Harry Potter Lamy's

[Black Spot]

I must agree with Astronymus I remember when the first LAMY safari came out they were in all the school supply stores. They were so much better than the schulfüller by Pelican or Geha. It was sort of a big deal to get one. 

[Mercian]

I'm slightly surprised by the colours of the clips on these Al-Stars.

 

I would have expected the 'liveries' to be as follows:

'House'         -   Pen Body    -    Clip

Gryffindor           Red                 Gold

Hufflepuff           Yellow             Black

Ravenclaw          Blue                Silver (or Bronze, if they had wanted to match the books)

Slytherin             Green              Silver

 

Then again, perhaps doing that would have increased production costs 🤷‍♂️

 

I note too that I haven't seen these for sale on many UK pen shops' websites yet (in fact only one).

[AmandaW]

I took a quick look around Australian online stores and can only see the Harry Potter pens on two of the eight checked.

[Astronymus]

2 hours ago, Mercian said:

I'm slightly surprised by the colours of the clips on these Al-Stars.

 

I would have expected the 'liveries' to be as follows:

'House'         -   Pen Body    -    Clip

Gryffindor           Red                 Gold

Hufflepuff           Yellow             Black

Ravenclaw          Blue                Silver (or Bronze, if they had wanted to match the books)

Slytherin             Green              Silver

 

Then again, perhaps doing that would have increased production costs 🤷‍♂️

Your choice would have been more true to the corporate design. I don't think it would have increased costs. You would still need 4 extra colors, same as now. These are just not as well thought through as they should be. 😉

 

15 points!

[A Smug Dill]

4 hours ago, AmandaW said:

I took a quick look around Australian online stores and can only see the Harry Potter pens on two of the eight checked.

 

Milligram sells them, and is even offering a discount on them at the moment. Even the discounted price qualifies an order for a single unit for free domestic shipping.

 

I'm not that big a fan of LAMY's AL-star fountain pens (and have enough of them anyway), but because of all that stupid noise on Reddit (in r/fountainpens) that hits every thread where someone keen on the Harry Potter merchandise/collaboration LAMY product wants to talk about, I'm sorely tempted to get one.

[Ashenden]

18 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Milligram sells them, and is even offering a discount on them at the moment. Even the discounted price qualifies an order for a single unit for free domestic shipping.

 

I'm not that big a fan of LAMY's AL-star fountain pens (and have enough of them anyway), but because of all that stupid noise on Reddit (in r/fountainpens) that hits every thread where someone keen on the Harry Potter merchandise/collaboration LAMY product wants to talk about, I'm sorely tempted to get one.

 

I've finally left the Reddit sub this week for this reason. People who are interested in them and making innocent "hey these are cool" posts about them are getting deluged with a barrage of negativity and it's turned into another ridiculous brouhaha. I had ordered the set prior to seeing all this, and was surprised at the reaction when I searched it on the sub. I don't need to feel bad about my fountain pen purchases. It's just a hobby. 

 

I don't think these are the most stunning special edition I've ever seen, but I like the basic colors, don't have any Al-Stars in my collection and I thought this might be a good first introduction. I guess if I like or dislike them, it's going to be 4 times (!). I do agree with the post that mentioned they should have done the complimentary house colors. Or, in my opinion they could have included a small bottle of ink in that complimentary color for each pen—there's a number of ways this set could have been elevated. And I can't remember where I read it elsewhere, maybe Reddit, but it was mentioned that the Ravenclaw bird on the pen was wrong (to what's in the books, evidently—I haven't read the books in so long I would have no idea if it was wrong or not).

 

Truphae in the USA is also offering this in a Left Handed version (whatever that means, they don't specify how it's left handed), which I haven't seen on other retailer's sites that are carrying it.

[Mercian]

55 minutes ago, Raji said:

but it was mentioned that the Ravenclaw bird on the pen was wrong

 

I'm told that the avian emblem of Ravenclaw in the books is an eagle.
The Warner Bros. films changed that bird to a raven.
Which, to be fair, does make more sense in the context of the name (in English) of the House.

