Jump to content

Non-Lamy Alternatives To The Lamy 2000 And Studio?


piblondin

Recommended Posts

When I discovered the Lamy 2000 was a piston filler, I realized that I had also just saved myself a couple of hundred dollars. It should really be converter possible as especiallly if it's going to suggest a Bauhaus connectivity.

"Respect science, respect nature, respect all people (s),"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 33
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • piblondin

    6

  • A Smug Dill

    3

  • Freddy

    2

  • Paganini

    2

In terms of style, the Kaco Edge (pretty cheap) and the ASA Sniper (more expensive) will get the job done. They're not piston fillers though. The Edge is cartridge / converter, and the Sniper is c/c with an eyedropper option. Sniper lives here:

 

http://asapens.in/eshop/asa-sniper-hooded-nib-fountain-pen-india-online

 

The Edge is all over the place, but watch out for old stock; the older pens have a bad cap-cracking habit. The new ones have a rejiggered manufacturing process that fixes the problem. (I have three of the new ones, no cracks so far!)

 

- N

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, wondering here. If you like the Lamy 2000, why look for an alternative?

 

 

There are only so many different variants of the Lamy 2000 one could buy, I suppose? :lol:

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, wondering here. If you like the Lamy 2000, why look for an alternative?

Because I also like new pens. With that said, I haven't really found anything else that I think I'd like as much as the 2000, so I haven't acquired anything else yet. My lineup is basically the following:

 

Lamy 2000 F

Lamy 2000 M

Lamy Studio M/F

Lamy Safari M

Lamy Dialog 3

Kaweco Sport

Pilot Fermo M

 

The 2000 and the Fermo are my favorites for writing. The Dialog my favorite for looking at. It's also, perhaps, the smoothest pen I own, but it's also heavy and fragile.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't have many suggestions for piston fillers with the Bauhaus aesthetic, but I think the Tombow Object is sparse and sleek. It is harder to find now though. If you want something with a different, yet sparse aesthetic, some of the pens by N9 are interesting to compare to: https://frankunderwater.com/2018/11/27/highliting_2018-n9/. If you like brushed Aluminum, then the Ban-ju Shark might be worth a look: https://banju.tmall.com/

I have a Tombow Object rollerball that I purchased in 2004. It feels a little cheap but is generally a nice pen, and Tombow's rollerball refills are the only ones I've found that are waterproof, which is a huge plus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[…] The Diplomat Esteem is a nice, slim-but-not-too-slim cigar-shaped pen with an interesting clip design (the teardrop-shaped hole, in this case). It has similar high-quality metal feel, but with a plastic section that (to me) feels a tad cheap, but addresses the biggest issue people have with the Studio. It's a cartridge converter, rather than a piston filler, but you can have a standard international converter for very cheap.

 

I’m glad to see someone mention that great pen by a still underestimated company. Over here in Germany, the Esteem is considered the “Diplomat counterpart to Lamy’s Studio” in pen aficionado circles. I have three of them, in F and M, and I love them all.

The Lamy 2000 is something special, in a class by itself for those who love it more than any other writing instrument. (I don’t belong to that group of people, but I can understand why such people exist.) Apart from the 2000, I must confess that I am not all that thrilled with Lamy any more after my more recent forays in the fountain pen world, and this is entirely because of the uneven quality of their Z50 nibs (though you can very easily replace a Z50 – Lamy advertises this – for relative cheap, if you want to).

But Diplomat nibs are just… wow. Their steel nibs compare to the gold nibs of other manufacturers. And a Diplomat fine nib is really fine; with Lamy, you have to wait and see.

Edited by Time-traveller

In current use: Cleo Skribent Classic, Waterman Expert, Diplomat Excellence, Pineider Avatar, Sheaffer Targa (the good old Sheaffer, not one Made in China)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

For an alternative to the Lamy 2000 I would recommend the Lamy Profil pens, models 80 or 81, which were made in the 1970s and 1980s. When it comes to non-Lamy pens, you could do worse than consider the Montblanc 220 (with a Makrolon body) or the 225 or 227. All three are piston fill pens from the 1970s and can be easily bought on E-Bay. As an alternative to the Studio, you could consider the Diplomat Excellence pens, or the Otto Hutt 06 line - both cc pens, made of the metal. A slightly more expensive choice would be the Caran d'Ache Leman. I hope that this helps you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Second this: vintage 88's can be found at very reasonable prices and hold a ton of ink.

Edited by fphilipp
Link to comment
Share on other sites

there's a chinese pseudo-knockoff (it's obviously not a 2k, tons of design tweaks like a small step in the barrel) that I only haven't bought because I own a 2k, But it's like $35, so I figure if I ever want another lamy 2k, I'll just save up a tiny bit more for another 2k since I can find them regularly around $100.

