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Apologies in advance for any toes stepped on, but I don't actually love the look of the Lamy Safari -- which puts form over function. But the form is important and certain things just "look right" to each of us (or don't, as the case may be). I know that that pen is probably one of the most popular pens out there, and it is popular for a reason, so I lead with this with some trepidation. However, I bought a torpedo-shaped fountain pen in my 30's and I kind of got aesthetic brain-lock on that basic design. You all will understand that what I am talking about is essentially a failure of the imagination here (mine, that is). You get locked in to thinking a certain way about a topic, an idea, or a product, 'cause you tried it at some point and it fit well. So I bought that black, torpedo-shaped fountain pen with the star on top, and then maybe the German stripy one and a couple of French enameled brass tubes, and there the matter sat for about 25 years. I fully acknowledge that the limitation is mine, but that is essentially what personal taste is. Cut to today, when >duh< I realized that it is sort of an interesting time in fountain pens -- there are a lot of choices out there. And Amazon wanted to sell me FIVE Jinhao copies of that basic Lamy-style pen for about 9 dollars delivered. I don't even know how you ship those pens half-way around the world for $9, let alone manufacture them and sell them at retail. The cost to manufacture the pens must be in the low pennies per unit. I realize that the question of design copies is tricky and one that must come up a lot on this particular subforum. But I don't sweat it too much in my own purchasing. I like to tinker with stuff and am much more comfortable taking a dremmel or a file to a $20 copy of a European design than to the more expensive pen itself. Heck, I never even had the nibs and feeds out of my older, classic pens and didn't have the guts to try until I could practice on my less expensive (cheaper?) Chinese copies of the same. And, I rationalize to myself, that no one is going to purchase a $26 P136 rather than a Montblanc. Ever. They are different beasts, except superficially in appearance. If you want the more expensive pen, you scrimp, you save, you sell off your Vida Blue rookie card -- you do what you have to. But I don't think those two pens are actually in competition with one another for the same customer. The Lamy Safari is a bit different though, because the German pen is soooo reasonably priced for what it is. It is worth mentioning though that at $9 for a pack of five copies, the Chinese pens are an order of magnitude cheaper than the original German design. That being said, these days, buying an actual Lamy would mean skipping one or two lunches and redirecting the funds. So I was skeptical, but $9 is well within a my comfort zone for risk on a home/office product. I ordered them and in due course, the pens arrived in five different colors and I inked up the yellow one at random. And whaddaya know? The 619 has an EF nib, but writes smoothly. Really smoothly. It has sat capped for weeks and starts right up. The quality of the nib on paper is great. My conclusion was that I was completely wrong about the design. And having adjusted my outlook/prejudices accordingly. . . Ironically, the ultimate outcome is this: I have just placed an order for two actual Lamy Safari pens, one black and one white. And I would have never ventured forth on this if I hadn't had such a good experience with the "homage" pen in my pen cup. If I were the executives at Lamy (or Montblanc, or Waterman etc. etc.) I would take a very dim view of how my house's brand has been copied abroad. But I think there is a good argument that the Chinese copies can also serve as "gateway" pens for folks who don't live near a pen store and who can't really make an informed decision about whether a particular style fits them unless they can get their hands on something they can afford. I also know from reading reviews on Amazon and elsewhere that not everyone has had the good luck I have in inking up their own versions of the Chinese pen. But so far, I am very pleased. The thing just works, and works well for my purposes.

