot imagine why anyone would use fountain pens and then use those stupid little plastic ink cartridges with blah looking nondescript, totally uninspiring, ballpoint-pen-like colors. For decades I had to use a ballpoint pen in ONLY black ink for my work. So all I owned was black inked ballpoint pens lest I get a blue, green or red pen in my pocket and find myself with nothing else at work. I love fountain pens and do not own a single ballpoint or gel pen anymore. These are "Luxor" Parker pens made in India under license to the Parker Pen Company. That is why they can use the trademarked Parker name and logo. They're genuine Parker pens made to genuine Parker specs in a factory licensed to produce Parker pens. That makes them real Parker pens. Despite what I would consider some minor mechanical issues and "cheap pen" problems to start with, I like this pen more and more every day. It looks and writes very good, it's solid and substantial without being clunky or chunky like cheap Jinhao pens. It doesn't weigh my shirt pocket down as though I were carrying lead weights in my pocket like cheap Jinhao pens do. (Try carrying three of those pens at a time in a shirt pocket, it's not pleasant.) I've dropped it at least once and the metal body is sturdy enough that it didn't dent and shows no wear so far. I like this pen enough that I'm going to order the version that comes in matte black with gold colored trim. To me, it is nice to have a real Parker in my pocket that writes well and doesn't cost a lot. With the matte black version in gold trim, I can carry two pens with different looks and two different inks while still having gold (colored) Parker arrow trademark clips slid into my pocket. If I lose one or it gets damaged or destroyed I'll be sad I lost a good writing pen but not nearly so sad as I would be if I lost an EXPENSIVE good writing pen. I like the price of these pens, I like the quality of these pens and I like the way these pens write. The only thing I really don't like is waiting for them to get here from India so hopefully, they'll be available on Amazon Prime for a couple bucks more eventually. Edit 28 March 2017-- I switched inks to Rohrer & Klingner Scabiosa Iron Gall Ink in this pen. I did go ahead and buy the matte black with a gold trim version of this pen also. The two Rohrer & Klingner Iron Gall inks are my favorite ink so I have Scabiosa (sort of a dark brownish purple) in this pen and Salix (a dusty blue-black) in the black pen. The black pen had the same issues as this one did, which I solved in minutes and then inked it up. Those two pens, and occasionally a Parker Reflex, are my EDC pens now. If I didn't like these pens I sure as heck wouldn't be carrying them every day. Neither pen has shown the least sign of giving me trouble, they're still both working very well. EDIT 14 Sept. 2018: Both pens are still working flawlessly and are still my go to EDC pens. I have other pens in this price range but I still keep coming back to these two for pens to shove in my shirt pocket every day.

received in time, fair price good quality.

Muy buena pluma y de gran calidad.

Great pens