 

The kaco edge is also interestingly similar - supposedly it has had the cap cracking issue resolved (I haven't heard a complaint about it in over a year) but it has a metal section, makrolon barrel and cap, and uses the same satisfying "click" lugs for the cap that the 2k has, even posts similarly.

 

No hooded nib, but the EF it comes with is unbelievable, I bought 5 edges, and every single one of the nibs was absolutely perfect and dead consistent. Also means nib swapping is easy.

 

The only downside it has is the clip design is a bit strange, but I have posted a tutorial here on how to modify it to work amazingly in under 20 minutes with just some tape and a small piece of sandpaper.

 

The vintage aurora 88 or duocart are lovely hooded nib pens, and many of them have quite flexible nibs.

Edited by Honeybadgers

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have four of the Kaco Edges; I love them. One of them is the old "cap-cracking" stock. I was on the lookout for the crack, so I managed to catch it and fix it with some lacquer before it became severe. The other three are the new stock, one each of the black, blue, and coffee colored ones. I've had them for about six months, I think, and have encountered no problems. Out of the four nibs, one was a dud (the one in the coffee colored pen). I tried to fix it, but it was just a bit beyond my nib-tuning skills, and I ended up making it worse. The nice thing is, though, these are standard #5 size Schmidt nibs, so other things will fit in there just fine - the "omniflex" nib from a Monza, for example. At the moment I have the coffee Edge fitted with a generic but nice "iridium point" nib that I saved from a Luoshi "torpedo pen" that was starting to come apart. You can get the new Edges for around $8 each on Ali Express, or from the official Kaco store on Amazon if you don't want to wait - but they cost 3 or 4 times as much there. A lot of the old stock with the cracking problem still seem to be available from various sellers as well. They're often marked down quite a bit, so they can be quite a good deal if you don't mind potentially having to fix a crack, or if you think of it as a cheap way to get spare parts!

 

- N

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I’m glad to see someone mention that great pen by a still underestimated company. Over here in Germany, the Esteem is considered the “Diplomat counterpart to Lamy’s Studio” in pen aficionado circles. I have three of them, in F and M, and I love them all.

The Lamy 2000 is something special, in a class by itself for those who love it more than any other writing instrument. (I don’t belong to that group of people, but I can understand why such people exist.) Apart from the 2000, I must confess that I am not all that thrilled with Lamy any more after my more recent forays in the fountain pen world, and this is entirely because of the uneven quality of their Z50 nibs (though you can very easily replace a Z50 – Lamy advertises this – for relative cheap, if you want to).

But Diplomat nibs are just… wow. Their steel nibs compare to the gold nibs of other manufacturers. And a Diplomat fine nib is really fine; with Lamy, you have to wait and see.

 

I see you have the Cleo Skribant listed in your daily use. How do you find this pen? I bought one a few weeks ago and like it a lot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Most Contributions

    1. amberleadavis
      amberleadavis
      43844
    2. PAKMAN
      PAKMAN
      33494
    3. Ghost Plane
      Ghost Plane
      28220
    4. inkstainedruth
      inkstainedruth
      26624
    5. jar
      jar
      26101
  • Upcoming Events

  • Blog Comments

    • Shanghai Knife Dude
      I have the Sailor Naginata and some fancy blade nibs coming after 2022 by a number of new workshop from China.  With all my respect, IMHO, they are all (bleep) in doing chinese characters.  Go use a bush, or at least a bush pen. 
    • A Smug Dill
      It is the reason why I'm so keen on the idea of a personal library — of pens, nibs, inks, paper products, etc. — and spent so much money, as well as time and effort, to “build” it for myself (because I can't simply remember everything, especially as I'm getting older fast) and my wife, so that we can “know”; and, instead of just disposing of what displeased us, or even just not good enough to be “given the time of day” against competition from >500 other pens and >500 other inks for our at
    • adamselene
      Agreed.  And I think it’s good to be aware of this early on and think about at the point of buying rather than rationalizing a purchase..
    • A Smug Dill
      Alas, one cannot know “good” without some idea of “bad” against which to contrast; and, as one of my former bosses (back when I was in my twenties) used to say, “on the scale of good to bad…”, it's a spectrum, not a dichotomy. Whereas subjectively acceptable (or tolerable) and unacceptable may well be a dichotomy to someone, and finding whether the threshold or cusp between them lies takes experiencing many degrees of less-than-ideal, especially if the decision is somehow influenced by factors o
    • adamselene
      I got my first real fountain pen on my 60th birthday and many hundreds of pens later I’ve often thought of what I should’ve known in the beginning. I have many pens, the majority of which have some objectionable feature. If they are too delicate, or can’t be posted, or they are too precious to face losing , still they are users, but only in very limited environments..  I have a big disliking for pens that have the cap jump into the air and fly off. I object to Pens that dry out, or leave blobs o
  • Chatbox

    You don't have permission to chat.
    Load More
  • Files






×
×
  • Create New...