After the blog post about the shop from FuZhou Road I had to interrupt this Chinese New Year series with the Pencil Pot of the Month before the month came to an end – but now we are back on track with the next Chinese New Year blog post.
This time: a look at Lamy’s store in Raffles City, a shopping mall at the end of Shanghai’s FuZhou Road.
It was about eight years ago when I first came across the Lamy dialog 3.
From dislike to like
Back then I didn’t like it. I thought it is too big and modern ..but somehow, over the years, I warmed up to it, more and more – up to the point when I started to actively want one.
Funnily enough, my wife’s favourite ballpoint pen, the pico, is from the same designer: Franco Clivio. Both, the pico and the dialog 3 have a similar shape, a bit like a test tube, but round on both ends.
Price variations (£99 – £250)
Well, I didn’t think I’d get a new >£100 fountain pen in the next few years, but somehow (actually because of Christmas) it did happen. Well, I say >£100 fountain pen, but WH Smith is regularly selling the palladium version with an M nib for £99 (~$122; €114), but most shops will charge you £200 – £250 for this pen. The one I got for Christmas was also a cheap one, that’s why I got an F nib. I would have preferred an EF nib, but there was no EF version available for a good price. I can always buy an EF nib if I want and it would have still been a very good price compared to the RRP.
The whole price situation of the dialog 3 reminds me of the blue Pelikan M605 – every few years Kaufhof seems to sell it for a good price. I paid €99 (~$105; £85) for mine.
The nib
There have been many blog posts looking at this pen, with the one from Dries being one of the latest ones, so I don’t see a need to write more about the pen itself. Instead, I want to tell you that the nib on my dialog 3 is the smoothest nib I have ever used (and I have used quite a few gold nibs over the years). As I haven’t seen too many raving reviews about this nib I am not sure whether all of Lamy’s Z55 gold nibs or even all Z55 F nibs are that good, but mine is excellent. As described in Ian’s review here this nib can be used in all modern Lamys except the Lamy 2000.
The nib is however not only smooth, it also has a pleasant amount of springiness. I have seen nibs advertised as flexible that offer less line variation than this nib.
The case
The dialog 3 used to come with a wooden case. Lamy stopped supplying the case, but many shops still advertise the pen as coming in this case, so that might be old stock.
According to Lamy, the wooden case is not being offered anymore. I suspect the case was stopped when the dialog 3 was redesigned (there were some complaints about the pen drying out soon in the original version).
If you want to get the wooden case the only way to get it now, as far as I know, is to buy it used or to find old stock. My pen didn’t come with the case so I had to get it separately.
I tried to make a short film showing my dialog 3 (and the case), but I guess I shouldn’t make a car (to pull the camera) from some toys lying around in the living room. The owner of the toys came to get them back during filming…
Well, before I finish the blog post, here’s a picture of the ‘camera car’ that was used for the film, now you know why he wanted it back…
I am quite sure that I’ve written about my use and like of Lamy pens in previous blog posts.
My admiration for Lamy started in the Eighties
I’ve started using Lamy Safari fountain pens more than 30 years ago (my first fountain pen was from Pelikan though) and have been very happy with them throughout the years. I really can’t remember what colour my first Lamy Safari had, but I am quite sure it came in a cardboard box like the one seen here (scroll down), the one the first Safari came in. The next ten years the Safari (I had a few over the years) was being used every weekday.
I’ve also spend some time near Heidelberg (the place were the Lamy Safari is made), because I have some relatives who live two miles East of Heidelberg. It’s a great place, even though that doesn’t have anything to do with the design and quality of their pens.
..but what’s that? Dark clouds over Heidelberg and the Lamy factory. The fake Safaris are coming!
real: top, fake: bottom – the text on the nib is a different colour, but the ink window matches up for both
Invasion of the fake Lamy Safaris
I recently bought two Lamy Safaris from eBay UK and paid £23.98 (~$30; €28.50). Buying two Lamy Safaris from a normal UK online merchant would have cost £28 (~$35.50; €33.30), so not much more expensive, but the ones from eBay came with converters and they were colours not being made anymore.
real: left, fake: right – the colour is slightly off, this is more pronounced in artificial light
Well, when I got the pens I noticed that they didn’t feel right. One of them was lime green, Lamy’s special colour in 2008. The ‘screw’ in the cap had the wrong colour and the ink feed was shiny, something I have never seen in any of my Lamy Safaris (I confess, I have a two digit number of them – Oops.). I have a few lime green Safaris, which were bought from Papier Pfeiffer. So I thought I compare the eBay lime green Safari with my Papier Pfeiffer Safari: well, the colour was similar, but not the same. In artificial light the difference between the real and fake colour looks even bigger than in reality.
real: top, fake: bottom – the ink feed of the fake Safari is shiny
A quick search on the Internet revealed that fake Lamy Safaris are a thing. Desk of Lori wrote about it and Goldspot Pens made a video about fake Safaris.
