How I Got Into Lamy

[amcityink]

5 or 6 years ago, I rented a retail space in Brooklyn that used to be a wedding Cards and paper retail store...you know the type of store I'm talking about! The company high tailed it leaving almost everything, Furniture, shelves, Papers, journals... humongous paper cutting machines etc etc etc... The Owner renting the place saw no value in this (bleep), and gave me a deal, that if I paid to get the place cleaned out, I'd get all these perks....

 

To make a long story short, I took the deal, and as I was cleaning I found several boxes and displays for Lamy... I never heard of the company... But found about 40 pens and pencils with all sorts of refills and inks for FP's and dozen of nib replacements, and FP converters, and ball points... and lead, eraser replacements and 12 FP's I still own.

 

I gave the wife and kids the ball point pens and roller balls... Later I found out 90% of the styles were allstars and Safari's with the exception of half a dozen Agenda pencils and a very cool scribble pencil.

 

A little while later I looked up Lamy and realized, I just gave my wife and kids $35-$40 pens... I thought were $2 or $3. I made a complete and thorough recovery, without much notice. LOL.

 

I started throwing my MB inks into the Lamy FP's. Toffee, Diamond blue, Royal Blue.. etc and really fell in love with the F-M nibs....

 

This little treasure find opened my eyes to the fact that Lower end FP's are pretty awesome.

Edited August 14, 2014 by amcityink

[RMN]

And the wife and kids think, hey daddy must really like us when he gives us such good pens......

 

Does the wife read FPN?

 

 

D.ick

 

 

PS and yes, budget pens can be fairly good....

[LamyOne]

Hello Amcityink,

 

What a fascinating and fantastic way of discovering Lamy - I wouldn't have minded discovering the brand that way myself.

 

My story is a little different; years ago, I used to use fountain pens and I knew about Lamy but always avoided them like the plague because I hated their Bauhaus, (Danish Modern - Ikea), styling. I have always leaned towards the baroque myself - but after buying a bunch of pens based on marble, gold and other fancy finishes, (rather than performance), I soon realized I had a load of pens that caused me more frustration than pleasure - (and I had some top name brand pens - I'm not talking about Chinese knock-offs), so I walked away from fp's.

 

Then, here recently, I got tired of using roller-balls and felt-tips, (you'll never get me to use a ball-point), and I decided to give fp's another chance, (besides, I'm pretty "old school," so fp's seemed to be a more natural choice for me); I remembered the Lamy Safari being touted as one of those "wunderbar pens," so I put their looks aside and picked up two Al-Stars, one in Ocean Blue, the other in the LE Blue-Green, (which is more green than blue), and I've never looked back.

 

They're great pens. Right now, I have two Al-Stars, three Safaris and I bought a Lemon Yellow Safari for my mother and she loves it, too. (And she swore she'd never give up her butter yellow Parker Jotter).

 

Best regards,

 

Chris

Edited August 14, 2014 by LamyOne

[jjlax10]

Brooklyn? Have we ever seen you at the Big Apple Pen Club?

[amcityink]

Brooklyn? Have we ever seen you at the Big Apple Pen Club?

No, I moved down South to the CLT area a few years ago.

[amcityink]

And the wife and kids think, hey daddy must really like us when he gives us such good pens......

 

Does the wife read FPN?

 

 

D.ick

 

 

PS and yes, budget pens can be fairly good....

Agreed.. Budget pens can be fairly good.. and then some. Lamy opened my eyes to that. MB inks work perfect in Lamy FP's.

 

Funny, my kids and wife are so used to me giving them premiums from the work I do, that they didn't even realize I took the pens and pencils back. The thought of my 7 year old using a $40 pencil in elementary school killed me LOL.... My wife now uses one of the FN's and loves it... She's hinting she wants an upgrade. hint hint MD.