Pen Review: Lamy 2000

As I mentioned in my previous post, I treated myself recently to a new pen, which I pretended I needed long enough to start researching obsessively, as I do. And in under a week, I'd actually made a decision -- a new record for me! Presto, the Lamy 2000 in artistic hipster square-o-vision.



The last two times I did this, I agonized for months over the decision, finally getting -- and being extremely happy with -- a Pelikan m205 in bright red, and later, a Pilot/Namiki vanishing point in blue and chrome. There's aspects of each of those two that I like and maybe having other examples of "real" pens around made the decision easier. Or maybe I just was impatient. So in the timeless tradition of the chronically indecisive, I made pro/con lists:

Pelikan m205 positives:

+ ink management: massive capacity, visible levels, easy refill via piston system
+ upgradeable: swap nibs by unscrewing
+ fit and finish: Pelikan knows how to make them

…but…

- plastic: model is the low-end of the Pel line (but +light in the pocket)
- smallish: I've got big hands, and unposted, the pen is a shade short
- unsubtle: when subtlety is called for, a bright red pen is not it (but I love it)
- two-handed: I don't post, so the cap has to go somewhere (other hand, usually)

And the vanishing point is almost a perfect complement.

Pilot Vanishing Point positives:

+ brass and metal: a hefty pen, it feels real in your hand
+ a good size, too, for me
+ classy styling, and deploys with a click: an ideal meeting pen
+ excellent build, and love watching the nib deploy and retreat

…but… 

- ink levels are a mystery: even using a converter instead of a cartridge
- so refilling = disassembly, as with most cheap pens, and this is not a cheap pen
- nib updates means buying the whole inner assembly again
- heavy in the pocket, comically so in a breast pocket unless clipped securely

They are both in rotation at work, swapped in as the mood strikes. I have a couple of recurring meetings each week and always take notes, and the Pelikan has never let me down by running low on ink, ever. The VP is ready literally at the press of a button, but I have to make sure to perform the take-apart/refill/wipe ritual before I leave my desk, or pack a second pen for backup.

So, enter the Lamy 2000. What does it offer?

* classic Bauhaus design (says the literature, anyway)
* piston fill for largely clean hands
* magical durable material -- fiberglass and plastic paired with stainless steel, very chic
* a brand/warranty behind it

Here's my impressions after the first few days, in mixed pro/con form:

+ ink handling: it's piston-fill like the Pelikan, so most of the interior is devoted to ink storage, thus I'm still operating on the first fill-up

 - ink levels: warnings about the comically-small ink window are true, so we'll see if I can tell when the well is about to run dry

+ fit and finish: excellent, and the barrel material is prepared in such a way that it looks seamless, even at the end where the piston button seats

+ size and heft: it's comfortable and large enough even in my hand, but not super-heavy either -- right between its two drawer-mates

+ style: the 2000 is so subtle it might as well be a magic marker, and is easily mistaken for one with the cap on. "Pregnant Paper Mate Flair Pen" would be how I'd describe its looks, but in a good way, if that makes any sense

- upgradeable: not so much. A new nib means pen surgery, which is doable, but doesn't appear to be Lamy's intention. Buy a Safari instead if you want to swap nibs easily, or a second pen... :-)

- two-handed: the cap has metal tabs inside to secure it, and it looks like these will quickly scrape up the barrel when posting. So no, the cap goes in the non-writing hand with this pen for certain

 Criticisms that I heard but haven't experienced:

 "Oh, those horrible little metal ears!"

The cap has to snap on to something, and on this otherwise blemish-free pen, there's two spring-tensioned metal tabs or "ears" sticking out on opposite sides of the section. They happen to be at or near where one grips the pen. This evidently aggravates some owners to the point of distraction, a la the Princess-and-the-Pea.

I don't see it.

