Mitsubishi Pencils acquires Lamy

[Glenn-SC]

On 6/12/2024 at 3:16 AM, RJS said:

The mods deleted your posts? Unless you were throwing personal insults about, I can't see why? I don't recall encountering moderation on these forums.

I do not know by whom or how my posts were deleted.  And I have NEVER used any kind of insult on any forum. 

[arcfide]

12 hours ago, RJS said:

The tolerances are now advertised by Lamy, which is honest, which does mean fewer nibs would fail a QC inspection because of line width, but that doesn't explain the scratchy/super smooth/toothy lottery than I and others seem to have encountered. Well done to those that have been luckier with their Lamy nibs. Who knows, maybe I've just always been lucky with Japanese nibs, over and over again.

 

If you're talking about their steel nibs on their mostly automated production lines, I think I have an explanation for that. I've noticed that the steel nibbed pens I get from Japanese manufacturers tends to have tight tine gaps on the whole compared to Western nib specs. I've also noticed that they suffer somewhat more of the "feedback lottery" that you mention than the upper end gold nibs. The hand finished gold nibs that I have from Lamy do not at all suffer that same level of feedback lottery that I also see in their lower end nibs. 

 

To me, this indicates a few things, but primarily, I think this can be chalked up to the fact that eliminating that feedback lottery mostly requires hand-tuning. Japanese pens that we get in Europe or the Americas are more likely to be hand-tuned than the steel nibs coming from Lamy, and even many of their gold nibs as far as I know, since I have only seen confirmed by Lamy that the 2000 receives hand tuning, and I don't know if their other gold nibs are hand tuned. 

 

With automated machinery, where Lamy appears to spec their nibs to have a fairly decent tine gap, you are increasing the likelihood of a working but variably feedbacky nib. Having that wider tine gap spec is more suited to the inks that Lamy makes and also more likely to create a pen that works well and wetly across the board, something that in general many Western writers favor. Lamy uses relatively dry and sometimes unlubricated inks, which benefits significantly from the extra wetness that can come from a slightly wider tine gap. But, the cost of this is that as you widen the tine gap, it gets harder to guarantee that the tine rotational alignment is perfect, and as the tine gap gets wider, it's more likely that you'll risk extra feedback in a nib unless you want to overpolish the inner tines and risk baby's bottom. I personally think that Lamy avoids the step of overpolishing the inner tines, which leads to very consistently writing pens, at the cost of inconsistent feedback. I compare this to the pens I've seen from Pelikan, both steel and gold, in which it looks like Pelikan is willing to risk more baby's bottom in order to ensure that every nib writes smoothly. 

 

In the Japanese makers, who have a strong tendency to encourage their own proprietary cartridges and who don't have a strong universal cartridge history (like in Germany), I notice that Platinum, who has drier inks, tends to use a wider tine gap on average, compared to Sailor and Pilot, who both in my experience tend towards tighter tine gaps, but who also have wetter inks. I don't think it's any accident that Platinum is also known for their particular type of feedback. On the other hand, the highly polished Pilot nibs I have had have exhibited a tendency towards skipping or the like under the right conditions, whereas that has never been the case for any of my Lamy or Platinum pens. I think this is largely due to the polish and tine gap. 

 

Thus, if you put more effort and expense into hand tuning your nibs, as the typical Japanese gold pens are, then you can control for a more consistent feel of the pen on paper, which you will have a very hard time doing in an automated QC process, which cannot directly test for feel on paper. That feedback lottery I think comes directly from the impossibility of directly controlling for smoothness in automated production. And if you want to avoid skipping and baby's bottom, you're going to have to risk more feedback inconsistency. This is why I think you can find lots of posts on the Internet debating smoothness for Platinum nibs, where sometimes they seem to be surprisingly smooth, but more often they seem to have that feedback. You don't get that same kind of comment from Sailor or Pilot because I think they tune their nibs differently, in a way that is easier to control for that issue, at the cost of some others. 

 

And of course, I have a Sailor Zoom nib here which shows asymmetries in the grinding to quite a large degree, and it's hardly the only nib to exhibit this. I had to do a lot of tuning to the pen to get it exactly the way I wanted, but I firmly expect that it was within spec from the factory. The more sensitive you are to such things, and I'm hyper sensitive to it, the more you'll notice variations in production. 

