What will be your next Lamy pen buy and why.

[Mercian]

I ordered a Yellow Safari last night. Using it is going to make me look ever so ‘grown-up’ 😉😁

 

I already have a Vista, three Safaris, and a 2000.

I realised though that all my Safaris have matte finishes and black clips & nibs - I don’t have any ‘regular’ shiny-polished Safaris with bright clips & nibs.

 

I would like to have a 2011 Aquamarine (a pen that I wasn’t willing to spend ~£14 on in 2011 )  but the only vendor I ever see of those wants about £100 for the pen - I am not personally willing to pay £100 for a Safari!

Worse still, he’s in South Korea - so the shipping & import taxes that I would have to pay would, on their own, come to more than the price of a Safari!

So, the Yellow one is my ‘substitute’ Aquamarine. I plan to use it when I need to write with black ink.

[ninad]

On 11/13/2022 at 3:14 PM, Mercian said:

I ordered a Yellow Safari last night. Using it is going to make me look ever so ‘grown-up’ 😉😁

 

I already have a Vista, three Safaris, and a 2000.

I realised though that all my Safaris have matte finishes and black clips & nibs - I don’t have any ‘regular’ shiny-polished Safaris with bright clips & nibs.

 

I would like to have a 2011 Aquamarine (a pen that I wasn’t willing to spend ~£14 on in 2011 )  but the only vendor I ever see of those wants about £100 for the pen - I am not personally willing to pay £100 for a Safari!

Worse still, he’s in South Korea - so the shipping & import taxes that I would have to pay would, on their own, come to more than the price of a Safari!

So, the Yellow one is my ‘substitute’ Aquamarine. I plan to use it when I need to write with black ink.

 

Soon you'll be hankering for all the different shades of yellow Safaris. There's the current production yellow, the "transition" yellow (today's color with black clip), the older yellow (warmer color with black clip), and the Line Friends Sally edition pastel yellow. There's also the outlier neon yellow. 

[Mercian]

20 hours ago, ninad said:

 

Soon you'll be hankering for all the different shades of yellow Safaris. There's the current production yellow, the "transition" yellow (today's color with black clip), the older yellow (warmer color with black clip), and the Line Friends Sally edition pastel yellow. There's also the outlier neon yellow. 

Shh!

My wallet says that I’m not to pay any heed to your whispered Temptations!
Especially as you’re probably right  😉

 

I also rather fancy that brown ‘Line Friends’ Safari, but it costs almost as much as the 2011 Aquamarine, so I am trying to rezeest its Siren call….

[Astronymus]

That brown is really nice indeed. But the price. ... Nah. Not worth it.

[jchch1950]

The  "line Friends" brown Safari should be available without all the nice special figures, at the same price level of other Safaris.

[Horseflesh]

I don't have any Lamy pens yet, all my pens turned out to be Asian makes. 

 

I really like how the Safari looks so I will surely end up with one, or an Al-Star, sooner or later. 

 

When I was researching what pens to start with there was lots of love for Lamy but also a surprising number of people saying they were disappointed with their nibs, so I didn't prioritize getting one. But, maybe the complaints were a reflection of the number of users, since nothing is perfect. 

[Mercian]

55 minutes ago, Horseflesh said:

When I was researching what pens to start with there was lots of love for Lamy but also a surprising number of people saying they were disappointed with their nibs, so I didn't prioritize getting one

One of the great strengths of the Safari/Vista/Al-star family of pens is that the nibs are really easy to swap, and are available in a good range of widths for not very much money.

One can effectively have ‘several pens’ for less monetary outlay than one can with other (European) manufacturers’ models. Or, if one gets a ‘duff’ nib, swap it for not much outlay.

That said, I do personally recommend buying from a vendor who will test the nib for you (e.g. TheWritingDesk here in the UK).

 

Lamy also produces gold nibs for their more-expensive pens that are the same shape. So one could choose to buy a gold nib for one’s Safari, or to put e.g. an inexpensive italic Z50 nib on to a more-expensive Lamy pen if one wanted to.

 

I also really like the way that the Z28 converter clips into the Safari & Vista. It makes it really secure, and offers far more peace of mind than e.g. Parker’s converters do.

 

I resisted buying a Safari for several years, because I thought that they looked weird. I eventually bought a Vista, and have bought four Safaris since then.

As long as you like their shaped (didactic) grip-section, for the price, their versatility & robustness means that, IMO, their ‘value’ cannot be beaten.

[inkstainedruth]

1 hour ago, Mercian said:

I resisted buying a Safari for several years, because I thought that they looked weird. 

As opposed to me, who tried what was probably an al-Star early on and thought the edges of the grip were too sharp.  Then someone gave me a Chinese knockoff (Jinhao 599) and realized that I COULD get used to the grip after all.  And then Lamy released the Dark Lilac Safari and it was ALL OVER....

Yeah, they may look a little odd, but I always thought that they wouldn't look too out of place in an episode of the old series The Prisoner -- especially for the people working in the control room spying on all the residents of The Village....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Mercian]

15 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

Yeah, they may look a little odd, but I always thought that they wouldn't look too out of place in an episode of the old series The Prisoner -- especially for the people working in the control room spying on all the residents of The Village....

Ooh! Yes! 😀

[ninad]

On 11/18/2022 at 10:50 AM, Mercian said:

Shh!

My wallet says that I’m not to pay any heed to your whispered Temptations!
Especially as you’re probably right  😉

 

I also rather fancy that brown ‘Line Friends’ Safari, but it costs almost as much as the 2011 Aquamarine, so I am trying to rezeest its Siren call….

 

 

On 11/18/2022 at 10:59 AM, Astronymus said:

That brown is really nice indeed. But the price. ... Nah. Not worth it.

 

On 11/19/2022 at 1:43 AM, jchch1950 said:

The  "line Friends" brown Safari should be available without all the nice special figures, at the same price level of other Safaris.

 

Yes those prices are outrageous for the Brown Safari, especially because you also have to pay a lot for shipping on top of that. Incidentally I asked a couple of EBay vendors in Korea if they can ship it to my partner's family who live there, but they refused to do so!

 

Eventually I got Brown and Sally from Endless Pens—they had very few in stock for like a minute and I got super lucky. I paid only $30 per (including a base and figurines, with special packaging). I should have also bought a Powerball ticket that day...

[Surlyprof]

I just impulse bought a Studio and a CP1 (to add to my 2 Lamy 2000s, an Aion, and a Joy) so probably no new Lamys for me.  The Studio because I just like the balance of that pen and the CP1 to see if I like it better than the Aion for sketching.  I put gold F nib on the Studio for writing and gold EF nibs on the Aion and CP1 for sketching.  Although I felt the Aion was a bit bulky for sketching, I'm struggling to get used to how thin the CP1 is.  I do love the weight and design of that pen, though.  It is quite an elegant, modernist design.

 

John

[Surlyprof]

I finally got to try a Studio with the chrome section and liked it a lot more than I expected.  I prefer the weight and balance over the stainless Studio I bought online.  Now I want a color one but I’m not thrilled with the current color offerings.  It feels like Lamy needs another vibrant, warm color to flush out the Studio palette.  Since they’ve already hit purple (my dream pen), two reds, terracotta and brown, I’d love to see them release a brighter orange or deep, canary yellow.  Has anyone heard any rumblings about future colors for the Studio?  

 

John