Lamy Dialog 3 Vs Pilot Vanishing Point

[nm4]

Having owned both for many years here are my thoughts.   The VP is more practical and easier to use and clean.  The click mechanism is the best.  If you like fine or extra fine nibs it’s the better writer.

 

The Dialog 3 is a luxury product.  It’s a more complicated design with amazing craftsmanship and heft.  The B nib is buttery smooth with a lovely thick, wet line - no VP I’ve ever owned (even the stub) writes as smooth.

 

N

[inkstainedruth]

I don't have either pen.  I bought a used VP and (as someone said back when this thread got started ~15 years ago) had trouble with the position of the clip, and also with the size and weight.  Gave the pen to my husband and he wanted an EF nib instead of the F nib that was on it,  which gave me the excuse to buy a Decimo and swap the nib assemblies between the two pens.  And recently he decided he wanted a Decimo as well, after trying one of mine.  And my Decimos are a PERFECT size and weight for my hand as well.

I have no experience with the Lamy Dialog, but from the photos posted back then it looks a little awkward to use -- and honestly?  ALSO kinda ugly (not attractive looking  being one of the reasons I don't have a Pilot Fermo...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[lascosas]

I would say that both the D3 and VP are ergonomically strange pens, and not cheap.  I recommend buying a fake D3 or a Mahjohn 1/2 or Jinhao 10 before investing in the real ones with gold nibs.

[Ron Z]

14 minutes ago, lascosas said:

a Mahjohn 1/2

 

To clarify, that's a Majohn A1 (fatter Pilot VP style) or Majohn A2  (skinny faceted Namiki/Pilot VP style) (only one h in the name)  The A1 is quite nicely made.  Majohn made the A2 with the same silly plastic "barrel" (button end) threads that wear and break.

[ruby.monkey]

21 hours ago, Ron Z said:

 

To clarify, that's a Majohn A1 (fatter Pilot VP style) or Majohn A2  (skinny faceted Namiki/Pilot VP style) (only one h in the name)  The A1 is quite nicely made.  Majohn made the A2 with the same silly plastic "barrel" (button end) threads that wear and break.

To add to that, there's a clipless A1 for those who like the Vanishing Point looks but find the regular clip placement an annoyance, and an A3 with a more original design and a mid-mounted removable clip. I find the A3 even uglier that the current Vanishing Point, but the clipless A1 an excellent host for a VP fine nib unit.

[Glenn-SC]

On 6/24/2025 at 2:26 PM, lascosas said:

I would say that both the D3 and VP are ergonomically strange pens, and not cheap.  I recommend buying a fake D3 or a Mahjohn 1/2 or Jinhao 10 before investing in the real ones with gold nibs.

I can’t believe that you are recommending supporting Chinese knockoffs!

[Doug C]

On 6/23/2025 at 4:02 PM, beamcorp said:

 

 

Having owned the dialog and several VPs , here is an off the wall thought. Consider a Nahvalur Eclipse.  The clip is removable and I have been told that VP nibs will fit.

 

[Ron Z]

On 6/27/2025 at 2:34 PM, Glenn-SC said:

I can’t believe that you are recommending supporting Chinese knockoffs!

 

Here's the thing.  Apparently the design patent has expired.  From what I've been able to dig up design patents issued before 2015 = 14 years, after 2015 = 15 years, and this as an international standard.  Carmen Rivera has the first gold plated and lacquer pens showing up in Japan in December of 1998, and the first one in the USA in October of 1999.  So the first release was over 26 years ago.  Many of the Moon Man/Majohn pens really quite good.  With Pilot selling the VP pens with alloy nibs, VS gold, the difference narrows significantly.

[Glenn-SC]

1 hour ago, Ron Z said:

 

Here's the thing.  Apparently the design patent has expired.  From what I've been able to dig up design patents issued before 2015 = 14 years, after 2015 = 15 years, and this as an international standard.  Carmen Rivera has the first gold plated and lacquer pens showing up in Japan in December of 1998, and the first one in the USA in October of 1999.  So the first release was over 26 years ago.  Many of the Moon Man/Majohn pens really quite good.  With Pilot selling the VP pens with alloy nibs, VS gold, the difference narrows significantly.

Look at eBay.  You’ll find “Lamy Dialog 3” pens coming from China for $0.01 to $99.  “Or best offer”  Really?  

These are not sold as “copies” or “homages” or “replicas” but as “Lamy” pens.  That’s not “the patent has run out and we’re making a copy.”

And lascosas recommended “buying a fake D3”.

[lascosas]

First, I own 16 Pilot VPs, Three Lamy Dialog CC and 4 Lamy Dialog 3.  But years after I bought these I was intrigued to see the Majohn and then the Jinhao models.  When I bought the fake Dialogs it was a couple of years ago when the only place I saw them was Luster's shop on Aliexpress.  They were not called Lamy.  There was no way anyone could possibly think they were buying a Lamy.  But I was intrigued, and bought examples of both models, for $29 and $34.   

