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Lamy Crystal Inks First Look

sentience

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sentience Mint

sentience

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your sample of ruby really doesn't show just how dark and saturated it is.

I was hoping it would be dark and saturated, but I didnt see this except in deeply shaded areas. Ill have to give it a try in a different pen.

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Honeybadgers Donor Pen

Honeybadgers

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I find it very dark and lovely in my wetter pens. I don't think lamy is onto their second batch yet, so we should have very similar bottles!

Selling a boatload of restored, fairly rare, vintage Japanese gold nib pens, click here to see (more added as I finish restoring them)

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bogiesan Vintage

bogiesan

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Thanks you for the investment of your money, time, and effort to gather these for our pleasure. I am so very glad that I my ink acquisition disease has been in remission for years.

I ride a recumbent, I play go, I use Macintosh so of course I use a fountain pen.

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1nkulus Collectors Item

1nkulus

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Thank you for posting. It shows the colors well.

 

I am still sticking to my original selection of Agate, Beryl, Amazonite and Rhodonite.

Engineer :

Someone who does precision guesswork based on unreliable data provided by those of questionable knowledge.

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Bill Smith Vintage

Bill Smith

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I picked up the Azurite. in my Lamy Aion and Parker 75 (both with medium nibs) deliver a purply blue, or a bluey purple depending on your point of view.

"Life moves pretty fast, if you do not stop and look around once and a while you might just miss it."

Ferris Bueller

 

 

 

Bill Smith's Photography

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inkstainedruth Ancient Artifact

inkstainedruth

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I'm going to be in NYC at the end of the week. Keeping my fingers crossed that the new Lamy Soho store will have at least some of these....

The problem is that if you click on the website link off of Google Maps, it takes you to the page for the US distributor, and the store itself doesn't seem to have its own page. :huh: Plus, what's listed on the website at the moment is pretty limited.... :( Anyone know offhand if this is the new US distributor or the old one?

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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bass1193 Extremely Rare

bass1193

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Didn't the old distributor firesale all their stock on hand? Still kicking myself for not jumping on some of those deals :lol:

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inkstainedruth Ancient Artifact

inkstainedruth

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I know a lot of stuff went in the fire sale -- but I don't know about everything. Yeah, the prices were awesome -- I got an LX for a lower price than I'd paid for my Dark Lilac Safari (but by the time I got to the old distributor's website they were out of converters).

But the reason I was wondering whether it was the old vs. new distributor is because the selection of what's available is pretty minimal (especially for ink -- and they don't have the new line listed at ALL...)

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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ErrantSmudge Collectors Item

ErrantSmudge

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I follow Lamy on Facebook, and this is the link they provided (just two weeks before Christmas) for their current USA store website:

 

https://www.lamyshop.us/

 

The old distributor firesale was a remarkable source of good deals. I got my Dialog 3 from the fire sale at 50% off retail. When I saw it on clearance I knew it was "now or never." They also had some good deals on inks at firesale prices, I bought an extra bottle of Pacific Blue (aka turquoise) for my ink stash.

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inkstainedruth Ancient Artifact

inkstainedruth

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Well, that certainly appears to be the website I was looking at earlier (especially with the $70 US :o black nibs....

Yup, just double checked against the Google Maps listing. Same site. They only show four inks available in bottles: Blue, Red, Turquoise, and Vibrant Pink. Hoping the store is a bit more up to date than the website, which has a link for "New Products for 2018" (those being the LX and Aion model pens) and zero mention of anything for 2019....

Well, I'll be in NYC on Friday and will report back after the excursion ....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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ParkerDuofold Antique

ParkerDuofold

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Hi Ruth, et al,

 

The website that ES cites above is from their old distributor... Rediform... who was having some fabulous deals early in the year... many of them were not indefinite, though... they typically only lasted for hours or for a day or two, so it's not unusual that you missed a lot of them... I never was able to get a sweet deal on an L2K... but others here did.

 

 

Here is their new and current distributor:

 

http://universal-luxury-brands.com/index.html

 

 

Hope this helps. Be well all. :)

 

 

- Anthony

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ErrantSmudge Collectors Item

ErrantSmudge

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Hi Ruth, et al,

 

The website that ES cites above is from their old distributor... Rediform... who was having some fabulous deals early in the year...

 

Hi ParkerDuofold,

 

The website I linked above is the one that Lamy USA shared on their Facebook feed two weeks ago. It's the current website and not maintained by Rediform. That said, it looks like it is in need of some freshening up.

