Lamy

L’Amy??? 2

 in Lamy  tagged bullet journal / eBay / Lamy by

Today: Just something I want to show. Something I come across again and again on eBay UK and eBay Germany. I assume other countries are ‘affected’, too.

Whoever set up the stationery categories on eBay seems to think Lamy is a French word – L’Amy..

When I first came across this I thought this is another brand, but it’s really supposed to be our Lamy.

I guess German surnames don’t normally end with a -y, but Lamy is based in Heidelberg and my relatives form Heidelberg also have a surname ending with -y.

 

Since I got your attention: Something else I came across – in my computer’s app store.

There seem to be more and more apps aimed at bullet journal users – and they seem to get more and more expensive. I neither use bullet journalling, nor do I normally buy expensive apps1 ..but nevertheless, I find this an interesting development.

  1. I’m not keen on the idea of getting used to an app and change the way I work only to discover the app has been cancelled and won’t be supported after an OS update. I guess even big companies are no guarantee an app will stay, small companies are even less of a guarantee. I remember moving from an mp3 player to an Android phone so that it’s easier to listen to podcasts, only for Google to cancel “Google Listen”, their podcast app. Or think of Pebble. Fitbit bought their intellectual property only, but the rest of the company went belly up, leaving customers in the rain. [↩]

Lamy specs

 in Lamy  tagged AR / Lamy / magazine / specs by

Earlier this month Lamy released their new magazine ‘specs’, you might have seen my tweet about it at the time.

It’s a bilingual magazine that comes with an AR (augmented reality) app. I got mine today and had a quick look.

After ordering my free copy at https://specs.lamy.com it took about a week for it to arrive.

Here’s a little video where I share my first impressions.

Open in YouTube to watch bigger or in full-screen.

Lamy’s Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean pens 4

 in Fountain pens / Lamy  tagged Lamy / Lamy joy / Lamy Safari / Made in Germany / Pirates of the Caribbean / Shanghai / Star Wars by

Sticking to the Lamy theme from the recent blog post about blue Lamy Safari fountain pens from the 1990s and now we’ve got another Lamy blog post today: Their special edition pens you normally don’t see in the West: the Pirates of the Caribbean (Dead Men Tell no Tales) and the Star Wars pens.

Lamy’s Special Editions

Lady’s special editions follow a similar recipe: Take Lamy’s Line Friends Safari, for example. It’s a Safari with a different colour and a clip attachment. The colour of the special editions isn’t always different and the main difference of these special editions to their ‘normal’ counterparts is the clip attachment. They also often have extras (converter, special packaging) and a higher price.

I’ve shown a few different Lamy shops in Shanghai. Here’s one I haven’t shown yet: The one in the Jing An Kerry Centre1.

Pirates of the Caribbean

The Pirates of the Carribean themed pen looks like a Safari in the current Petrol colour with clip attachement in the shape of a jolly roger skull. You also get a converter and a leather roll as part of your set.

The Pirates pen on the left and the leather roll in the background. Excuse the reflections in the photo. The pen was behind glass.

Star Wars

The Star Wars themed pens are Lamy joy2 fountain pens. If you are not familiar with the joy: the front section is the same as the Safari’s, but the main body is much longer. It is kind of a desk only version of the Safari. Desk only because the long body makes it unsuitable for easy transport3.

The Star Wars joys have ‘normal’ nibs. I mention this because the joy is also available as a calligraphy set with italic nibs of different widths.

The black joy comes with a Vader clip attachment. The white joy comes with a Stormtrooper themed clip attachment.

The price is only slightly higher than the price of a normal Lamy joy in Shanghai: A normal joy is ¥380 (~$56; £44; €50). The Star Wars set is ¥4184 (~$$62; £48; €55). It comes with a converter.

 

You pay more, you get more

The price of the Lamy pens in Shanghai is a bit higher than in the West, but you also get more. The pens I’ve seen in Shanghai often come in nice boxes I haven’t seen in Europe. They also often seem to include converters that would be charged extra in the West.

The special edition pens are only slightly more expensive than the normal editions5.

The Safari Petrol. I believe this version is also available in the West. Excuse the reflections in the photo. The pen was behind glass.

Not in the West

I assume the reason why you normally don’t see these special editions in the West has more to do with licensing than with demand, especially since they are not much more expensive than the normal versions of these pens, so they should sell well anywhere – but that’s just a guess.

As I know most of the readers of my blog I might as well write this publicly: If you want one of these pens let me know and I’ll try to get one for you.

 

Prices and exchange rates: June 2017

If you want to know more about Shanghai’s Lamy stores have a look at this blog post about the store in Raffles City, the stores in this comment or  the one in this blog post.

  1. Fun fact: many years ago Jing An was the only place in Shanghai with a Burger King, but now Burger King is ubiquitous. [↩]
  2. Lamy spells joy lower-case so I’ll stick to that in this this blog post [↩]
  3. You can see one in this Bleistift blog post from 2011. [↩]
  4. This number sounds good in Chinese, a bit like ‘will be fortunate, for sure’. [↩]
  5. Exactly 10% in the case of the Star Wars joy. [↩]

The Lamy Horror Picture Show 4

 in Fountain pens / Lamy  tagged Lamy / Lamy 2000 / Made in Germany by

Think of a random number between 1 and 1000.

No, really. Please do.

Ok, now multiply this number by 3 and remember it.

Well, imagine the shock I got when I recently had a closer look at my Lamy 2000.

Lamy 2000 exploded view

Cleaning my Lamy in expectance of the new ink

On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is ‘Not shocked at all’ and ’10’ is censored because of the expletives uttered, the number representing my shock was slightly higher than the number I just asked you to remember.

It all started with me happily going about my daily business and cleaning my Lamy 2000 (with an EF nib) in expectance of a Robert Oster ink from Kirit Dal, one of Robert Oster’s UK resellers.

When an ink ‘stain’ at the front of the Lamy’s grip section didn’t want to disappear I had a closer look and after moving the end of my fingernail over the ‘stain’ I started to have an ominous suspicion. Not much later the aforementioned shock happened1.

You’d think I’m a broken man now, looking back at the excitement and fun I once experienced when using fountain pens, but not able to have any joy anymore going forward from now on. The reality is different. I’ve come to stoically accept that mark on the grip section as something that makes this Lamy 2000 different to all its anonymous siblings that left Lamy’s conveyor belt since 1966. It is something, together with a dent on its body, that makes this Lamy mine. Who knows, maybe deep down, in some illogical part of the brain, I might even be a tiny bit ‘proud’ that I have my own unique Lamy 2000 now…

I am sorry for showing you all these gory details, especially after just showing you horrific pencil mutilations in the previous blog post. I guess you might be more careful form now on, avoiding to look at my blog anymore while eating food.

In case you’ve been sick over your pen collection while looking at these gory photos: I’ve heard that baking soda might eliminate the odour, but I haven’t tried it myself yet.

I thought of combining this blog post with a look at the ink I was expecting, but I didn’t do it because I thought someone who doesn’t read carefully and only looks at the pictures might that the ink I was expecting caused the issue. To avoid this the Oster ink I was expecting (cleaning the pen to be ready for this ink) will be covered in a separate blog post.

I have a suspicion which previously used ink might have caused the issue, but as I am not sure it was really that ink I don’t want to mention the brand in this blog post.

  1. Well, where are the smelling salts and the defibrillator when you need them. [↩]