Conclusion: A high standard for low cost pens. Actually, it's a high standard for any pen. It's what a fountain pen should be.

I was very frugal through most of 2007. I had purchased only one pen for myself, a Namiki Capless (Vanishing Point) Fermo. I spent most of the year rotating through my little accumulation of fountain pens trying to improve my handwriting and experimenting with various inks, and not at all lusting after other pens. But when Pendemonium announced their end of year sale with discounts off their already discounted price, I had to buy something! I already had a Safari Vista, and another AL-star in the grey metal-tone they call graphite, and liked it so much I "needed" a back up. I actually wanted the bright metal "aluminum" finish, but they were sold out. For $27 (plus $4 more for the converter) I settled for the one in the ethereal hue they call "silverblue." I'm glad I did. There is a very weird color-thing going on here that I'll describe later.



For those not familiar with the aluminum AL-star (or its plastic bodied sibling the Safari), at 139 millimeters long capped (168 millimeters posted) and 15 millimeters at its widest point, it's a fairly sizable pen. But it's also very light. I have the feeling it may have originally been designed for kids because the small triangular section encourages a schoolbook tripod grip on the writer. Not only that but the section is only 9.7 millimeters wide at its narrowest point. Unlike most of my other pens, I write with it unposted.

You don't get a faux-plush box with the thing -- it comes in a functionally designed plastic "cage." And the pen itself engenders no image of a human craftsman fussing over it. I wouldn't be surprised if I were the first human being to touch it. Which is not to say it's industrial ugly. Lamy had designer Wolfgang Fabian make it look sleek and functional. Some find the esthetic too stark and the Bauhaus thing passé. To each his own, but the look is a result of artistic intention, and not neglect. Here it is with its graphite sibling:



There is something really strange going on with the color. When I took it out of its box, it was a light silvery blue. I'm looking at it now and it's a light silvery purple. I swear. And this is natural light. I took pix of this "lilac" colored pen, and the photos came out the color it was when I opened up the box: blue. It's some kind of color perception, light source thing that an artist or psychologist has to explain to me. I'm assuming the thing didn't actually change color, and I feel too mellow to be hallucinating (but I guess that's what they all say).

Anyway, I ordered it with an Extra Fine nib hoping it would match the EF on my other AL-star. I went through a couple of other EF nibs to get that one right, so I was crossing my fingers. I was also ready for a dry-ish nib that needed some brown bagging. Surprise! The nib is a smooth true extra fine -- about 35 on the Escribiente Scale. I was prepared to load the converter with the very free flowing Noodler's Gulf Stream that I use in my other AL-star, but that made the nib too wet, so I loaded in my own Noodler's bulletproof mix I call New Old Bishop Street Blue-Black. I tried "waxing" the nib to keep Noodler's ink from creeping all over the nib but it looks like I did a bum job:



There is great attention to all the functional details. There are tiny latches to grab the tiny protrusions on the converter to keep it locked in place. You can see the internal collector/feed fill with ink through the smoky transparency of the section. And the steel nibs slide straight in and out.

The main thing is this: the pen is a great writer! It's a stiff nib, but my touch is very light so I can't really tell the difference. The ink starts flowing immediately and continues very evenly through a writing session. It's light, effortless to use. It's a joy to write with and it flatters my handwriting.

So there you have it: A wonderfully designed, well engineered, precisely manufactured fountain pen.




Doug

Dear HDoug,

Thanks for a wonderfully creative review of a truly great pen. I have a safari, which gets used as the name implies, when I am out in the field. I have looked at the Al Star, and will now have to go and get one. These pens are so inexpensive, one can afford to have several around the house. Again, great review.

Regards,

Wade

Cool color, I really like that!

Klaatu barada nikto!

Somebody had to say it.

Thanks for the review. I have avoided the lure of the Al-Star so far but I think that will change this year.

/Woody

I found in a shop in Toronto. It looks like a silvery purple pen too. You are not alone, I will go back and confirm with the seller that it is blue or purple Lamy Al-Star.

I have wanted to acquire another Lamy Al-Star.

I went to Meininger Art Supply in Denver and saw the blue. Yes, they had a fine point available and I made another contribution to the US consumer economy, thereby increasing my fountain pen count by one. It does indeed look lilac in some light.

I have the Lamy Al-Star in that very same lilac. It has a sexy black nib and it hasn't given me a lick of trouble. I love it.
I bought it a year ago at Laywine's in Toronto. Is that the store you're talking about, magician? On the Lamy website the only Al-Star colours listed are Blue, Green, Aluminum and Graphite. Maybe purple is the colour of graphite in Germany.

The silverblue is indeed the same pen as the lilac. I'm amazed that lighting (or whatever it is) can have such a effect on color perception. Or whatever -- I'm still very unclear as to what causes this. I just posted photos of this weird color phenomenon in the Photos topic.

Doug

The supplied cartridge ran out of ink and I [post="460329"]added a spring to the converter[/post] prior to use. The initial charge of Lamy Blue started strong but the ink color looked washed out after a day. This happened to me when I added a spring to the converter in the graphite Al-Star, although I did not report the observation at the time.