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inkstainedruth Ancient Artifact

inkstainedruth

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Well, I got to the Lamy Soho store in NYC today. Sadly, they do not actually have the Crystal inks in stock yet. However, they DO have tester pens (Vistas) with the the inks in them as a display. They can take pre-orders, but I opted to wait on that (they appear that the bottles are fairly small, and will cost ~$16 US). I was able to try all ten of the colors and now have a really good idea of what ones I want (in a few cases, I had to adjust the converters in the pens because there was some issues with flow -- don't know if that was the pen or the ink. I probably will not be able to scan in the sample of the ten inks for a few days, until I get home (at the moment, I can't even take a photo on my phone and download the image to my laptop at the moment -- there's some sort of screwup with iTunes and iPhoto from the most recent updates. :(

My impressions though -- I definitely want Benzoinite and probably Azurite (as I suspected). Topaz looks pretty good, too. Agate is pretty but may be too light a grey. Rhodonite is an interesting color, but was one of the inks that seemed very dry (Obsidian was also fairly dry, but is very black). Peridot runs a little blue for my taste, but wasn't a bad medium-dark green otherwise. Still trying to make up my mind about Ruby (which was also a little dry). Ruby is a maybe (reminds me some of De Atramentis Ruby Red, and it's renamed version Dante Alighieri, which I have). For some reason, I've drawn a complete blank on Beryl :headsmack: (I'll have to dig out the piece of paper -- hoping I didn't screw up and miss trying that one). And Amazonite? Not a color for me -- YMMV.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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PAKMAN Ancient Artifact

PAKMAN

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The Azurite looks great!

PAKMAN

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dennis_f Vintage

dennis_f

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I tried the Lamy Obsidian today. I'm a regular user of Aurora Black, and I'm incredibly picky. I like saturated, solid looking, "not grey, or deep brown, but very deep black blacks" (which are impossible to find it seems, thus my reliance on Aurora black).

 

In any case, I was greatly impressed by the Obsidian. It flowed well: I might almost call it "thick" (cushion-y, and almost gel like), but it flowed smoothly. And it was saturated, and deep, and did not shade. It put down a solid black line. And it dried reasonably quickly. Unsurprisingly, the store was sold out so I couldn't buy a bottle... but that didn't stop me from repeatedly returning to the tester and trying to dissuade myself from liking it. But no, it was a great black.

 

With the store sold out of that, and the Aurora, I had the choice to buy either Perle Noir, or Edelstein Onyx... but I actually deferred and will wait for the Obsidian (I don't like having a lot of inks on the go at the same time; I might be odd that way). Once I get my hands on it, I'm going to test it compared to both of those. I think Aurora still has it beat, but if my limited experience was any indication, I think Obsidian might give Perle Noire and Onyx a run for their money.

 

(I also really liked the pinkish and violet hues.... and forgot to look at the grey one, which is what I was most interested in going in. Oops).

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Says Rare

Says

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I just got the Azurite, and just as I was going to ink an antique Pilot, I realised that it shimmers!

 

That stopped me on my tracks immediately!

I think I have read enough articles about Shimmer inks and how these clog up nibs pretty easily, and in the long run tend to hurt the nib more than usual.

Definitely not great for Japanese fine nibs...

 

Goulet Pens states that these are not shimmer nor pigmented, but the intensity of the colours make me think otherwise.

 

Can anyone shine some light on this? Should I just stick to cheap pens for this ink? That would be quite a waste...

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bass1193 Extremely Rare

bass1193

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I just got the Azurite, and just as I was going to ink an antique Pilot, I realised that it shimmers!

 

That stopped me on my tracks immediately!

I think I have read enough articles about Shimmer inks and how these clog up nibs pretty easily, and in the long run tend to hurt the nib more than usual.

Definitely not great for Japanese fine nibs...

 

Goulet Pens states that these are not shimmer nor pigmented, but the intensity of the colours make me think otherwise.

 

Can anyone shine some light on this? Should I just stick to cheap pens for this ink? That would be quite a waste...

You're observing sheen, not shimmer. The heavy dye load makes for interesting light scattering effects when the ink dries, similar to the "metallic" look of some butterflies' wings. The sheen on azurite is a lovely one to this sheen chaser :wub: Because of the heavy dye load, you may want to flush every couple of fills, but in general nothing major to worry about. :D

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bass1193 Extremely Rare

bass1193

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Cool! thanks for that... sorry noob here, still learning about pens, know next to nothing about inks... for now..

Everyone here was a noob once :lol: enjoy the journey down the inky rabbit hole!

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