Oh, they're there all right, and my fingers rest against one of them, but I've not found them distracting, and have been using them even to get the pen aligned properly to writing. Plus, I own and use a vanishing point, which is the ultimate in the having-something-by-your-fingers lifestyle. Not an issue for me.

Bad nib/dry nib/nib takes time to "warm up"

These reports look intermittent, but are vocal -- "I expected better from Lamy, had to send two of them back, etc." Maybe it was a bad batch, or a particular owner with different expectations… who knows. I did flush out the inside of my pen with plain water a few times first (see below) and some of the complaints about dry or skipping nibs noted that it resolved on the second fill. As we know from typewriters, a good gentle cleaning rarely hurts anything.

Stiff piston (hur hur hur) 

Inner twelve-year-old aside, there's observations that the refill mechanism is difficult to work. Is it? It's got to be air- and ink-tight, and I don't think it's worse than my Pelikan's piston. Again, I flushed with water first a few times, to chase away any residual oils and inks leftover from manufacture and quality control testing (some blue ink showed up, so I know the nib wrote at least once.)

Interestingly, using the Lamy has given me another point of comparison, this one for the Pelikan and any pen that refills with a threaded cap:

- inky threads

I don't know how I did it, but there's dried ink inside the cap threads on the Pelikan, probably from brushing up against the lip of a bottle while I was refilling. There's no such issue on the Lamy, as it's smoothness all the way down.

I've heard it's possible to get a fine amount into the grooved texture that's polished into the barrel, but it seems like it cleans up better. It's something I never noticed before now, since I'm usually messing with converters and a partially-disassembled pen or syringes and empty cartridges.

So, is there a clear winner? Not yet for me. I like all three, for different reasons, and for different uses. The Pelikan and Lamy overlap the most in terms of function and usage, and it may be that one goes home to use for marathon writing sessions, and the other stays at work for marathon meetings. It never hurts to be prepared!

Square

Like many social media spots, I'm hanging out as @mpclemens on Instagram if you long to see random abstract blown-out tilt-shift carefully staged snaps of my breakfast cereal, or whatever one is supposed to Instragramify.

Plastic Pen Showdown: Pelikano Junior vs. Lamy Safari

Personally, I think pirate-themed ink carts are pretty awesome, and the world would be a better place with more of them around.

There are more similarities than differences between these pens. Both have an ink window, though on the Pelikano Junior, it's a clear bubble molded into opposite sides of the barrel instead of a cutout. That pen also lacks a clip, which probably is by design -- in small, curious fingers, a clip may be bent or snapped off, though it does provide some nice anchoring for keeping your pen from rolling off the desk... or the paper when photographing it.

Both come in a variety of colors, though only the Safari seems to come in "business" colors (black, charcoal, white.) The Pelikano Junior can also be had with a left-hand grip, presumably with those molded pads reversed (the one pictured here is the right-handed model.)

So which one is the best? Like most playground showdowns, this one may come out a draw (no pen pun intended.) The Safari is more grown-up, but also simpler. The Pelikano Junior has a number of well-thought-out details making it suitable for the classroom, but its styling may raise an eyebrow or two in the boardroom. But if you can get standard cartridges -- all the big box office stores around here carry them -- you won't be far from a refill and they last a long time. I suspect they have room for a converter, too.

Safaris have swappable nibs, so as a "gateway" pen, it's got a lot more flexibility and expandability out of the box. It's rare to hear a Safari owner not recommend them to pen newbies.

In the end, I think it comes down to budget and personal preference about styling. Unlike the disappointing Zebra V-301, both of these handle great, write smooth, and can survive life in a pocket, backpack, or briefcase.

Which would you choose?

Yellow Fellow

Although this week was pretty rocky, it ended on a high note.



After over-analyzing things on the pen front, I went ahead and picked up a Safari, to use up the stockpile of cartridges I have around. The Pilot carts are impossible to find around here, so they will resurrect my existing steel Pilot pen when I need a businesslike pen at hand.

