Paper Mate Flair Felt Tip Pens- 12 Count

As an engineer, I grew quite fond of these pens over the years. I use them exclusively for redline drawings, note taking, and anything else that I would need to hand write and be able to read down the road. For some reason, these pens make my handwriting significantly neater. I mean, I actually enjoy writing with them. For years and years Paper Mate pens, with the two hearts on the cap, were my go-to pen. They were American made, never leaked, and would last for years. I still have some of my old ones, and they still work. I'm rambling, I know, but I wanted to give a little background. A few months ago, I went to the supply cabinet at my office to grab a couple of my trusty paper mates. I popped open the box (not a whole lot of people go for the felt tip pens, so I usually open them up) and was very very surprised by what was inside. For as long as I've been around, paper mate pens were glossy colored, smooth, and had half millimeter lines that ran parallel to the shaft of the pen. I used to put my thumbnail in the grooves and spin the pen to make a "ZZZZIPPP" noise. These new pens though... they were not right. They're matte in color, the shaft is bare, with a very cheap quality screen print "Paper Mate" marking on it. I would bet my paycheck that the factory in Mexico where these pens now come from, make pens for 100 different companies. I'm sure they're all the same pen, with the only difference being the screenprinted name on each pen. My old paper mates had a white tip guard, with just the colored tip sticking out about a millimeter. These pens now have a clear tip guard and the tip sticks out about twice as far. I know, big deal right? Well, yes, it is a big deal. Now, if you press too hard, the tip will deform, and the pen will be useless. So, having discovered these new style paper mate pens, I had to know if they were all this poorer quality. I came to Amazon and ordered 2 boxes of black, 2 boxes of green, and 2 of these multi-color packs. Yes, every single one of them was this cheap knock-off pen. I did a side by side comparison with my old green pen and a new one. The new ink is significantly lighter. All of the colors seem to get much lighter after the ink dries. The caps are much lower quality, as would be expected. The pens themselves are not terrible, but compared to the old Flairs, they are complete garbage. It's unfortunate that companies are still sacrificing quality and customer satisfaction, all in the name of our hyper-inflated dollar. In the face of the United State's current economic crisis, and the obvious need for American manufacturing, it is shameful of Paper mate's parent company to kill even more jobs and pass this low quality product off on the consumers. With the economy the way it is, consumers now want more bang for their buck. NewellRubbermaid is the company that now owns Paper Mate, so it is no surprise that they would move manufacturing to foreign soil. They have ruined the name of a fantastic American company by sacrificing quality and integrity for an easy buck, the same as they did with the original Rubbermaid containers. I apologize for the long winded review, but here's what I think in a nutshell. These pens are okay for what they are. They should NOT be called paper mate flairs. If these pens were XYZ Corporation Felt Tip Pens, they would be a fantastic product. At over $1 per pen though, these are absolutely NOT worth it. You pay a premium for Paper Mate pens, because they WERE premium pens. NewellRubbermaid thinks they can fool us and charge more for cheap, low quality knock-off products. Show them we are smarter than that. Avoid these if you can, if not for quality, then for principal.