I like Lamy pens. They may not be the flashiest pens on the market, but I like their designs. So far I have three Lamy writing instruments: a red Safari fountain pen, and a black Scribble mechanical pencil.
I began checking Ebay for Lamys and saw this pen listed for $5 and decided it would be mine.
I tried to do a little research on the 99 but was unable to find any useful information. There were some other 99s for sale on ebay for a lot more, but they didn't look like this one. This one is marked 99b on the body, so maybe it's a different iteration in the 99 line. But I figured, what the hell, it's only $5 ($11 with shipping).
So two things about this pen:
1. Even though it's marked F on the body, it's more like a fat medium.
and
2. It's a hell of a writer. Smooth and skip free.
This pen is a piston loader with a large reservoir. It is loaded by unscrewing the back end, which reveals the piston, and dipping the nib into the ink.
Stylistically it's a pretty basic pen with a couple of unexpected surprises. First, the nib is partially hooded, and second there are little round porthole-like windows on the grip that show the ink level.
So I'm pretty happy with this pen. It's in great condition (some light tarnish on the nib and a small scratch on the cap) and writes beautifully. For $5 it was a great bargain.
Like I said, I was unable to find out anything about this pen, so if anybody has any information they can share, I would very much appreciate it.