I used to think that I have all the Safari colours I ever need, but as mentioned in February, Lamy keep bringing out wonderful (and difficult to resist) new colours and editions.
This year’s Strawberry and Cream colours are very much to my liking, so I had to go ahead and got one fountain pen in each of the two colours. They were ordered together with the Lamy xevo I discussed recently. I am currently using the strawberry-coloured one with its smooth F nib as a daily writer. These were bought from Pen Heaven in June 2022 and I paid £21.50 each.
The strawberry-red and cream-white Safaris are definitely in the Top 5 of my favourite colours, with the other colours near the top being the Savannah Green (2021), the Mango (2020) and the Griso / Grey version (which was either form 2010 or 2011, I am not sure).
If you are interested in the Lamy Safari, have a look at the Safari article at stationery.wiki. As far as I know it is the most complete overview of Lamy Safari special editions that can be found on the Internet.
What has the world come to?? A blog post about a ballpoint pen at Bleistift.blog‽
Well, it is a very good looking ballpoint pen: Lamy’s xevo in lightgrey (I find the black version more boring looking, so ordered the lightgrey version).
I didn’t realise this until I actually held the pen in my hands: It reminds me very much of the beautiful Lamy Colani, with similar organic shapes. Especially the triangular front section with its flowing shapes, but also the matt-ish off-white plastic, bear some resemblance.
The Pelikan Colani mechanical pencil
The pen is extremely well made for a pen in this price range. You can see the mould lines in good light, but that is not an issue. For comparison: on my xevo [1]I assume thanks to good quality control it will be the same on every xevo. the mould lines are not more obvious than on a Lamy Safari.
The clip is also very well made. It looks like solid sheet metal clip, but it is actually made by bending the material on the outside, i.e. it is not solid like the one you’d find on the Lamy scribble. Just like on the Lamy 2000, a mechanism holds the clip which means the clip can swing outwards instead of relying on the clip’s material to bend when clipping it onto something.
The xevo’s metal clip. You can also see a mould line on the plastic body.
Size
Size-wise the xevo is quite big. It is roughly similar in size to a BIC four colour ballpoint pen and certainly bigger than many other ballpoint pens that aren’t multi pens, like the Caran d’Ache 849.
Top to bottom: Caran d’Ache 849, Lamy xevo, BIC four colour multipen
The xevo is so long that in my typical shirt pockets I have to clip it in towards the middle of the pocket. The middle tends to be slightly deeper. If clipped in on the outside (like the Perfect Pencil in the image below) it would only be clipped in for a few millimetres, so would more likely fall out or get lost.
The Lamy xevo (next to a green Perfect Pencil 9000) in a shirt pocket
Altogether an excellent and beautiful pen for the money. My one issue is that it only accepts Lamy M16 refills, so it is nearly impossible to use a gel refill. I discuss this in more detail in the video below.
Other blog posts
If you want to read more about the xevo look at these other blog posts about the xevo (listed in chronological order)
For many years there hasn’t been much going on in terms of new Caran d’Ache mechanical pencils. There is a lot of choice when it comes to ballpoint pens but there wasn’t much to look at in terms of affordable (<£50) mechanical pencils (there are unusually many in the ‘above £500’ range, though).
In recent years this changed to some extent with the 849 mechanical pencil being available in a few new colours and editions, e.g. Black Code. There are, however, not many shops here in the UK that actually stock these.
I am happy to see more mechanical pencils from Caran d’Ache, even though it is basically just the same pencil in different colours. I wish they’d do something else, e.g. offering a 0.5 mm version, but for now, just seeing more colours are a nice change.
Caran d’Ache seems to be starting the different colour limited editions game for their mechanical pencils and lead holders, or maybe not starting it but taking it up a notch, while Lamy is by now really good at the ‘new colour game’. Every time I think I won’t buy another Safari they come up with more good colours: last year the re-release of the original colours, this year the beautiful strawberry and cream colours, with matching clip etc.
Kaweco is also really good at this, with a mix of happy affordable colours and more posh looking ones that are slightly more expensive.
In terms of new innovation there have also been some news.
Been watching videos of the Uni Kuru Toga Dive and the barrel diameter seems wide for what I like in a mechanical pencil. Could be a chonker. https://t.co/46vWCqRSMJ
The new Kurutoga Dive is not only rotating the lead like previous versions, but is also advancing it. It is a capped and a limited edition. I wonder if the cap is there to protect the mechanism when not in use. Maybe the front is not as sturdy (in the current version) as previous Kurutogas with less complicated mechanisms. If that’s the case there might be a regular version without a cap in the future. This thought might explain why this is a limited edition: maybe they want to see first how this mechanism fares in the real world, or the manufacturing process isn’t automated enough for mass market production and some manual labour is currently involved in assembly which doesn’t make it quite mass market ready yet….
I believe that the use of the images in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.
Unfortunately work didn’t leave me much spare time so I didn’t get round to finishing the Cento3 graphene pencil blog post yet, but with the previous blog post here being four weeks old I thought it’s time for a quick ‘Bleistift is still alive’ post.
Today I want to show you a fifty year old advert for the Lamy exact and some other Lamy pens, including the Lamy 2000. At the time the Lamy 2000 was about five years old.
You may be able to afford illegible handwriting, but not an unclean one. Leave the cleanliness of your handwriting to LAMY exact. The ballpoint pen with the perfect technology and functional design. Its large capacity refill with a stainless steel tip guarantees a problem-free 10,000 m writing line. With a single refill you will write evenly and cleanly for at least a year. Every time you click this refill ready for writing, it turns by 120 degrees. Like this it cannot be worn down on one side only, cannot blot, cannot smudge. Additionally, the ‘signal marker’ indicates whether the refill is extended. In short, any advantage that is imaginable for a ballpoint pen – the LAMY exact has it. For an always clean and exact handwriting. You can find the LAMY exact range with large capacity refill in leading stationery stores.
In the price list the Lamy 2000 range is being referred to as ‘The manly range’. The more affordable Lamy design 20 range is being referred to as “The young range’.
For reference: In 1971 10 DM were equivalent to 3 US Dollars or £1.20.
According to Lamy’s history page the Lamy exact came out in 1964 and was Germany’s first ballpoint pen with a large capacity refill.
