Lamy 2000 brown

I noticed that Lamy is releasing a limited brown edition of the Lamy 2000 fountain pen to celebrate the 2000’s 55th anniversary.

It is an absolutely beautiful pen, but unfortunately, it also comes with a price tag to match.

Brown

For everyday items brown can be a very nice colour. It often reminds me of wood or leather. In the past fake or real wood on everyday items used to be more common than they are now. My Atari VCS 2600, for example, had a fake wooden front and the brown colour complemented the console nicely. Later versions without the brown front just didn’t look as impressive.

With brown colours sometimes appealing to my taste I also bought the Samsung Galaxy S3 in brown. At the time I read a review where the author made fun of the brown colour option. I didn’t quite understand why – to me, it was the best looking option.

Sarasa Grand Vintage

Back to pens: by coincidence, a few days before I found out about the Lamy 2000 in brown, I ordered the Sarasa Grand Vintage in brown. I only found two online shops in the UK selling the Sarasa Grand or Grand Vintage: MiSo Paper and Awesome Pens. In the end, I ordered from Awesome Pens (first time) as they also had the Uni-ball One I saw in a Pen Addict review.

The Sarasa is an unusual pen for me. According to Unsharpen it was released in 2000. I don’t think I saw it in the year 2000 and I first came across it in 2001 when I saw the ones my wife bought. I didn’t like them at all at the time, mainly because I didn’t like the look of the early clip. The newer clips with a metal spring do however look more attractive ^[1]at least to me, I wonder if some people prefer the old look…. So much so that the whole pen suddenly looks attractive to me. Once I saw the scented, i.e. smelly, version I was sold and bought some Sarasas myself.

Unfortunately, neither MiSo Paper, nor Awesome Pens, the shops that had the Sarasa Grand I ordered, had the beautiful Sarasa R I saw in a Pen Addict Giveaway – in fact, I haven’t found any online shop in the UK selling the Sarasa R. The white colour of the Uni-ball One and the Sarasa R gives them a lovely clean look. That clean look reminds me a bit of the Lamy Safari Griso, mentioned previously.

Lamy 2000 brown

Now that the topic has circled back to Lamy it’s time to talk about the Lamy 2000 in brown.

The brown version is the latest special edition (you can find out about other special editions on stationery.wiki) and is being released for the 55th anniversary of the Lamy 200. It comes in a nice presentation box, together with a nice, brown notebook and a biography of Gerd A. Müller, the designer.

When I checked the price I was rather disappointed. Here in the UK this set will cost nearly £500. In the USA the set will sell for $579. The set is limited to 3,300 pieces which explain the price, but I’d rather prefer an affordable version that can be used than an expensive limited version that will end up being a collector’s piece ending up in someone’s drawer. For comparison: my Lamy 2000 from 2008 was €89 (€105 / $124 in today’s money), my Lamy 200 from 2011 was £92 (£109 / $128 in today’s money). No matter how nice the colour, if I had the brown edition I would probably get the black 2000 out instead, as I would be worried the expensive and irreplaceable brown version would get damaged. Some people collect watches or motorbikes, so I can see that £500 can be cheap, compared to other hobbies, so I hope many of these brown 2000s get used.

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Price and exchange rates: July 2021

The last two images have been taken from Lamy and the avedition sites. I believe that the use of these images falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.