 

In short, if you want to increase the likelihood of producing a non-skipping nib that writes well with dry inks, you'll need to increase your likelihood of variation in feedback across your pens, in my estimation. I think this is what accounts for much of the lottery nature of their feedback. To get rid of that, I think Lamy would have to risk one or more of the issues around dry nibs, baby's bottom, and skipping, and in my experience, except for their 2000, they seem to otherwise be relatively good at avoiding those issues, except for when a nib comes out with an abnormally tight tine gap. I also don't think that it's an accident that their hand finished 2000 nibs have a reputation for smoothness and wetness at the cost of baby's bottom issues. There's no free lunch here.

[inkstainedruth]

On 6/11/2024 at 3:04 PM, Mercian said:

I assumed that RJS was referring to that Jinhao ‘homage to’ the Safari.
I forget its model number, but at least it is branded as a Jinhao, rather than being fraudulently represented as a Lamy.

 

I have one of those that someone gave me.  It's a Jinhao 599 (mine's metal, I think, so it may be a knock-off of an al-Star).  

It's worth about $5 US I think (and kinda writes like that).  But was useful in that it taught me that I could get used to the section on a REAL Safari/al-Star/LX pen.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: @RJS I'll totally disagree with you on the quality of the "knockoff" Safaris vs. any of my real ones.  The Jinhao 599?  It writes like a $5 pen.  The quality of my Safaris are definitely better, and well, the US price for those were about $30 -- even the SE colors are the same price as the standard colors.

Ironically, a few years ago someone in my local pen club ordered a bunch of what were supposed to be Hero 616 pens, and was giving them away to anyone who wanted one.  I was curious, because I knew that that model was supposed to be a "low-budget" version of a Parker 51.  But I'm not sure but what it's a fake Hero!  It writes, but it writes like a pen that costs a dollar (which is what the guy paid apiece for them).   And would not give any competition to my REAL (vintage) 51s -- one of which I got for a $2 at an estate sale, plus another $20 for a bit of nib tuning; and then I was told that Forest Green was a "rarer" color.... 

[RJS]

1 hour ago, inkstainedruth said:

I have one of those that someone gave me.  It's a Jinhao 599 (mine's metal, I think, so it may be a knock-off of an al-Star).  

It's worth about $5 US I think (and kinda writes like that).  But was useful in that it taught me that I could get used to the section on a REAL Safari/al-Star/LX pen.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

ETA: @RJS I'll totally disagree with you on the quality of the "knockoff" Safaris vs. any of my real ones.  The Jinhao 599?  It writes like a $5 pen.  The quality of my Safaris are definitely better, and well, the US price for those were about $30 -- even the SE colors are the same price as the standard colors.

Ironically, a few years ago someone in my local pen club ordered a bunch of what were supposed to be Hero 616 pens, and was giving them away to anyone who wanted one.  I was curious, because I knew that that model was supposed to be a "low-budget" version of a Parker 51.  But I'm not sure but what it's a fake Hero!  It writes, but it writes like a pen that costs a dollar (which is what the guy paid apiece for them).   And would not give any competition to my REAL (vintage) 51s -- one of which I got for a $2 at an estate sale, plus another $20 for a bit of nib tuning; and then I was told that Forest Green was a "rarer" color.... 

Neither 'homage' I bought was a Jinhao. I forget the brand(s). Maybe I got lucky with them. My genuine Safari I paid about £12/$15 for. I didn't realise they cost as much as $30 now. I prefer the Safari to the Al-Star, which felt very cheap and flimsy, compared with other metal pens I own in that price range. The Vista body I liked, as with the Safari. The plastic seems decent enough, on both the real thing and the similar Chinese editions. I did tweak the nibs of those 'homage' pens I've given away to make them write wetter, though they were smoother writers than some of the Lamy pens. 

[txomsy]

It is easy to be misled by "shine".

 

In this context I mean that many cheap pens pay attention to being acceptable (or even nice) out of the box. But their makers long know the 'sell-many' mantra. That is, they do try to make it nice (or even nice than a good quality one), but that's all there is to it. Just initial looks.

 

My experience after many years is that there are two kind of cheap pens: the unassuming brands, who are open about what they sell, you know what you get and their products behave consistently during all their life time, and the pretending brands, which try to "look as" if they were good quality ones but, of course given the price, aren't.

 

Products of the later work nicely out of the box, look nice, seem "better" than the really good counterparts, but degrade ungracefully relatively fast because they are not made to quality, only to sell fast and break down faster to force you to buy more (and to induce you to think that the really good ones are really not, giving you false expectations).

