Lamy bottles ink refills

[Anne-Sophie]

 

 I would be delighted, if Lamy's pop up stores were offering an ink bottle refill or at least, a return of the glass bottle for a discount on a new bottle of ink.

 

When travel is able to resume half normally, we, fountain pen enthusiasts could start the process. 

[Black Spot]

Now that is a good idea.

[bonnie-scott]

Quite agree.  Hope Lamy are watching 👀

 

[david-p]

I agree. There are other bottles that go beyond just holding ink:

 

— Iroshizuku, which look lovely and have the dent at the bottom,

 

— Akkerman, with the marble that limits how far you need to dip;

 

but the Lamy bottle with its roll of blotting paper goes further than being a magnificent design.

 

David

[bogiesan]

Consider the effort required, though. The store would need to maintain several tanks of ink (perhaps limited to conventional business colors and none of the exotics) and keep them free of all kinds of contamination for the few customers willing to drag their empties to the two or three shops in the country. Me, I do not think I will ever get close to even using half of any of my Lamy bottles’ contents. 

[arcfide]

I actually sent an email to Lamy a while back asking whether they had some way to refill their bottles. I don't think it would be feasible for them to have ink storage "onsite" for people to come and refill their bottles, but I can imagine that they could sell the ink in 50ml "refill" packets in sustainable packaging materials, along with a fresh roll of blotting paper to install. 

 

That would go along with their ethos of long lived products that are designed not to be wasteful. 

[Black Spot]

11 hours ago, bogiesan said:

Consider the effort required, though. The store would need to maintain several tanks of ink (perhaps limited to conventional business colors and none of the exotics) and keep them free of all kinds of contamination for the few customers willing to drag their empties to the two or three shops in the country. Me, I do not think I will ever get close to even using half of any of my Lamy bottles’ contents. 

 

That is a good point, It might work in a European school where they use fountain pens.

[bayindirh]

11 hours ago, arcfide said:

I actually sent an email to Lamy a while back asking whether they had some way to refill their bottles. I don't think it would be feasible for them to have ink storage "onsite" for people to come and refill their bottles, but I can imagine that they could sell the ink in 50ml "refill" packets in sustainable packaging materials, along with a fresh roll of blotting paper to install. 

 

That would go along with their ethos of long lived products that are designed not to be wasteful. 

 

Even if you can bring your own bottle for a discount, that'd be magnificent. I won't give some back to decant some ink (cough Noodlers cough) into them though. I use a 30ml blue to store pen cleaning solution for example.

[bayindirh]

13 hours ago, bogiesan said:

Me, I do not think I will ever get close to even using half of any of my Lamy bottles’ contents. 

Am I the one oddball who opens a bottle of ink, assigns it to a pen and use the duo until it finishes? I use some other inks in one-off fashion, but I have at least two pens with their assigned inks in a permanent rotation.

[david-p]

16 hours ago, bogiesan said:

Consider the effort required, though.

But considering the various efforts required is what contributes largely to the reluctance of people and companies to actually do anything significant about global warming!

 

David

[A Smug Dill]

44 minutes ago, david-p said:

But considering the various efforts required is what contributes largely to the reluctance of people and companies to actually do anything significant about global warming!

 

Aren't they contributing enough to global warming already?

[david-p]

5 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Aren't they contributing enough to global warming already?

I should  obviously have written: "But considering the various efforts required is what contributes largely to the reluctance of people and companies to actually do anything significant to combat and reverse global warming!"

 

David

 

PS: I am perhaps not doing my bit by pushing these poor overheated electrons around the world...

Edited August 2, 2021 by david-p

[Black Spot]

Hey Roger is back !

 

 

[Anne-Sophie]

I wrote that the program would be for pop up stores, and regular inks only.

 

Since pop up stores are showcases for the brand, I thought it would be a great idea. 

 

One brings the glass part of the used up ink bottle and gets a new one at a discount. 

 

It might be easier to upcycle the new ink bottle and use that program to boost the sales of the new inks.

 

[Anne-Sophie]

11 hours ago, bayindirh said:

Am I the one oddball who opens a bottle of ink, assigns it to a pen and use the duo until it finishes? I use some other inks in one-off fashion, but I have at least two pens with their assigned inks in a permanent rotation.

 

I do exactly the same thing, this way, no headache about what ink fits which fountain pen and I always have enough ink to be able to do lots of writing, in a day, without refilling.

 

Only two inks have more than one fountain pen assigned to it. 

 

 

[A Smug Dill]

21 minutes ago, Anne-Sophie said:

Since pop up stores are showcases for the brand, I thought it would be a great idea. 

 

One brings the glass part of the used up ink bottle and gets a new one at a discount.

 

It's probably easier and more economical, with regard to implementation and operational management, to simply offer a promotional discount on brand new retail bottles of ink (only in its regular line-up of colours, or more broadly) at its pop-up stores. I'm not going to argue about the necessity, benefit or virtue of recycling; but let's just say it's probably not the priority for either Lamy as a business or the budget-conscious consumer who wants to get his/her jollies cheaply.

[bunnspecial]

Pelikan DOES have the 1L bottles, and a similar 1L bottle kept at a Lamy store could be used in theory to refill 20 bottles(realistically probably more like 19 with a bit left over to account for spillage, etc).

