Skunks?

[Just J]

Hi L2K'rs! 
Might seem a silly question, but do any of you know of any fake or knockoff or other 'less than genuine' LAMY 2000s out in the wild?  

 

I just recently decided to "take the plunge" and acquired an L2K, from a seller on eBay. Got a good, not super price (have seen them within a few dollars of that during sales &c), and it arrived promptly but not too protectively packed. He advertised it as new & un-used, and certain clues indicate he's sold others as well.  However it arrived with pretty much what you see in the accompanying image. 
1. A LAMY box, but not the correct one I've seen other L2Ks packaged in. No protective padding for the box; just dropped into an unpadded Express Rate (paperboard) envelope. The black 'vented' LAMY box was sort've 'smooshed' as a result, as you might note in the pic. 
2. Pen not clipped to the inner cardstock piece as normal; both it & pen just 'dropped into' the vented outer black box.  
3. Missing the paper 'clip tag'.
4. No Warranty Sheet. 
5. No Users Instruction/Product Catalog sheet. 

 

I wrote the seller to inquire about my concerns - no response for 2+ weeks. 
Other notes: Seller's return address on eBay comes back to a rental storage building on Long Island. 
His return address on the pkg is a Hair Salon in Flatbush Ave in Brooklyn. 

Must stop here for now <> thoughts or ideas?? 
TIA
~_/_/

[silverlifter]

The L2K is a highly engineered pen. I doubt there are any convincing fakes in circulation. Lamy's packaging is notoriously random, so it is possible that it is a new pen. I'd take a loupe to the nib and feed and see if there is any evidence of it having been used before.

[Just J]

Thanks for your input, SL. That was my 1st instinct,  but It's my understanding Lamy dips & test-writes with every L2K pen for QC so one should expect to 'detect' some ink traces, and they'll always be blue. I can tell the nib's been wet, but it looks more of a blue-black. 

 

Kind've ironic too that UToob's almost awash in videos about detecting bogus Safaris, whilst on this, their 'Flagship' model....crickets!  

 

BTW, all stampings & markings look good, right down to the 'Germany' underneath the clip.  In fact, this one says "Germany 2". Any significance??  

Thx again! 

~_/_/ 

 

[A Smug Dill]

4 hours ago, silverlifter said:

Lamy's packaging is notoriously random, so it is possible that it is a new pen.

 

I suspect that's the consequence of at least some distributors not pre-packing (in current production, not limited edition) new pens in whatever is the brand's standard retail packaging of the day for each particular model, when sending stock to dealers; and empty retail packages of various types are sent independently of the pens, quite likely not in matching number of units or even in the same shipment, leaving it up to dealers to assemble the retail packages themselves.

 

Pelikan appears to do much the same thing, and Pilot too outside of Japan.

 

3 hours ago, Just J said:

Kind've ironic too that UToob's almost awash in videos about detecting bogus Safaris, whilst on this, their 'Flagship' model....crickets!

 

If counterfeiting is not a prevalent enough for a particular product, then it doesn't matter whether it is the brand's flagship model or roughly tenfold the price of the more common, lower-end models that sell far more by volume. When far fewer buyers are (already or prospectively) affected by the problem, such that either a subset of victims would want to warn others so they don't also get stung, or official distributors and/or authorised dealers of the genuine product would want to raise awareness in order to claw back sales that could be lost to the counterfeit (but commercially ‘real’ and significant) competition, then there is little need or incentive to make the effort in publish something on social media channels that won't attract as many eyeballs and ‘monetise’ that specific content for the producer, or at least raise his/her/its profile. The magnitude of the actual loss (or risk) in dollars of the rare victim is not someone else's problem, and so does not make it more ‘worth’ anybody else to address.

 

So I see absolutely no irony there, only obvious cold logic.

[david-p]

It sounds and looks from the information you have provided as if it is the real thing. Germany 2 is on one I bought from amazon.de recently: Germany 1 on one I bought from a former user. Both are typical for this model.

 

If you were to flush the pen with water, there would be a big difference between the amount of ink that would come out if it had been filled and not just dipped.

 

The packaging and addresses part of the story does not inspire confidence in a seller. Amazon.de, supplied mine in a nice box, which I suspect was intended to be used for any of the series of Lamy pens. It was itself slid into a sleeve and then wrapped in tissue paper. Inside, the pen was in a plastic bag, with a neat price tag held underneath the clip (It makes you feel good to see that the list price is higher than what you paid!), and held in place with an elastic band. Also in the box were an extensive leaflet advertising the other Lamy pens, with instructions for filling on the other side and the promise of a 2-year guarantee. Completing this were a little sachet of silica gel and a cube of foam rubber to prevent the pen from rattling about in the box.

 

Perhaps your pen "fell off the back of a lorry", as we say!

 

David

Edited July 27, 2021 by david-p
clarification and extension

[Just J]

Okay then, & thanks all. I'll just not worry about it and if it's a stinker, toss it. 

(& David, I kinda got that same feeling about the lorry!) 🤣  

[jchch1950]

The box your pen came in is a Safari one. In some countries the pens and their boxes are send separately , the pens by courier and the boxes in a cheaper transport. So the sellers receive the pens in containers of ten or twelve pens and they have to the pack every thing at their store. Another possibility is that your pen is a grey import and the papers that should be included are in a different language and were trash. The pen looks like the real thing .

 

[A Smug Dill]

53 minutes ago, jchch1950 said:

The box your pen came in is a Safari one.

 

I think all my Lamy Tipo rollerball pens I bought yesteryear came in those boxes as well. I have only one genuine Safari (i.e. another two bought more recently, a couple of years back, turned out to be fake) fountain pen, ordered from a Singapore-based(?) eBay sellers some years ago, and it didn't come in such a box. On the other hand, I did receive one (out of two) Al-Star fountain pens from undoubtedly an European authorised dealer last year in that kind of box, without any price tag affixed to the pen clip; the other one, from a different European authorised dealer, came in the type of box with the accordion cardboard bed that can accommodate two or even three pens.

[Karmachanic]

I see 2000s sold in China for less with this packaging,  or paying a higher price for the gift box, or higher yet with gift box and ink.

[Astronymus]

5 hours ago, jchch1950 said:

The box your pen came in is a Safari one.

It's just one of boxes LAMY uses. It's not specific for the Safari. It's their most basic "pretty" model for a whole range of models.

 

Safaris can also come in specific product boxes (same design as for the cartridges) or in a blister. Common for several models.

[maclink]

Although the packaging was scary and the seller likely never to be contactable, the pen does look authentic; and if it writes well, then that's all that really matters in the end.  Here's to hoping it's not a dud.... it certainly doesn't look like one!