Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/29/great-deal-on-the-parker-jotte.html
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EDC? I’m stumped my initial thoughts were festival goers for Electric Daisy Carnival, have a favorite pen? nah… click the link to the forum. I"m still stumped other than gadgets/knives? every day carry? is that what it stands for? You can order a “challenge coin” because yeah every day I’m always flummoxed when I reach for my challenge coin and realize I don’t have one.
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Wait, I’ve got one of these! However, it stays in the backpack tactical carryall as a spare, because it’s just so damn heavy (in the sense of writing more than a few sentences with it). It must be 24, 25 years old by now. I also notice a lot of friction while writing, but that might be because the ink has dried out some while the pen has sat in the backpack tactical carryall all these years. Normally I use a Space Pen, which isn’t a whole lot better but it fits in my pocket.
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Indeed it stands for every day carry. It is a rather large semi-underground “philosophy” which encourages paying attention to, and spending outlandish amounts of money on, the things you carry around with you. For the (almost exclusively) men who follow this idea, flashlights and pocket knives with prices well over $100 and sometimes orders of magnitude more are the base tokens of membership. Fetishistic photos of their pocket contents, worship of titanium and other “exotic” metals and materials, and long debates about how many lumens one’s flashlight can emit and what type of button on that flashlight is best are also signifiers of EDC-ness. And beware the word “tactical” - it has a power that is much greater than you can imagine.
#tacticool #MokuTi #rechargable #pocketflamethrower #customknifethatcosts$10,000
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Because we all know women don’t tend keep a staple of important and/or useful things in bags they regularly carry around!
In all seriousness, I think the term is silly, but it’s really just a way that men give license to themselves to do something that many women take for granted. To say it’s a mostly guy thing relates to the term, not the practice, IMHO.
I also think that while segments of the “EDC” community gravitate towards expensive items, this isn’t universal, and a lot of people who are not wealthy enjoy finding useful things that are not particularly expensive. Such as a Parker Jotter!
Oh, and as for the pen? It’s great. I like ballpoints over gel rollerballs in most cases, although this is obviously up to one’s personal preferences.
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I refer to the cultish aspects of the EDC practice. If you dig into it, you will find very few women.
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Which I understand, because it’s something that’s relatively second nature for women, so they don’t need to fetishize it. Whereas for many men, the practice of carrying small(ish) bags around is less common, a bit stigmatized still, and this gives it a “brand” that as you said makes it seem more “tactical” than “man-purse.” 
It’s not a community I follow or interact with other than through a buddy of mine who is into this stuff, and I get plenty of good ideas from him about cool small useful gadgets. I certainly don’t hold it against him. Like me, he’s very into William Gibson, and I think we probably enjoy some degree of object fetishization due at least partially to Gibson’s work.
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Indiana Jones wears one
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Hah. My Pelikan Form looks at the Jotter and laughs!
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It’s a good pen!
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It is. The ones with the plastic barrel are even cheaper, but the threads tend to break after a while. Much of their popularity, though, is the excellent T-Ball refill, one of the most long-lasting and reliable on the market. It’s become a standard. I have a number of giveaway pens that use a knockoff refill and can be upgraded to Parker performance just by putting in a genuine refill. (Fisher refills also fit, with an adapter.)
What fascinates me is that the Jotter was introduced in 1954 and has had only minor cosmetic changes in the intervening 66 years. How many other consumer goods can say that?
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I prefer the Parker IM range, the Jotters are too thin for me and cause pain in my fingers (most pens do to be fair). The Jotters are cheaper though and use the same refills.
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Based on quality, it does deliver the best bang for the buck–even without the C4. To want the next step up in quality will see a substantial jump in price. Anything less in price just sucks.
If the ink isn’t several years old, flow start up is quick, and the feel of the writing is this nice middle ground between smooth and a touch of drag that allows for better control. My handwriting sucks, so this level of control really helps when it comes to attaining any semblance of legibility. I prefer the fine point cartridges, so I typically buy one to immediately replace the standard medium points that come with the pens–which makes me wish Parker would sell their pens with fine points.
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Do you happen to know if they are exclusively selling the “Quink-flow” versions now, or is the legacy version of the ink still coming with the pens or in refill packs?
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“tactical” inserted before a product, much like “marine” instantly doubles its price.
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I certainly don’t hold the interest against anybody either. How do you think I know so much about this subgroup of humans? People like what they like. I just find the conspicuous consumption aspects of the practice rather silly and in many cases downright foolish.
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David Mitchell’s “Inept Q” developed a pen for his Bond:
The Bic Cristal pen has been around since 1950.
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