Australian stationery chain Typo is becoming more and more common in the UK.
Their gigantic pencils are the best thing I found in store.
Since we’re talking about high street chains in the UK: The Pen Shop seems to focus on more affordable pens. In this case Lamy.
This blog post was first published on The Pen Company’s blog in April 2018.
1974 is a special year: In the USA, Star Trek: The Animated Series got cancelled; in the UK, ABBA won the Eurovision song contest in Brighton with their song, ‘Waterloo’; in China the Terracotta army was discovered; and in Germany, the VW Golf and the Lamy cp1 multifunction pen were launched.
I’m happy to say that the cp1 pen/pencil is still with us today, so many years later. Designed by Gerd A. Müller, who also designed the Lamy 2000, the cp1 has seen quite a few additions to the line over the years — Lamy’s design history page shows that the twin pen was the first off the line, but there’s also a fountain pen, ballpoint pen, rollerball, mechanical pencil and tri (multifunction) pen in the cp1 series.
The Lamy cp1 twin multifunction pen lets you switch between a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil and a ballpoint pen. My cp1 has Lamy’s M55 orange highlighter refill instead of a normal ballpoint refill. This way I can write with the pencil in my diary but can also highlight anything that needs further attention.
You’ll find more information in my video review below:
Volume 2 of Lamy’s free, augmented reality (AR) magazine is out.
A screenshot of the AR app, projecting a Lamy Safari above the magazine cover
In case you wonder how long ago vol. 1 came out: it was in March.
Much more exciting than the augmented reality 3D Lamy pens, at least for me: Little videos in the articles that will come to life in the AR app, e.g. a video showing different pages in travel diary or a time-lapse video how Lamy’s store in New York is being set up.
The AR app shows a video of someone flicking through diary pages where the magazine shows a photo.
Fitting with the article about the Lamy Safari there’s also an AR ‘artefact’ where you can change the colour of the Safari.
The app lets you pick the colour for the Lamy Safari
You can order a free copy of the magazine at https://specs.lamy.com/.
Lamy’s store in K11 (on HuaiHai Road)
Like last year I found new special editions from Lamy in Shanghai, not available in the West.. This time it’s another Line Friends edition: LAMY BROWN The Black Edition.
The amazing aluminium container
The one comes in an amazing packaging: a thick-walled aluminium tube (with screw lid). I haven’t seen any packaging like this for a Pen before.
The Lamy Safari itself is the Matte type with the Line character’s name BROWN embossed in the cap.
The cardboard packaging that goes around the aluminium tube container
It also comes with a leather strap and metal buttons with browns face. The leather strap can be used to attach it to your belt, etc. The Lamy employee wore it around his neck.
Here’s a link to the official web page for this pen.
The Safari with the leather strap, if worn as a necklace
In previous year’s people contacted me to ask whether I can get them the special edition, but I already left Shanghai at that time. To avoid this happening again I bought two of these special edition pens for interested readers. I hope I won’t regret this decision. If you are interested let me know as soon as possible by leaving a comment here or by emailing me (if you know my email address).
The price is £65 plus postage. The item is in the UK.
Here’s a video showing the aluminium tube.
Watch the aluminium tube on YouTube for HD video.
I will add this Special Edition to the list of Lamy Special Editions on stationery.wiki in a few days (if no one else has done it by then). That list contains (so far) 26 Special Editions of the Lamy Safari.
Line Friends are popular in East Asia
Line Friends are popular in East Asia
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.