Lamy Black Nib Colour

[sumdogmillionaire]

Hi everyone,

 

Hopefully I'm not repeating a question, and hopefully I'm posting correctly!

 

I purchased a petrol green Lamy safari from an eBay seller I've used before with no problems. I did notice that the black nib appeared much lighter than the nib on my Lamy matte charcoal (purchased from the same seller a few years ago). I've attached a photo, it's not the best but that is as close as I could get. It shows the colour difference quite clearly and it's not the lighting that makes it appear so.

 

Both are good writers I think, but the appearance of the nibs is throwing me off. I contacted the seller and they informed me that Lamy has changed the colouring of the nibs recently, and that all black nibs are a bit paler than previous batches.

 

I tried to look into whether others had noticed this as well but couldn't find much. Is this something that should concern me? Has anyone else noticed this? Does it possibly indicate a fake? Should I just not worry??

 

Thanks for persevering with my questions! Hope I've made sense.

[Randal6393]

Don't worry, be happy. I have a number of Lamy nibs, most are stainless steel, a couple are black. Have noticed no difference in writing performance. (Also true of my Goulet nibs.) A finish is a finish. For some reason, the newer black nibs seem to be more of a grey than the black that first came out. But that's okay, the nibs look great and write well. And writing well is where a nib is at.

 

As far as fake Lamy nibs, I doubt it. I bought a bunch of Wing Sung 3008 pens recently. Also bought a half-dozen Lamy 1.1 mm nibs from the Wing Sung vendors to experiment with. Of course, my idea was that these nibs -- costing 1/5 of what Lamy nibs usually sell for -- must be made in China versions. Imagine my surprise when receiving the nibs, only to realize the nibs were authentic Lamy nibs. My theory is that the Wing Sung people bought a huge batch of Lamy nibs and passed the savings on to customers. In other words, the manufacturers probably find it cheaper to buy Lamy nibs than to make them.

 

Enjoy,

[dennis_f]

I had something similar happen; I assumed it was just a case of a slightly wonky dye-run.

 

I bought two Al-Stars on the same day, a F and an XF, and spare XF nib for a pen I already owned. I didn't notice until I got home that the XF looked a bit off -- "paler" as you put it. But I couldn't be bothered to exchange it at the time, and I ended up using it and it works fine. I'll admit that I prefer the darker nibs, but functionally there aren't any issues.

 

D

[sumdogmillionaire]

Thanks for alleviating my fears! I'm just glad it isn't anything dodgey. I do like the look of the darker finish, but as you've all said, the nibs write well and that's the most important thing

[Honeybadgers]

Don't sweat your nib. Lamy steel nibs are kinda (bleep) anyways, the EF in particular is really prone to Qc issues. I have a full set of knockoffs and I swear to god they ALL write better than my real ones

Edited June 15, 2018 by Honeybadgers