 

I have also had my share of cheap pens. Of these I must say, typically near/middle Asia ones are of the first kind: you can tell they are cheaply made, may require some tuning out of the box, but have their own individuality and last you a lifetime -in the original quality. You know what you get. Resin may be "fragrant", nibs may need tuning, but they are well made and made to last.

 

Cheap Chinese pens tend to be mostly of the second kind: hit or miss; ten years ago, most would be miss, they have gone better with time and now most seem good out of the box: they write well and are made to resemble successful models, with appealing colors and shine, with whatever looks are in fashion, pseudo-pre-aged if they are expected to develop a patina, in 100 colors instead of 10, in all kinds of finish... and soon the "shine" starts to wear out, the plastics or resins to degrade, after a couple of years nibs start to degrade because the metal sheet is thinner and wears out faster, EF nibs become scratchy, M become wider, the tip is lost, the section breaks, the nib unit slids out, the sealing fails, the cap threads wear out or fall out... all of this happens after the initial, "shiny" first impression.

 

These last ones in addition not only are made not to last, they don't last either: you can no longer find them, and with difficulty the clones of the clones, and similarly many other "homages" are made by brands that quickly disappear from the market (rarely last more than a few years), change their name or simply abandon the model.

 

And there is no way to fix them (the company no longer exists or supports the model and anyway it would be too expensive), not even yourself, and worse, you cannot even substitute them for a new one (they are no longer in the market). Even some "praised" brands (like Moonman) follow this quick cycle of abandoning users and models every 1-2 years.

 

Compare this to brands like the ones you complain about: they publish tolerances and stick to them, models last a lifetime, their models stay on market decades, they provide support decades more after the model was retired, and materials and properties are chosen and designed to last a lifetime.

 

You are complaining about a company for giving you information and staying within their published tolerances with nibs and ignoring all other aspects of quality. Not just the rest of materials, or their integration, also their durability and support.

 

After 15 years, all my Kawecos are like the first day (except when intended to develop a patina with time, but that's all). Their clones have all degraded one way or another and have become more or less unusable or are on their way to. Even vintage models with 70 years are still like new.

 

A Kaweco nib needs tuning and a clone doesn't? I prefer to tune the Kaweco and have it write well for the rest of my life instead of getting a pen that only lasts a few years (if it does).

 

Ditto for Lamy. And I haven't had a nib issue with them yet. Or many other non-Chinese brands.

 

Or for my mid-Asia pens: they may be smelly, but they are well made, sturdy, made to last. They may also need tuning, but don't break down, don't leak, are consistent and well made, in cheaper materials, but well made.

 

If you only guide yourself by the first impression, then I must agree with you: on your book, most American or European brands have no QC at all. They will work within their published overlapping tolerances irrespective of whether you like it or not.

 

In my book, QC is a lot more. And so far, most Chinese cheap pens fail miserably and rank rather in the scam category than in the legit product one.

 

As I said, YMMV.

[arcfide]

Plastics are one of the hardest things to judge quality of. There are some things you can do, but other than destructive testing, there's no way to know whether a manufacture is ordering their plastics to a spec that will ensure a long life and continued durability. An acquaintance of mine was in the business of mixing plastics for large companies, and it was amazing to me that some of these companies ordered plastics that had very sharp degradation curves which would ensure some parts would stay perfectly functional for 10 years, and then rapidly degrade after that, being unwilling to pay even a tiny bit more to get plastics that would last much longer. 

 

Unfortunately, in such cases, it would be almost impossible to tell whether a given pen is made of durable materials or whether such materials might be subject to such degradation. We know that this has happened (presumably unintentionally) in the past. Some companies have used white plastics which became brittle surprisingly quickly, others had errors in their feeds which made them susceptible to some chemicals in some inks. Others cracked over time in the housing, sections, or otherwise. 

 

If I were trying to make a pen to undercut the competition, a simple thing to do would be to use plastics which were just a little cheaper and a little less durable over time, maybe a touch more UV sensitive, etc. You wouldn't notice that in a year or two, and by then it wouldn't matter much. 

 

I will say that many vintage pens suffer under this, but I don't think it's a malicious thing. I think it's simply a matter of material science not being as mature in the past. Nowadays, though, I think people can't test for, and therefore aren't as apt to worry about, things like plastic durability over time, and it's those undetectable things that make me skittish about certain companies. 