The fake Safaris have certainly improved since Goldspot’s video. My nib looked quite good, the line goes straight to the middle of the breather hole. The ink window also matched up correctly with the grip section, so that’s another area where the fake Safaris have improved.
real: bottom, fake: top – the pattern in the fake LAMY letters is shallower and there are lines
Goldspot Pens mentioned that their real Safari’s cardboard ring had text printed on both sides. I checked several real Safaris and they all only had the text printed on the outside, so the printing on the cardboard ring doesn’t seem to be a reliable indicator whether the pen is real or not.
the fake Safari’s F nib is much wider
So what things did I notice that were different between the fake and the real Safari?
In the case of lime green the colour of the fake Safari is slightly off
In the case of lime green the ‘screw’ at the top of the cap is the wrong colour
The text on the nib is light instead of dark
The surface in the embossed LAMY letters of the body have a shallower pattern and some scratchy lines
Corners in the plastic are less pronounced
The ink feed is shiny instead of looking matt and washed (from testing)?
The second Lamy Safari’s cap is cracked near the top, so I assume the plastic isn’t as durable as the real ones
The fake Safaris don’t start well. Starting them after the first filling took a along time and they needed some help (pushing ink through) before they finally started
When you push ink through the nib section the fake Safari’s ink comes out from the filler hole (under the ink feed), not through the nib’s breather hole.
The fake Safari’s F nib is much(!) wider than a real Safari F nib
I have sent the seller a message in case they were not aware that they are selling fake Safari. The two colours I bought are now not available anymore, there’s only a yellow Safari left now.
The other fake Lamy Safari had a crack on the cap
Thinking how much progress has been made since Goldspot Pen’s video was made the fake Safaris could, if they improve further in the next years, be very difficult to spot ..but even if the appearance is gettng closer to the real thing, it still looks as if they are not as durable, don’t write as well
and they’re also not much cheaper [1]I also wouldn’t be surprised if the manufacturing process is not really bothered about being environmentally friendly..
I usually do nearly all my writing with pencil or fountain pen (actually, most is pencil, I don’t use fountain pens that often anymore), but this week I had a situation where neither pencil nor fountain pen was good enough.
I tried to label a blue Atoma notebook, like the one seen here, but because the blue is quite dark graphite is too light and even my Tactile Turn Gist with black ink was too light, so I wrote with my Staedtler Pigment Liner in 0.5mm over the black ink from the Fountain Pen – this made the lines much darker. Off-topic: the finest pen I have is a Faber-Castell Ecco Pigment 0.1mm, which is pretty fine, but Staedtler’s Pigment Liner is even available in 0.05mm!
Why do I mention this? ..because of the surface of the Pigment Liner.
Lamy 2000
Lamy 2000
Many people, me included, love the Lamy 2000, which is not only because of its shape, but also because of the material used and its surface. I think many people put the good feel of the pen down to the material, Makrolon, but I think it is also down to the surface of the pen. The surface is not just smooth, but is made up of tiny lines that run along the body of the pen. As the lines are so fine the material is also worn down fairly soon which, I think, explains the ageing process where the Lamy 2000’s surface becomes more smooth – something we are all used to seeing from the often used keys on our keyboards.
Staedtler Pigment Liner
Staedtler Pigment Liner 308
Staedtler’s Pigment Liner has a very similar surface, made up of little lines. I guess the main difference between this pen’s surface and the surface of the Lamy 2000 is down to the material used and the shape. I don’t know how difficult it it so make this surface, but it looks fantastic and this is certainly the only single use, i.e. non-refillable, pen I know that has a surface like that.
Close-Up of the Lamy 2000 surfaceClose-Up of the Staedtler Pigment Liner surface
Welcome to my blog post about the Lamy 2000 mechanical pencil, which was provided for free by The Pen Company. This blog post has also been published on their blog.
