In the 102 years since George S. Parker invented his first fountain pen, scores of people have written themselves into the history books using the implement with the unmistakable arrow clip. Puccini composed La Boheme and Madame Butterfly with a Parker; George Bernard Shaw used a Parker when writing Pygmalion; and similarly, Albert Einstein in composing his Theory of Relativity. The poems of Carl Sandburg, the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and the novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle all flowed from Parker pens. If only, as one of Parker's competitors once claimed, a pen could indeed put "brains in your hand". At least one can be sure that with a Parker you are in good company - but then it would seem that virtually everybody at some stage of their life is destined to own a Parker. Along with Coca Cola and Kodak, Parker is one of the ten most-recognised brand names in the world.

Advertising and marketing executives have long revelled in the influence of public figures' use and endorsement of particular brands. When Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev took their seats at the Summit table in Washington in 1987 to sign the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, representatives of pen companies around the world were glued to their television sets, waiting anxiously to see which pen would be used to seal this historic step towards global peace. The then President and General Secretary signed their names to the treaty and then, to the desolation of some and the untold delight of others, turned to each other and exchanged Parker pens.