 

Since then tons of sellers are buying the fakes and selling them as real Lamy Dialogs.  There are several ways to differentiate the real from fake, just like there are with Montblanc fakes, and just like buying Montblancs, for many models the fakes highly outnumber the real.  But I stand by what I said originally.  The VP and Dialogs are unusual pens, and many many people are not going to like the way they sit in the hand.  So seek out the Majohn/Jinhao or ridiculously underpriced Dialog as a way to test the pen size without investing much money   If you like it, then buy the real one.  You only quoted the first half of my recommendation, which is somewhat disingenuous.  The entire sentence reads "I recommend buying a fake D3 or a Mahjohn 1/2 or Jinhao 10 before investing in the real ones with gold nibs."

 

Most people have no way of seeing and testing these pens in person.  So yeah, I think this is a perfectly reasonable way to figure out whether you want the real pen.

[Glenn-SC]

29 minutes ago, lascosas said:

"I recommend buying a fake D3 or a Mahjohn 1/2 or Jinhao 10 before investing in the real ones with gold nibs."

So you still support the Chinese counterfeiters?  
IMHO that is just wrong.  
If someone made a “replica” or imitation “Lamy D3” and clearly marketed it as such I would be OK with it.  But supporting someone who is blatantly selling fake products is wrong. 

[lascosas]

We are going around in a circle.  Different opinions. 

[inkstainedruth]

16 hours ago, lascosas said:

We are going around in a circle.  Different opinions. 

No, actually, Glenn-SC has a point.  If people buy the counterfeits, they're being swindled.  Or, at the very least, giving the counterfeiters the green light to make *more* counterfeits.  I don't know about what forums on here you regularly read, but a good chunk of the posts on the MB forum seem to be "Is this MB I just bought real or a fake?"  And I have a pen that is supposedly a Hero 616 (a Chinese knockoff of a Parker 51 or 21) -- but for the price the guy who got a 10 pack and was handing them out to people a number of years ago at a pen club meeting for free?  I'm not sure but what it's a fake of a Hero 616 -- it's basically a $1 US pen that *writes* like it's a $1 pen....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Glenn-SC]

I don’t care if some Chinese company named Hero makes a copy of the Parker “51” and marks and sells it as a “Hero 616” or whatever.  If a patent has expired and someone/some company wants to sell their own version of that pen and clearly marks it as their product, the quality of that product is on their reputation. 

But if the patent hasn’t expired then the company making that pen is stealing from the patent owner.  And, if the company does not clearly mark the pen as their product then they are defrauding the buyer, and possibly lowering the reputation of the original manufacturer.  This is what the Chinese knockoffs all marked “Lamy” are doing.  A $0.01 or even $50 Dialog 3 can’t be of the same quality as a real Lamy.  And when that fake pen gets resold or given away, even though a knowledgeable pen buyer knowingly bought the fake, the knowledge of its fakery may not be transferred to the next buyer. 
 

[Estycollector]

The problem of erecting a standard for others to live by must follow a careful evaluation of your own living standards because most likely, intentional or my mistake, you are doing something similar. That said, @inkstainedruth makes a good argument. 

[Glenn-SC]

2 hours ago, Estycollector said:

The problem of erecting a standard for others to live by must follow a careful evaluation of your own living standards because most likely, intentional or my mistake, you are doing something similar. That said, @inkstainedruth makes a good argument. 

This “standard to for others to live by” is already codified in law.  These are not my “own living standards”.  
I have accidentally purchased fake items on eBay (a Benchmade pocket knife that was sold as “used” and half the price of a real new Benchmade).  When I actually received two knives from the Seller (~$350 worth of knives for $70!) I got suspicious and verified that they were counterfeit.  I mailed them back to the Seller and got a refund.

[Ron Z]

Correction - the design patent has expired on the PIlot pens, I don't know about the Lamy Dialog.  

[Estycollector]

16 hours ago, Glenn-SC said:

I don’t care if some Chinese company named Hero makes a copy of the Parker “51” and marks and sells it as a “Hero 616” or whatever.  If a patent has expired and someone/some company wants to sell their own version of that pen and clearly marks it as their product, the quality of that product is on their reputation. 

But if the patent hasn’t expired then the company making that pen is stealing from the patent owner.  And, if the company does not clearly mark the pen as their product then they are defrauding the buyer, and possibly lowering the reputation of the original manufacturer.  This is what the Chinese knockoffs all marked “Lamy” are doing.  A $0.01 or even $50 Dialog 3 can’t be of the same quality as a real Lamy.  And when that fake pen gets resold or given away, even though a knowledgeable pen buyer knowingly bought the fake, the knowledge of its fakery may not be transferred to the next buyer. 
 

Do you plan to take @lascosas to court? 

[Inked]

Hello

 

I agree with Glenn-SC.

 

Innovation is expensive, whether in pens or in anything else, and needs to be funded.

Morally and legally.

 

Otherwise we will all be writing with junk, looking at junky art, driving junky cars, wearing junky clothes, eating junky food, using junky tech...etc. Living a junky life. Aspiring to JUNK.

 

Get off your asses and be creative.....or pay those who are.

 

Inked

[Glenn-SC]

2 hours ago, Estycollector said:

Do you plan to take @lascosas to court? 

I have no standing. As I originally stated: “I can’t believe that you are recommending supporting Chinese knockoffs”