How Did Your Relationship With Lamy (Or Any) Fp Start?

[mikerph]

My first LAMY was a CP1 ballpoint purchased at a luggage store in Lexington Ky. In 1980. I got a charcoal Safari fountain pen a little later. I discovered the multi pens somewhat later and still fancy those even today.

[tamiya]

Was aware of Lamy but never owned one, though the Safari was too ugly "out there" and the others were just weird... artyfarty Bauhaus, Artdeco, I dunno.

 

Then Copper Orange appeared! With Orange Ink! oooh always wanted orange ink. And I bought the AlStar at a legit pen store, who fettled the nib until I was happy. Took an hour to finally get out of the store bearing AlStar with black nib, fed by cartridge. Went back next week for a T50 of Copper Orange.

 

That's about 4 decades after started getting inky fingers the first pens were a golden Lady Sheaffer and aluminium/steel Pilot Birdies. The Sheaffer had a fat band around cap edge so it was too broad to travel in my pencil case. The Birdies were the exact girth of a pencil, yay. Both entered my ownership in the same week if not day, so they're both equal firsts.

 

Lady Sheaffer came with a cottony single pen sleeve... oooh haven't owned nor seen another pen as luxurious as that since

[Tom Kellie]

~ About one dozen years ago I was walking in the Malls at Oriental Plaza in Wangfujing Street in Beijing.

One the second level I encountered a Lamy shop. Being unfamiliar with the name, I stopped to see what was on offer.

A bright red Safari fountain pen with a dark M nib appealed to me. It came home to my writing desk.

Over time three more Safari pens joined the original red pen, as well as three bottles of Lamy ink.

Tom K.

[tamiya]

Tom: what's the price of a Safari in China?

 

Last time I visited my city Lamy dealer week before Xmas they had a big poster up saying "Lamy is 30% Cheaper here than back in China" which I thought was pretty upfront

 

Safari is RRP A$49.95 here; some stores selling for as low as A$33-36 but none near me in Melbourne town.

[dipandsip]

First fountain pen was a Safari Lime Green limited edition in 2008. Although I own several Safaris and Al Stars, I primarily use them when I travel. My go-to Lamy is the 2000. These days my pen collection is dominated by pens from Germany and Japan and inks from Germany, Japan and France.

[hh1990]

Sal, that is a touching story. Thank you for sharing.

 

My story is totally lacking any sentimentality. I have been an office supply junkie for as long as I can remember and a longtime and frequent patron of Jetpens.com. I happened to notice a fountain pen on their site and down into the YouTube rabbit hole and was intrigued enough to order a Lamy 2000. That pen was given to a friend later on and replaced with another.

[WLSpec]

My journey started with a preppy but a few weeks later I got my first Lamy - a Vista. I hated it.

 

Then, after few years without thinking of getting another Lamy pen (with the exception of the highly regarded 2000, which I didn't end up buying) I decided why not try again. I got a AL Star bronze and some Lamy bronze ink and tried it out, and really liked it!

 

Hopefully my Lamy journey continues. I have my eye on that Dialog 3...

Edited January 25, 2020 by WLSpec

[XV107]

My late father quite liked pens, and I used to borrow some of his older ones which he no longer used - I still have them all - which was what got me interested. By the time I left school, I had a couple of couple of the lower-end Waterman FPs, a couple of Parker Vectors, a nice Sheaffer No-nonsense in steel and, for my 18th birthday, a burgundy Sheaffer Connoisseur, with a ludicrously wet Broad nib (it now sports a stub which doesn't get through ink like it's going out of fashion). Then I went to University, and that's where the trouble started...

Those of you familiar with Oxford (as in the one in the UK) may know of the pen shop on the High Street. My college was (and still is, I'm just not living in it any more) just across the street, which ultimately gave me interesting lessons in saving and responsible spending...

The first pen I obtained was a red marble Duofold International (£155.00), and from that point - finances permitting - I was a regular visitor to the shop, adding various Parkers and Watermans to what's now a collection that .... er.... well, let's say that if comparing the rotation of my pens with the rotation of the earth, the earth year is shorter than my pen year.

 

Anyway - to Lamy: one of the medical students in the college was sitting across from me in the library one day with a nice-looking pen, and I wondered what it was. Rather than interrupt him and ask, once I'd finished what I was doing, I wandered over the street, went into the pen shop to see if I could see what it was, and, lo! It was a red Safari and even better, very affordable. I maintained my record of never leaving that shop without something...

 

Over the last 29 years, I've acquired a few Safaris & Al-Stars, a couple of 2000s, a Dialog 3, a couple of Accents and an Imporium (which, until I just googled it was know as 'The one I need to look up the name for', since I walked into the store, went 'that's nice, how much?' and walked out ten minutes later with it, having not ascertained the model name). Also have a couple of Studios, as well, thinking about it.

If I'd chosen a college not on the High Street in Oxford (say St John's or St Hugh's), I suspect I might have a smaller number of pens and a larger number of Pounds Sterling in my bank account. But that's how it started for me...

[jchch1950]

In 1976 I finished my postgraduate studies in France.To celebrate the occasion I bought a Lamy 2000 that I still have and it still working without ever being repair.Some years after I began to collect fountain pens and Lamy has remain a special brand to me.

[DrDebG]

Thank you for such a wonderful story.

 

I have using FPs off and on most of life. I remember when I first saw Lamy Safari pens (FPs and BPs) and I thought they were interesting, but not enough to purchase at that time.

 

Several years ago, I was walking around a mall in Shanghai with my daughter and her friends. I walked by a Lamy kiosk, and decided to purchase an all black matte Lamy Safari with a black fine nib. That began my love affair with Lamy FPs. I now have several Lamy Safaris, a Lamy Al-Star, a Lamy Studio, a Lamy Scala and a Lamy 2000. I have had others, but they have been given as gifts to friends I encounter around the world.

[sansenri]

My father used Lamy blue-black ink.

He had a few fountain pens, a Sheffer PFM burgundy, a Cross (slim and gold plated, not sure of the model), an Omas 361, and a few others that I do not recall so well.

One thing he never changed was his ink, he always used Lamy blue-black and nothing else.The typical bottle with the blotting paper around it.

That's where I first heard of Lamy, only later I found out they also produced pens...

So I then discovered that the oddly shaped pen - in an unusual rose red colour - my aunt used (my father's sister) was a Lamy Safari.

I've never really liked the Safari, and do not own one, although I know the nibs are good (I have tried my aunt's Safari, which now belongs to my sister). In fact I have a Lamy nib in a Wing Sung 3008.
My first and only Lamy is the 2000, both the macrolon and the stainless steel version.

Every now and then, when I stumble over information about it, I look with interest at the Lamy Imporium.

[hari317]

In 1992 or so I had entered high school and with some money that I had accumulated, I was looking for a nice Sheaffer to buy at the best pen shop in Pune at that time. Foreign pens were hard to come by in those days in India and even if available they were pricey and were more often than not smuggled in. They showed me instead of a sheaffer which they did not have, a bright red pen they called LAMY ( I now know it was a safari), it was a very odd looking pen and I walked out of the shop without a pen.

 

in 2001 or so, my friends who knew I was pen mad, bought me a safari in Blue for my birthday, It was a special gift that I cherish.

 

In 2002 Lamy found an Indian distributor who had an office in Mumbai. So I used to visit the office directly and made my first purchase, a CP1 Black. In 2004 I again personally picked up a Lamy 2000 in F from them(glorious pen, lovely flawless perfect writing nib). I bought several Lamys after that. nice honest brand.