Lamy Custom Box

March 30, 2020

Whilst the primary focus of my fountain pen collection is 1970s student pens from Pelikan (the Pelikano series) and Montblanc (the Carrera and Caressa lines), when it comes to modern student pens, in my humble opinion, Lamy has by far the most attractive and functional range. Montblanc stopped making student pens in the 1980s and I can’t get excited about the current offerings from Pelikan.

I like to make custom boxes for my collections, albeit that in the case of my Lamy collection, I only need a small box for the time being. Of all the boxes that I have made for my various collections, the box for my Lamy collection was the easiest to make (even if you tried, you probably couldn’t design a logo more suited to wood inlay work than the Lamy logo), yet came out looking better than most of the others (In January of this year, I posted pictures of my Pelikano box in the Pelikan section of this forum and the Carrera/ Caressa box in the Montblanc section).

The first photo shows the box from the outside. The Lamy logo was made using Queensland/ Australian walnut (which is not a nut tree, contrary to its name) veneer and was inlaid in maple veneer. If you are thinking about starting out with doing your own inlay work and you like Lamy pens, this is an excellent project to get started with. When one begins with wood inlay work, it’s best to avoid tight curves. The Lamy logo has no curves at all, let alone curves with a tight radius.

The second photo shows the two removable trays in the box and my very modest Lamy fountain pen collection. As it stands, I have spare room in the box and for the time being I’ve used that for two Kaweco pens as well as a cheap and cheerful no-name pen. It’s probably no surprise that the Lamy 2000 is my favourite Lamy pen, but I also like writing with the Lamy Linea and the various Safaris, Al Stars and the Vista. Because the Safari pens have a fairly wide girth, I’ve had to make the slots for the pens wide as well. The equivalent box for other brands would fit another two pens for the same external dimensions.