 

Bringing this around to Lamy and Mitsubishi, it seems to me that both companies have a good reputation for using quality materials and building brands on good functionality and performance, while also being reasonably priced. This gives me reasonable hope for the future. 

[Astronymus]

2 hours ago, txomsy said:

If you only guide yourself by the first impression, then I must agree with you: on your book, most American or European brands have no QC at all. They will work within their published overlapping tolerances irrespective of whether you like it or not.

LAMY has ISO 9001 certification. That means they have to have a working QC system of some kind.

[RJS]

54 minutes ago, arcfide said:

Plastics are one of the hardest things to judge quality of. There are some things you can do, but other than destructive testing, there's no way to know whether a manufacture is ordering their plastics to a spec that will ensure a long life and continued durability. An acquaintance of mine was in the business of mixing plastics for large companies, and it was amazing to me that some of these companies ordered plastics that had very sharp degradation curves which would ensure some parts would stay perfectly functional for 10 years, and then rapidly degrade after that, being unwilling to pay even a tiny bit more to get plastics that would last much longer. 

 

Unfortunately, in such cases, it would be almost impossible to tell whether a given pen is made of durable materials or whether such materials might be subject to such degradation. We know that this has happened (presumably unintentionally) in the past. Some companies have used white plastics which became brittle surprisingly quickly, others had errors in their feeds which made them susceptible to some chemicals in some inks. Others cracked over time in the housing, sections, or otherwise. 

 

If I were trying to make a pen to undercut the competition, a simple thing to do would be to use plastics which were just a little cheaper and a little less durable over time, maybe a touch more UV sensitive, etc. You wouldn't notice that in a year or two, and by then it wouldn't matter much. 

 

I will say that many vintage pens suffer under this, but I don't think it's a malicious thing. I think it's simply a matter of material science not being as mature in the past. Nowadays, though, I think people can't test for, and therefore aren't as apt to worry about, things like plastic durability over time, and it's those undetectable things that make me skittish about certain companies. 

 

Bringing this around to Lamy and Mitsubishi, it seems to me that both companies have a good reputation for using quality materials and building brands on good functionality and performance, while also being reasonably priced. This gives me reasonable hope for the future. 

That's a good point about plastics- aside from the feel in hand and the quality of finishing, it's impossible without forensic analysis to know how well they will age. Will they fade in colour, become brittle, etc? I have doubts about the material quality of any pen that is manufactured in the sub 2RMB/30cent range. Speaking of vintages, my elderly father still has my grandfather's collection of vintage pens, and while most have aged well, a couple have not. 
 

I also have high hopes for the Lamy/Mitsubishi tie up. Maybe Mitsubishi will tighten the nib tolerances to please the Japanese domestic market (and significantly, the booming Chinese market, which could possibly prove to be more lucrative than the rest of the world combined). Who knows. Maybe we'll see some new models pop up, or maybe we won't. We can but hope for the best. 😊

[RJS]

On 6/14/2024 at 7:30 AM, arcfide said:

 

If you're talking about their steel nibs on their mostly automated production lines, I think I have an explanation for that. I've noticed that the steel nibbed pens I get from Japanese manufacturers tends to have tight tine gaps on the whole compared to Western nib specs. I've also noticed that they suffer somewhat more of the "feedback lottery" that you mention than the upper end gold nibs. The hand finished gold nibs that I have from Lamy do not at all suffer that same level of feedback lottery that I also see in their lower end nibs. 

 

To me, this indicates a few things, but primarily, I think this can be chalked up to the fact that eliminating that feedback lottery mostly requires hand-tuning. Japanese pens that we get in Europe or the Americas are more likely to be hand-tuned than the steel nibs coming from Lamy, and even many of their gold nibs as far as I know, since I have only seen confirmed by Lamy that the 2000 receives hand tuning, and I don't know if their other gold nibs are hand tuned. 