I did not pursue it further at that time but this time I took the spring out to see if a chemical reaction had taken place. That appears to be the case. It is as if the spring acted as a getter for something in the ink until the spring became sufficiently passivated to become effectively inert. The photo below shows the spring out of the converter after immersion in ink.

This will need some explanation Why and what's it supposed to accomplish? I'm rather new to the fountain pen world so I need all the education I can get!

Kind regards,
Karl

By using the search function, I found the following posts -- [post="312352"]Namiki Falcon modification[/post], [post="433038"]Lamy Al-Star modification[/post], [post="460329"]another Al-Star mod[/post]. These should make clear what I intended. Other folks in FPN have done similar modifications.

I got the exact same blue/lilac pen for Christmas. I put it on my list and my wife bought it for me.
when she opend the box she was upset and thought she had ordered the wrong thing since the color was different then what was seen on the website she bought it from. I told her, no this is the one.

I think these pens are Anodized ( a way to color aluminum) as we have some parts we make here at work Anodized. The color can fluctuate a little as part of the normal process. Believe me, I have had more than a few "debates" with customers on this.

I got a version of this pen a couple of months ago. I think that Ann Finley reviewed and recommended it. I thoroughly endorse your views, Doug - it writes beautifully every time. My one is in the 'silver' finish with a black clip and medium black nib - most unusual.

I also have the lilac color Al-Star. When I'm outside in natural light.....it looks purple/lilac color. When I'm inside the house under lightbulbs, the pen looks like blue.

I'm quite sure that I have also seen a light blue Al-Star beside a Lilac Al-Star at my local pen shop.....but perhaps there are both a blue and a lilac color?

Thanks for reporting your observations. I did a follow up report here, but I'd still like to get to the bottom of this. There is also an AL-star in light green ("silvergreen") but I have never seen that in person.

Honolulu no longer has a "local pen shop." Your mission, should you accept it, is to go to your local pen shop and confirm or disconfirm the existence of the lilac AL-star (and while you're there find out if the green one changes color depending on lighting also)...

Good luck on your quest, and may the Force be with you!

Doug

I just called the pen store and spoke with the very knowledgeable owner. In the Al-Star in the fountain pens, they have Blue, Lilac (she called it Periwinkle), Green, Silver (she said it's a bare aluminuim) and Graphite(a bit darker than the silver). I asked if there was a chance the Lilac was the same as the Blue and she said "no way".....as she was holding the 5 different colors in her hands while she was speaking with me.

Just to be sure, I confirmed that these were the Al-Stars and not the Safaris.

Here is the full range of Lamy All-Stars & Safaris.

I guess the blue one was the "Ocean Blue"? Then the lilac would be the "Silverblue" - just as Doug guessed before.

Regards
Hans-Peter

Hmmm. The problem is that there is a very deep blue AL-star called Ocean Blue, and a lighter blue called silverblue. Could your source be calling the silverblue one periwinkle?

It's probably not all that important to resolve this absolutely though. Thanks to all for posting info and observations. We're all a crazy bunch... thank God.

Doug

Why do people not refer to their pens, as well, by the particular model number?
025, 026, 027 etc etc etc. Could that not make things a bit easier in regards to 'silverblue' or lilac?

The colour does appear to change in different lights and also different times of day. But placed next to the Ocean Blue (the French blue metallic safari) it is a vastly different colour/shade? blue.

I don't think that many Al-Star/Safari owners know the model number of their pens. And using model numbers would be quite confusing concerning the Safari limited editions like "Flame" and "Blue & Red". They all have the same number (019) - probably because they weren't available (or produced) simultaneously.

Fair enough...for the ltd editions.. but...for the others?... This is not the thread for the discourse.. being a review.

Apols for the sidetracking.

Actually it's a development of the thread, and a good suggestion. Watch aficionados make reference to watches and movements by number so it would serve us pen folk too if models were specifically numbered. I'll do some research. Meanwhile if anyone comes up with information, please post here or start a new thread and let us know.

Doug

It would be too confusing. Bear in mind that only the yellow one is the safari. The other colors have different names. Right now I have an all black "safari" which is called S2 or something.
The vista is easily identified because it's transparent, and the alstar designates all the metallic ones.

Lamy just got rid of the different names - at least on their website. Now they call them all Safari, too. They also removed the model numbers, by the way: Lamy.com

The Safari names can be found here: Lamy Safari colours

gosh.
It is dead easy to get the numbers.. of the standard lines etc.

I can just scan the Lamy 07 catalog. I will be getting the 08 one soon, just unsure when.
I should have a 06 and maybe a 05 around somewhere at work... I hope.

One question: My AlStar (silver, black clip) got scratches very esily. The one I have inked now is a safari allblack matte (it was called the S2) which tolerates desk and pocket normal use with no scratches.

How do the polished plastic models do? I know these are not expensive pens but I still want to know.

