I think the 45 is a beautiful pen, but just not a good pen to use when you’re busy – however, your mileage may vary…

Sam Randall
Ain’t Life Grand?

Thanks for your thoughts – I’m still a bit torn myself, to be honest. Considering the 45 was twice the price, the Safari certainly wins on value.

I’ve got a few 45s now, of various ages, two Safaris and an AL-star. The nibs do vary in all of them, so it might be a bit down to luck as to which you prefer, too. The modern 45 Flighter that this review is based on is a very smooth nib, and beat the main Safari I had. Just recently, though, we’ve tried an AL-star, and the nib on that one is easily as smooth as the 45. The aluminium casing seems to add a bit more size, too, which makes the pen feel even better to me.

I think if I was choosing right now, it would probably be the AL-star that I’d pick out of the two (three? seven?), but I’m having way too much fun with my Sheaffer Saratoga Snorkel to put it down.

Just my take. // JH Richards //

Glad you like it. The Safari is another favourite of mine. It doesn’t quite have the smoothness of the 45, but it’s just as responsive, and very tough and reliable. Good for any time you don’t want to risk the Parker, or for keeping a second type of ink available. If you use bottled ink, though, you need to get the converter separately.

Sounds like you’ve almost got the same collection as we have. We’ve got a Frontier too, and as you say, it’s nice, but a bit thick. No good for writing in my pocket Filofax, and certainly feels a bit cheap next to the 45, but not a bad pen at all. We bought a calligraphy kit quite a long time back, and it came with a Vector, with interchangeable sections for different nib widths. The calligraphy nibs are a bit scratchy, but the normal nibbed Vector probably isn’t.

There’s been a discussion recently on the Fountain Pen Network about what pens people carry to actually use, and I was surprised by how many real fountain pen fans used a Vector. The Lamy 2000 and Pilot/Namiki Vanishing Point were the other ones that seemed to crop up a lot, but don’t usually get discussed much there.

Actually, I found two: one by itself, and another one inside a Parker box, with acompanying ballpoint pen and a Parker wristwatch… It was nice, but I was looking just the fountain pen, and so I left the box there, I may go and get it for a nice b-day gift for my uncle…

So, what did I get? A very nice Parker 45 fountain pen, for €28.0 (roughly US$35.6), in excellent condition (the letters on the steel cap are a bit dim, but perfectly readable), with the body of a beautiful marine blue (!).

As you said, it writes really smoothly! I love it, an instant fall… I’m returning to fountain pens after a long time with rollerpoints (*) home after a plain trip and got that wonderful Uni-ball roller…). I also got a cool orange Lamy Tipo rollerpoint, just for fun and because, nevertheless, they look cool. They had the Saffari, but it was a bit hard to justify another fountain pen in the same day!

(I’ll wait some months… hehehe)

Thanks for your review, it was really helpful!

(*) OK, they are nice and so comfortable… I left my other Parker fountain pens home after a plain trip, a Parker Frontier, which has a somewhat thick line, and a callygraphic nibbled Parker Vector, which I love, but sometimes is not what you’d prefer to write on a small notebook I’ve also used Pilot V4s for a good while, but they suddenly disappear from stores (blank ink, i find lots of red ink, but not black!) which are certainly nice for such a thing

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