 

With automated machinery, where Lamy appears to spec their nibs to have a fairly decent tine gap, you are increasing the likelihood of a working but variably feedbacky nib. Having that wider tine gap spec is more suited to the inks that Lamy makes and also more likely to create a pen that works well and wetly across the board, something that in general many Western writers favor. Lamy uses relatively dry and sometimes unlubricated inks, which benefits significantly from the extra wetness that can come from a slightly wider tine gap. But, the cost of this is that as you widen the tine gap, it gets harder to guarantee that the tine rotational alignment is perfect, and as the tine gap gets wider, it's more likely that you'll risk extra feedback in a nib unless you want to overpolish the inner tines and risk baby's bottom. I personally think that Lamy avoids the step of overpolishing the inner tines, which leads to very consistently writing pens, at the cost of inconsistent feedback. I compare this to the pens I've seen from Pelikan, both steel and gold, in which it looks like Pelikan is willing to risk more baby's bottom in order to ensure that every nib writes smoothly. 

 

In the Japanese makers, who have a strong tendency to encourage their own proprietary cartridges and who don't have a strong universal cartridge history (like in Germany), I notice that Platinum, who has drier inks, tends to use a wider tine gap on average, compared to Sailor and Pilot, who both in my experience tend towards tighter tine gaps, but who also have wetter inks. I don't think it's any accident that Platinum is also known for their particular type of feedback. On the other hand, the highly polished Pilot nibs I have had have exhibited a tendency towards skipping or the like under the right conditions, whereas that has never been the case for any of my Lamy or Platinum pens. I think this is largely due to the polish and tine gap. 

 

Thus, if you put more effort and expense into hand tuning your nibs, as the typical Japanese gold pens are, then you can control for a more consistent feel of the pen on paper, which you will have a very hard time doing in an automated QC process, which cannot directly test for feel on paper. That feedback lottery I think comes directly from the impossibility of directly controlling for smoothness in automated production. And if you want to avoid skipping and baby's bottom, you're going to have to risk more feedback inconsistency. This is why I think you can find lots of posts on the Internet debating smoothness for Platinum nibs, where sometimes they seem to be surprisingly smooth, but more often they seem to have that feedback. You don't get that same kind of comment from Sailor or Pilot because I think they tune their nibs differently, in a way that is easier to control for that issue, at the cost of some others. 

 

And of course, I have a Sailor Zoom nib here which shows asymmetries in the grinding to quite a large degree, and it's hardly the only nib to exhibit this. I had to do a lot of tuning to the pen to get it exactly the way I wanted, but I firmly expect that it was within spec from the factory. The more sensitive you are to such things, and I'm hyper sensitive to it, the more you'll notice variations in production. 

 

In short, if you want to increase the likelihood of producing a non-skipping nib that writes well with dry inks, you'll need to increase your likelihood of variation in feedback across your pens, in my estimation. I think this is what accounts for much of the lottery nature of their feedback. To get rid of that, I think Lamy would have to risk one or more of the issues around dry nibs, baby's bottom, and skipping, and in my experience, except for their 2000, they seem to otherwise be relatively good at avoiding those issues, except for when a nib comes out with an abnormally tight tine gap. I also don't think that it's an accident that their hand finished 2000 nibs have a reputation for smoothness and wetness at the cost of baby's bottom issues. There's no free lunch here.

Annoyingly I just lost the long reply I typed to this- it didn't save when I tried to submit it. I'll try to recap...

 

Lamy 2000 nibs: I've heard lots of good things people have written, and watched an interesting video by Brian Goulet that goes into depth on the different 2000 nibs. Unusually, Lamy don't produce the nibs to be linear or have consistent styles of grinds. It produces some lovely nibs that have been hand ground with obvious care, though.

 

I've also experienced the Pilot skipping effect, but only with specific paper/ink combinations. Smooth coated paper like Clairefontaine combined with European high sheening inks, specifically. I've not known a Pilot pen to skip with a Pilot ink. The pens have always seemed sufficiently wet for any ink, so I suspect it's a smoothing related issue, rather than a feed issue.

 

Due to my smallish handwriting, I mostly stay at Western F/Japanese M nib sizes, and haven't found any Japanese pens that aren't wet enough for me- perhaps the feeds and narrower tines do struggle at B or BB size? I don't think I have any non-vintage bolds in my collection to play around with for comparison.

[LWW]

1 hour ago, arcfide said:

Plastics are one of the hardest things to judge quality of. There are some things you can do, but other than destructive testing, there's no way to know whether a manufacture is ordering their plastics to a spec that will ensure a long life and continued durability. An acquaintance of mine was in the business of mixing plastics for large companies, and it was amazing to me that some of these companies ordered plastics that had very sharp degradation curves which would ensure some parts would stay perfectly functional for 10 years, and then rapidly degrade after that, being unwilling to pay even a tiny bit more to get plastics that would last much longer. 