My blue (M) has picked up a few scratches - more than, say, my uni-ball disposable roller balls have in the same circumstances. My AL Star (EF) just picked up a scratch yesterday (and it's new, so I've been babying it). My matte finish charcoal (EF) seems to be the most scratch-resistant.

The internal collector/feed filling with ink kind of bothers me. Is this supposed to happen?

Yes. As I understand the situation, it's a standard buffering system used by many (probably most) modern fountain pens, helping give a more even ink flow without skipping or blobs of ink.
Most pens (and even many demonstrators) hide it within an opaque section, which looks tidier but is the loss of a learning opportunity, particularly in demonstrators. I applaud Lamy for showing it in all its inky detail.

Regards, Myles.

(Edit to replace neater with tidier and qualify it as my understanding, possibly incorrect)

Yup, it's supposed to happen. The warmth of your hand forces the ink out of the reservoir (cartridge or converter in this case) and it collects here rather than burp big blue blobs of blue ink onto the paper.

Doug

A Lamy Al-Star and a Macbook pro. What more does a person need? Nice review, nice pictures, and nice background in the pictures (AKA the computer).

HDoug, For sure a well done and informative review. Good points about the design. It reflects quite a bit of thought put into the pen over time. The only thing I don't like: earlier versions of the precursor to this pen, the safari, were constructed with threaded cap screws so you could service the clip or cap on your own provided you had the parts. The new versions don't allow this so if you have a cap in a discontinued color with a broken clip and want to cannabilize it from a new cap you are out of luck. The thing I like and you point out is the convertor with the plastic tabs that clip into the section. What a great and inexpensive design solution that keeps the convertor from wiggling around! This little thing they did speaks well for the company and shows that they care and really like pens!

Thanks for a good review, and I am sure we can all use one more All-Star or Safari.

HDoug, thanks for writing on this. I'm from Singapore and have the exact same experience. I bought a metallic blue al star some time last year and noticed the colour change after a few months. at that time i wasn't sure if i had bought the purple coloured one i was seeing and thought it might have been due to lighting in the shop.
anyway, i dropped the pen off the table one day and the nib spoilt. a few weeks later i went to buy another and asked the shop for a metallic purple one and they told me there was no such colour. i bought the metallic blue al star and compared it with my older one and the colour was definitely different. but now again its looking exactly like yours. in yellow lighting it appears more blue but it looks as if its changed colour mostly to this purple.

but i still like the colour!

I'm shopping for an Al-Star at the moment, so this thread is very interesting. Could the difference in the appearance of this misty blue/lilac color possibly be due to manufacturing changes or different "dye lots" at the factory or the like? Although that seems unlikely, given German QC, it could explain why different Al-Stars look like they're another color.

No, it's definitely a lighting thing. Mine turns lilac to blue and back and forth depending on the lighting. Quite an interesting phenomena.

Doug

A physicist could probably explain it then, something to do with the wavelength of light in those colors. Plus the iridescence of the metallic coating (?) on the pen. I had pretty much discounted buying the silver blue color, but your remarks make me reconsider, since any variation of purple is my favorite color.

It's very hard to explain, only a little easier to show. When I am walking down the sidewalk looking at it, it looks something like this:



When I get into my office it looks like this:



So if you like purple/lilac, then you would have to consider this an outdoor pen. I haven't heard of the other colors changing from the lighting. Very strange. I've come to like the lilac and its dependable return every morning.

Doug

Y'know, this makes me wonder... wouldn't it be cool if Lamy introduced an "art" series on the Safari/Al-Star? Or a contest--you buy any mono-colored Lamy Safari, style it as you wish, then submit a photo of it in a Lamy sponsored contest. Lamy would then have a judging for the top 9 picks plus a grand prize winner. Prizes could vary from a set of inks to a trip to the Lamy factory in Germany.

I have just purchased a silverblue Al-Star from pear tree pens a few days ago, and it looks exactly like the 2nd picture that has been altered to the lilac color. I love how it looks. I tried to take pictures of it as well but the color turned out to be more a silver-blue in the picture than the lilac color I am seeing in person. I'm indoors right now, sitting under fluorescent lighting and it looks lilac to me.


Dianne47: Purple is my favorite color also, and I, like you, was hesitant about buying this color at first until this thread. I am SO glad I got one, it's lovely and I know I definatly wont get tired of this color.. which seems everchanging so it never gets boring. (I previously purchased a graphite grey al-star and the color is just "blah" next to this one)

Thanks a bunch for the details on this. I purchased a SilverBlue Al-Star two days ago (my very first fountain pen!) and got a little worried when I saw this phenomenon. I had seen it on cheapo pens in the past (Pilot Precise rollerballs come to mind) and thought that it was some sort of flaw...good to know that it's nothing to be alarmed about.

My silver/blue does the same thing. Sometimes the cap looks a different color from the base. Other times the pen looks all the same color. Weird but cool.

I too have a L27M Silverblue Al-Star...I notice a different color variation everytime I pick it up!

Dale