Hi FPN, A little while ago, I managed a great deal on a vintage Kaweco V12 and 619 set from around 1965. It was a bit of a risk, bought it on eBay with only one picture so didn't really know what condition it was in. Fortunately, it arrived and when I started to clean it and take it apart it turned out to be in VERY good condition and needing nothing other than a cleaning and some silicon grease. I've done a review of the pens here. However, between winning the auction and getting the pen, I was looking online on how to restore them, I was worried it had a cork piston seal, I couldn't find much. When I couldn't find one, I thought I would take some pictures of the steps as I did it to my new pen, so here's a quite guide on how to take apart a Kaweco V12 and what the parts look like. To start things off, here's a picture of the pens and the case as they arrived. The first thing I did was soak the pen in some deionized water for a few hours, pulling it out of the water to let the water inside the pen drain out and then refill the pen. This washed out virtually all of the ink, which turned the water blue likely meaning it was a washable blue ink that was in it. After the water coming out of the pen stayed clear, I used some nylon pliers to pull out the nib and feed from the pen, which come out as shown below. They just pull straight out, if they don't come out easily, I'd suggest soaking in some soapy water maybe then applying a little dry heat (not too much, the pen is celluloid). The nib may come out by itself without the feed, if that happens just pull the feed out with some rubber tipped pliers. Once removed, this is what the nib and feed look like. They can/should be soaked by themselves in clean water just to make sure everything comes off them, could even give them a gentle brush with a toothbrush to make sure. While I was soaking the nib unit, I started on the piston. On the pen, the seal and piston had come loose from the nob and twisting the nob at the back didn't do anything to the piston, which had me a little worried. When I was looking at the threads, i thought they looked a lot like the threads on a Parker Vacuumatic, which I have the tools to remove. So I grabbed that and it was a match. However, as soon as the unit started to unscrew, I realized that using section pliers are a better option. You can see from the photo below, that the piston unscrews from the barrel of the pen at the metal o-ring rather than at the nob. This means that the piston forms part of the barrel at the top of the pen. This makes using section pliers on the back end of the pen the best option for removing it. My pen didn't have any shellac, but I can see some pens might, so not a bad idea to apply a little dry heat, again, not too much. (this photo is actually from putting the pen back together, that's why the piston isn't sitting in the ink window). Once out, I could see why the piston had come loose from the nob. It's different from the TWSBI piston units as there's a screw that's attached to the nob which fits into a threaded hole inside the piston. There is a square hole in the nob piece which the piston fits into to stop it from rotating and the nob turns a screw which extends or retracts the piston. The below shows the pen fully disassembled. To reassemble the pen, I started with the piston. I put silicon grease on the seal to fill the notch and all along the sides of the seal. I also put grease into the hole in the nob unit, on the outside of the piston shaft, and on the threads that screw into the barrel. I then put the piston into the nob unit and fully retracted the piston. I then screwed the piston unit into the barrel of the pen. I only finger tightened the piston unit as I didn't want to crack the barrel of the pen and was confident it wasn't going to come loose. I wouldn't recommend using section pliers to screw it in as you might over tighten and crack the barrel. You could apply some shellac to the threads to keep it in place, but I didn't want to and the fit is good enough on my pen that I wasn't too worried. The pen is much easier to thoroughly clean if I can remove the piston. It was then just a matter of putting the nib back onto the feed and sliding it into the pen. It goes in smoothly and there is a final little bump you can feel it go over telling you it's in there securely. Because of how the nib fits onto the section, it's very difficult for it to be misaligned, but always worth a check as once on the pen it's difficult. After putting it all back together I tested the piston with some water and it worked great, so inked it up and gave it a test and been very happy ever since. For the 619 ballpoint, the pen came with a refill in it, fortunately, but it had long dried out. I was able to find out that the Schneider 75M refills fit the pen and ordered one black and one blue. To remove the refill, the front of the pen simply unscrews. As you might be able to tell in that photo, the Schneider refills are a little too long for the pen and need to be cut down slightly. I used the refill that came in the pen to get the correct size, unfortunately I don't know the length of what I cut off, but it's around a half inch I think. There was a bit of foam in the piece of the refill that I had to cut off, so I pushed it out and put it back into the back end of the refill to stop it from drying out. I then rounded off the corners a bit and put it into the pen. Worked great and writes very well. The click mechanism is a bit unique. To extend the pen, you push the button down halfway and it will stay there with the pen extended for use. To retract it, push the button the rest of the way and it will go back in. This means if you push the button all the way down in one go, it will extend then retract the pen in one push. This took me a couple of tries to figure out and I think would catch your typical ballpoint user off guard, they are likely to think it broken so if you let someone borrow the pen, best to explain. You can see in the below, the pen extended and the button half pushed. Hope that was useful to someone and if you get a chance to get one of these pens, I'd highly recommend it, they look to be very low maintenance and rather easy to restore if there aren't any broken pieces. Again, you can read my review of the two pens here.