 

Even the common blue, black, and blue-black could be shipped to stores in bottles like that or similar and likely be used to inexpensively refill a bottle. Consumer typical pricing in the US on the Pelikan bottles is a bit under $70/bottle, which makes it possible for a consumer to refill a 50mL bottle(I know Apples and Oranges since Lamy bottles are 50mL and Pelikan are either 30mL or 62.5mL) for around $3.50...

[bayindirh]

2 hours ago, bunnspecial said:

Even the common blue, black, and blue-black could be shipped to stores in bottles like that or similar and likely be used to inexpensively refill a bottle.

 

If I have the slightest idea how Lamy produces their inks and pens, creating another form factor for their ink line up is more hassle than its worth. They design their own production lines, with machinery designed by them. So, adding another form factor means another set of machinery for some of their inks.

 

Similarly, recycling is more of a production line problem I assume. they not only need to collect the bottles and ship it back to the factory (which is easy), they need another pipeline to replace the cap liners, refill the cleaning wicks/tissues and clean the bottles, which needs another set of machinery, and the demand may not be justifying the upfront cost at this time.

 

Instead, for recycling, one can just disassemble the bottle and put the parts into appropriate bins and be done with it. Recycling with Lamy sounds nice, but mayn't be as feasible.

[A Smug Dill]

1 hour ago, bayindirh said:

… creating another form factor for their ink line up is more hassle than its worth.

 

Actually, it begs the question of what it is would be worth to the company. I suspect people only suggest such things with their consumer hats on and pulled down over their brows to obscure their vision of the total picture. I can understand that individual consumers want to be able to get their wants satisfied with less out-of-pocket expense, and prefer to feel good about doing so; but what are they offering to give up in return, such that it's mostly to the manufacturers' and/or suppliers' benefit to accommodate the suggestions, with benefit being measured by what is most important to the companies?

 

The ones who think they're trading convenience for a discount (as the first priority or focus to call out) obviously value their personal cost-saving more than convenience; they're not offering to recycle the bottles anyway, even if it's less inconvenient and nets them no economic benefit, on account of doing something good for the environment or planet, and encouraging Lamy to do their bit in accepting and reusing the recycled bottles even if that makes it less convenient (and hence more costly operationally) for the company as well, as something as a shared cost impact on the ‘hobby community’ that covers both ink users and producers.

 

I can't remember the last time I read a suggestion from users that puts the cost burden mostly on themselves, but simply want more resourceful (and ‘wealthier’) entities such as governments and for-profit corporations to use their assets and capabilities — which the consumers don't have, even though they have spending money they could part with if they don't use that to satisfy other material wants — to assist with the users' goals as individuals outside of the economic realm (i.e. not making the identity and concerns of the consumer their key motivation), without otherwise impacting or compromising what drives those larger entities.

[bayindirh]

41 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Actually, it begs the question of what it is would be worth to the company. I suspect people only suggest such things with their consumer hats on and pulled down over their brows to obscure their vision of the total picture. I can understand that individual consumers want to be able to get their wants satisfied with less out-of-pocket expense, and prefer to feel good about doing so; but what are they offering to give up in return, such that it's mostly to the manufacturers' and/or suppliers' benefit to accommodate the suggestions, with benefit being measured by what is most important to the companies?

 

The ones who think they're trading convenience for a discount (as the first priority or focus to call out) obviously value their personal cost-saving more than convenience; they're not offering to recycle the bottles anyway, even if it's less inconvenient and nets them no economic benefit, on account of doing something good for the environment or planet, and encouraging Lamy to do their bit in accepting and reusing the recycled bottles even if that makes it less convenient (and hence more costly operationally) for the company as well, as something as a shared cost impact on the ‘hobby community’ that covers both ink users and producers.

 

I can't remember the last time I read a suggestion from users that puts the cost burden mostly on themselves, but simply want more resourceful (and ‘wealthier’) entities such as governments and for-profit corporations to use their assets and capabilities — which the consumers don't have, even though they have spending money they could part with if they don't use that to satisfy other material wants — to assist with the users' goals as individuals outside of the economic realm (i.e. not making the identity and concerns of the consumer their key motivation), without otherwise impacting or compromising what drives those larger entities.

 

Actually, I was not looking to the picture from the perspective of discount or calling a more wealthier company into action. To be completely honest, Germany and most of Central Europe has pretty good recycling pipelines for plastics and glass. Similarly, we have a pretty good recycling pipeline for glass, but it's neither as advanced nor convenient for plastics.

 

My motivation for a bottle swap is to bypass the whole classify, shred, recast, reuse cycle of the recycling process and return bottles to their home for a refill. I'd not mind a discount, but I just wanted to be sure that the bottle has recycled and reused and helping another mortal being to fill their pens and pages with ink, at the same time reducing some of the clutter at my home.

 

Some ink bottles (Akkerman, Lamy, Waterman, Montblanc and Pelikan comes to my mind), have more features than it shows on the surface, and they're good engineering examples in my book. So instead of crushing these bottles, I prefer to keep some of them for other inks and liquids, and return the remaining ones to their respective homes for a refill, promoting reuse.

 

Big IT companies are reusing the boxes they use for shipping spares to the customers and getting faulty ones back. OTOH, their pipeline is much much simpler. Get the box, get the bad part out, put the new one in, add stickers and tape it, send it away.

 

At the end of the day, economic dynamics trumps intentions of us mere consumers. I have no power to influence this.