 

Unfortunately, in such cases, it would be almost impossible to tell whether a given pen is made of durable materials or whether such materials might be subject to such degradation. We know that this has happened (presumably unintentionally) in the past. Some companies have used white plastics which became brittle surprisingly quickly, others had errors in their feeds which made them susceptible to some chemicals in some inks. Others cracked over time in the housing, sections, or otherwise. 

 

If I were trying to make a pen to undercut the competition, a simple thing to do would be to use plastics which were just a little cheaper and a little less durable over time, maybe a touch more UV sensitive, etc. You wouldn't notice that in a year or two, and by then it wouldn't matter much. 

 

I will say that many vintage pens suffer under this, but I don't think it's a malicious thing. I think it's simply a matter of material science not being as mature in the past. Nowadays, though, I think people can't test for, and therefore aren't as apt to worry about, things like plastic durability over time, and it's those undetectable things that make me skittish about certain companies. 

 

Bringing this around to Lamy and Mitsubishi, it seems to me that both companies have a good reputation for using quality materials and building brands on good functionality and performance, while also being reasonably priced. This gives me reasonable hope for the future. 

I will say this, I was a distributor of a product line that routinely gave away, as awards, pens made from precious resin. I dropped the first one and the cap cracked. The second one walked out of my office. The next 11 have never left my office at home.

 

I have about 10 Lamy pens. I have actually thrown a Safari ... capped ... at a plaster wall in my home office. No damage.

 

I've lost a couple, not a big financial loss.

 

My best writing pens are a CROSS TOWNSEND gold nib and my best steel nib is a LAMY AION.

 

LAMY, in my humble opinion, is the best pen line where price/value and manufacturing/design intersect.

[RJS]

3 hours ago, LWW said:

My best writing pens are a CROSS TOWNSEND gold nib and my best steel nib is a LAMY AION.

 

LAMY, in my humble opinion, is the best pen line where price/value and manufacturing/design intersect.

Until I Googled for pictures I'd completely forgot what an Aion was, or that I own one. God knows where it is, but I have one back in England somewhere. 
 

My favourite steel nib started home in a cheap and cheerful Lamy Nexx, funnily enough. 
 

Lamy do make/have made some interesting looking pens, for sure. As others have commented, a lot of companies are happy churning out repetitive shapes over and over. Even if I haven't necessarily ended up liking many of the Lamy pens I've bought, it was the designs that drew me to purchasing them. While they probably hate the fact they have perhaps the most imitated pen design in the world in the Safari, it is a big compliment to the design.

 

Edit: I also forgot I own a Studio, with the slippery section. I think I might own too many pens. 😬 At least no one can say I haven't given Lamy a bloody good shot at impressing me. 😅

[Merrick]

Now if only they would make a Safari variant without the triangular grip section! I know it’s part of the identity of the pen but honestly the design with the body shape and clip are iconic enough that you’d still recognize a Safari immediately even without the triangular grip. 

[Astronymus]

The it's not a Safari anymore.

[Merrick]

2 hours ago, Astronymus said:

The it's not a Safari anymore.

Okay, call it a Savannah instead then. 

[inkstainedruth]

I didn't think I could get used to the grip on a Safari until someone gave me that Jinhao 599 a few years ago.  As far as I'm concerned, that's the ONLY reason to have that pen.  The quality is just not the same.  

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Mercian]

On 6/15/2024 at 3:01 PM, RJS said:

I think I might own too many pens. 😬

😮
Here on FPN, them’s the kind of words that could get a fella pursued back to his castle by a torch-bearing, pitchfork-waving, Angry Mob of affronted locals!
😁

[inkstainedruth]

RJS can always appease the mob with a bunch of PiFs! 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[LWW]

After a little more time with the AION I am really digging the pen.

[arcfide]

My two biggest "happy surprises" came from Lamy's line up. Their Imporium is surprisingly good, and IMO way better than the images give it credit for. The CP1 is the other "wow, this is really good" experience I had from them. Lamy's nibs are also some of the most tunable, so I find it very easy to get the pens to write exactly how I want them to write, which is hard from some makers. 

[Black Spot]

I keep wondering if we will be getting the Lamy's that used to be only released in Japan.  

Will we get the Lamy logo in Japanese characters.

Will my new Lamy Safari turn into a giant robot that takes off to save the world from some monster.

introducing the New Lamy Safari