The Waterman ink is evidently the renaming of their old "Florida Blue" color. Safe for vintage pens like the new green fellow sitting in the pen box, waiting for me to schedule a new sac-and-shellac surgery.

The real treat, though, is in the box. Is anyone else reminded of a comb feed? Those slits are pretty stylish in a contemporary-design way. Plus, it lets you peek inside...



"Sedate" is not a word I'd use to describe the Safari. Having grown up with Lego and still having *cough* a few bins of the stuff in our shed for the kids *cough cough* I actually like the primary colors and the ABS plastic shell. There's no mistaking that this is an inexpensive writing instrument, but that doesn't mean it's cheap. Little touches like the molded grip section and that chunky clip mean this is a pen meant to be used by little hands and big, and taken out in the world, not left on a shelf.

The cutout window is a nice solution to the problem of seeing how much ink is left, and the cartridges are generously sized, to say the least. I opted for the fine-sized nib here, since this will probably be a knocking-around, toss-in-the-pocket pen, and need to be miserly with the ink. A little testing shows it to be a "wet" writer, not scratchy. I'm looking forward to putting it in rotation, and since it's plastic, it can happily live in the flower frog/pen holder on my desk where it's close at hand.

Speaking of yellow, and re-purposed pen storage, this brainstorm hit me at the thrift store:



It's supposed to be a tray for making ice cubes for your water bottles -- narrow, to fit in the neck, you see. The perfect size for pens, though. It's currently modeling my assortment of cheapo Sheaffer calligraphy pens, the steel Pilot, and that red no-name one that decided to take regular ink-poos on my fingers. It's being punished.

Next time: flirting with tetanus!

His Nibs

Life for the past five days or so has been a whirlwind as my older child and wife both came down with a nasty respiratory flu, leaving me ostensibly in charge of meals, laundry, homeschooling, and also juggling work and starting our youth team's track practice. I've lost a few days in there, but as my beloved is slowly getting back to health -- and the youngest child spikes a fever, sigh -- I'm getting my head up again, and going "Holy crap, it's February already" and "it's ITAM, I should type something."

Today was my first day back in the office after that unexpected bout of home-care, and while I try to fend off the coughing from my coworkers* I made the pen decision that got postponed. The final purchase was... a Pelikan M205! As much as I covet the vanishing point, I realized that I'd be sad if I didn't check out a pen that's so highly praised, that requires no fuss to refill, and is designed to be modular -- don't like the nib? Unscrew it an pop in a new one. That's pretty awesome.

It should be here in a week or so, and I had enough left over to pick up a Safari, too. Also highly praised, it meets my criteria for being durable, carryable, and not so precious that I'll freak out if it's dropped (cough Speegle cough.) Also, when our local Borders books was on the verge of closing down, they had about a few boxes of Lamy cartridges in a clearance bin that have been waiting patiently for a pen to juice up. I'm just as excited about this as the Pel, honestly.

Finally, when I managed to get the household stabilized enough this weekend to run out and pick up some groceries, I swung through a consignment store that's dangerously close to my house. Most of the wares are not to my taste or wildly overpriced but what's that down there in that cabinet?


Shiiiiiiny

So, to recap -- set out to pick one pen, wound up with three. Seems about right.

This is an old Sheaffer "flat top" Lifetime pen. "Old," since it's likely from the 1920s-1930. "Flat top" because, well, the end of the cap is flat:



It's also ink-stained, noticeably brassed in places like the knob on the clip, and the sac literally tore in my hands. What was once a bright green "jade" color is now a mottled pea-soup, which are all known issues with these guys. I also really, really like it. It's grown on me, and with a coat of the same carnauba wax that's so effective on enameled typewriters, it's regained some of its old lustre, if not its color. And soon: it'll have some friends to join it.

* Seriously: stay home if you don't feel well. There are no medals for being the office martyr to the plague. Stay the hell home. I get completely germophobic at this time of year.