50 years of the Lamy 2000
The Lamy 2000 was first released in 1966 so this year is its 50th anniversary – and after several special editions covering materials like grenadill wood, ceramic, titanium, and more, we can expect a new special edition in 2016. I went ahead and compiled a list of the special editions so far, which can be seen at the still unnamed pen wiki. I checked with the company that handles the launch of the 50 years Lamy 2000 special edition. They checked with Lamy and I was told that the list is complete. I wonder whether someone has all of them. Maybe the person who bought the Jonathan Ive and Marc Newson special edition in red?
The material
It’s still not clear how the special edition will look, but however it looks, the ‘normal’ edition is stunning in itself. The main body is made from Makrolon (polycarbonate) and the surface is brushed, which means that use over time will slowly start to polish the surface and it will become shinier. This reminds me very much of Lexikaliker’s ‘beauty through use’ post (Translation / Original). It is a beautiful concept and idea and just one of the things I love about the Lamy 2000.
The surface of the Lamy 2000 in the middle changed after years of use.
The Lamy 2000 Fountain pen
Even though I’ve been using Lamy (Safari) fountain pens since the 1980s, I only bought my first Lamy 2000 fountain pen in 2008. The most expensive fountain pen I had before that was probably a Parker, which was less than half the 2000’s price. Before I bought it I was looking at the 2000 pen for several months before I decided that it’s worth the €89.95(~$102; £72) it cost back then, and in the end I got this pen as a Christmas gift that year from my wife. It’s a great pen! After I got it, it was the only fountain pen I used for a very long time. One unusual thing about my 2000 fountain pen is the enormous ink flow you get if you start using a bit of force. The M nibbed one I have is like this, but I wouldn’t know whether all Lamy 2000 in M are like that. Well, I liked this pen so much that I bought an EF version a bit later, mainly because of the fairly big line variation I got from my version in M.
Lamy 2000 fountain pen and mechanical pencil
Even today, after Lamy has increased their prices a few times, they provide excellent value for money. You won’t find many piston fillers with a gold nib for the price the Lamy 2000 fountain pen sells for – and you’ll find even fewer fountain pens as handsome as the Lamy 2000, especially not for this price.
The Lamy 2000 mechanical pencil
The Lamy 2000 mechanical pencil
Well, technically it’s not really the 50th anniversary of the Lamy 2000 mechanical pencil; even though the fountain pen was released in 1966 the mechanical pencil was only added in 1970 (and the ballpoint pen in 1968).
Despite loving wood-cased and mechanical pencils, and despite the good reviews out there, I hadn’t had the pleasure of using a Lamy 2000 mechanical pencil until I got one from The Pen Company in January 2016.
Vitals
My first impressions: the Lamy 2000 mechanical pencil was much lighter than expected. I know these numbers won’t mean much to most readers, but in case you want to compare it to another pen, here are the vitals: The length of the pen is just under 14cm, with the thickest part of the barrel having a diameter of 12mm. The weight is just under 19g. The centre of gravity is very much in the middle as you can see from the picture where the 2000 is balanced on a type.
What a well-balanced pencil!
Look and Feel
One of the other things I noticed first was that the Lamy 2000 pencil is much slimmer than the Lamy 2000 fountain pen version. As I was used to the thickness of the fountain pen version I did initially find the mechanical pencil too slim, but by now I like it the way it is. The clip has a similar design as the fountain pen, but again, is slimmer. This is a good thing as many users of mechanical pencils will rotate them in their hand, so a slimmer clip makes it less obtrusive when it rests on the purlicue between the thumb and index finger. You’ll still notice the clip in your hand though, because the corners are not rounded – the clip is still quite noticeable and can even be distracting.
The clip
If you write using a fairly acute angle, i.e. if you hold the pencil very flat, the pencil’s body can still be too wide, especially when writing near the spine in a notebook where the pages don’t lie flat. In that case, the body of the pen can touch the paper, making writing difficult – but this issue doesn’t usually occur.
The grip section
The good thing about the cap is that it fits quite firmly on the pen and there is no danger of it falling off by mistake. I mention this because the cap of the my Caran d’Ache 844 is quite loose and can come off easily.
Speaking of the cap: the 5 on the cap seems to be laser etched, similar to what you get on some keyboards, so I don’t expect the 5 to rub off anytime soon.
Conclusion
This is a great mechanical pencil. I am sure I will enjoy it for many years to come. Since I got it, it has been my most used mechanical pencil.
The fountain pen and the mechanical pencil – easy to distinguish in your shirt pocket
Price: 2008
Exchange rates: April 2016
I would like to thank The PenCompany for providing this pen free of charge for this review.