 

 

57 minutes ago, Raji said:

People who are interested in them and making innocent "hey these are cool" posts about them are getting deluged with a barrage of negativity and it's turned into another ridiculous brouhaha. I had ordered the set prior to seeing all this, and was surprised at the reaction when I searched it on the sub. I don't need to feel bad about my fountain pen purchases, FFS. It's just a hobby. 

 

This is one thing that I've always loved about FPN - any sort of childish name-calling, preference-'shaming', or stupid inter-personal argument* etc gets shut-down by the Moderation team rapidly, and the offending posts deleted.

 

It means that this is the most-civilised, and most-pleasant, internet forum I've ever found.

 

* to my shame, I have been guilty of getting involved in those myself, and on several occasions. It seems that I have still not yet learned how to always act like a grown-up. D'oh!

[Ashenden]

28 minutes ago, Mercian said:

This is one thing that I've always loved about FPN - any sort of childish name-calling, preference-'shaming', or stupid inter-personal argument* etc gets shut-down by the Moderation team rapidly, and the offending posts deleted.

 

It means that this is the most-civilised, and most-pleasant, internet forum I've ever found.

 

* to my shame, I have been guilty of getting involved in those myself, and on several occasions. It seems that I have still not yet learned how to always act like a grown-up. D'oh!

 

I am so glad to hear this. 

 

I think anyone who's been on the internet for any length of time is guilty of occasionally getting involved in stuff like this, but keeping a tight lid on it and mostly having fair and neutral mods goes a long way to reduce it.

 

Nice to meet you! Did you purchase any of the HP offerings at all?

 

 

[Mercian]

45 minutes ago, Raji said:

Nice to meet you! Did you purchase any of the HP offerings at all?

 

Nice to meet you too! 😊

I haven't purchased any of them, no.
I am slightly too old to have been 'bitten' by the 'Pottermania' 'bug' - and if I am being honest, I already have far more pens than I actually need, or can genuinely justify owning 😁

 

I have several Safaris, and I have never seen the 'need' to acquire an Al-Star.
That said, the 2023 edition in the 'Petrol' finish made me break that 'rule'.

I think it's so preeetttyy...

[A Smug Dill]

OK, I just ordered the Slytherin pen. I wasn't really going to, when Milligram is simply doing a 15% off the RRP, and I'm used to getting my AL-star fountain pens for much less (even from Milligram itself, when discounts come up from time to time)… but then it offered me an additional discount, so what the hell. I'm thinking about putting either the Kanji nib or a gold nib on it. It'll be fun to bring it to the next pen meet such as a Pelikan Hub with lots of other hobbyists who are strangers to me!

 

I wonder if it's possible to safely remove the clip from the cap, and replace it with a silver clip I harvest from another of my AL-star pens?

[AmandaW]

38 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

me)… but then it offered me an additional discount,

How does that happen? I have stuff in the cart and it's telling me the purchase will get me to the middle level of the club. (Currently a mere first level.) Tempted, but not certain.

[kestrel]

On 11/10/2024 at 12:09 PM, mulrich said:

I must be in the minority but I’m not seeing the wow factor in these. 

Only one screams "WOW" at me.  I'm a reptile guy who has kept turtles and lizards and snakes (Oh my!) since I was a teenager.  I have captive bred venomous and nonvenomous snakes.  I am not a big Harry Potter fan but there will soon be a Slytherin pen headed this way.  I already have an interesting photo in mind...

[A Smug Dill]

29 minutes ago, AmandaW said:

(Currently a mere first level.)

 

LOL, I got “expelled” from the Friends For Life loyalty programme (even though I already achieved the highest level almost ten years ago, before the whole thing “evolved”), and I think a $10 purchase put me back in at the very start of the first level, I think.