Is The Lamy 2000 Really On Permanent Display In Momo?

[lurcho]

I went there, and I couldn't find it.

 

Call me an idiot, and you won't be the first...

[tomgartin]

I've heard the rumors, but searching online was not able to verify it. I assumed it was part of a bauhaus display tucked in a corner somewhere that doesn't garner a lot of attention. Of course, I was searching for MoMA. No idea what momo is...

[lightless]

Doesn't look like it is:

 

from bphollin's marvelous treatise on the Lamy 2000:

 

Lamy 2000 and the Museum of Modern Art

I would be remiss if I did not address the Lamy/MoMA connection. Lamy claims that, "The Lamy 2000 is so revered that it is on permanent display at the Museum of Modern Art and has won countless design awards" (source). This MoMA connection has become part of the Lamy 2000 narrative. While three of Müller's pieces appear in the Museum of Modern Art's Design and Architecture collection, none are on permanent display, and none is the Lamy 2000. In fact, there is no reference to Lamy 2000 in the extensive online collection database. Only three pens appear to be in the MoMA archive only and not on display: the Aurora Hastil (the only fountain pen), the infamous Bic Cristal ballpoint pen, and a Platinum Z ballpoint and mechanical pencil set. Perhaps it is possible that Lamy 2000 appeared in a MoMA showcase of writing instruments and the story became conflated over time. I want to believe, but without further support I cannot confirm the veracity of Lamy's claim. At the time of writing, the MoMA Archive is closed to the public and inquiries for the month of August.

 

It sure as hell should be though

[casualmerlinconstant]

It's not. Sometime did some digging some time back. It's not listed in their inventory either so it's probably not even in storage.

Edit. Didn't see the post above when I posted

Edited April 21, 2014 by superglueshoe

[Jerome Tarshis]

Lamy's main Web site, in Germany, no longer makes the MOMA assertion. Regrettably, www.lamyusa.com still does. I assume that that is because it can take time to change anything on one's Web site, not because Bob Nurin believes any such thing. About the rather odd definition of Makrolon, that is funny and very sad. Even funnier and sadder is the fact that a number of Web sites that sell Lamy pens have mindlessly copied the nonsense.

 

Advertising is written by advertising copywriters. As a class, they should not be considered well-informed people. That isn't necessarily because they have evil souls, but because the people who supervise them are not always what the English author John Bunyan called Valiant for Truth.

[CelloGeek]

I saw it there. I distinctly remember wondering why I was looking at a pen in an art museum. (this was well before I ever got my hands on a fountain pen) It had a mirror under the nib so you could see the clever little hole in the bottom. I cannot attest to it being on permanent display, but it was there, at least once.

 

This was 10-15 years ago, when I was visiting NYC. I went to see the Guggenheim (which I loved, but not for the art) and the Moma the next day. It's pretty cool, now, to be interested in fountain pens and to actually want "that pen I saw at the museum"