New Al-Star and re-release Safari for 2022? Rumors.

[Anne-Sophie]

On 10/26/2022 at 11:13 AM, mazinger55 said:

The new safari special edition 

 

It looks like a matte white with a red clip and nib and a new edition of the regular blue with a red clip and black nib.

 

It is too dark to be the French Blue.

 

Very Pretty and great gifts for the budding fountain pen users, especially with a copy of

 

 

Italic And Copperplate Calligraphy 

The Basics and Beyond (Lettering)

Eleanor Winters 

 https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780486477497

 

I have 3 instruction books on Copperplate, hers is the very best.

 

It has detailed instruction on how to form each letter, both lower and upper case, many examples, and lines templates to photocopy on fountain pen friendly paper. 

 

Some printer paper is fountain pen friendly, our very own amberleadavis, the mod for everything ink related, is also the specialist in fountain pen friendly paper.

 

 

[Astronymus]

14 hours ago, taimdala said:

Also, speaking of 2021's Al-Star LEs, Azure and Cosmic: did anyone think that they were a match for the 2016 Pantone Color of the Year double offering of Rose Quartz and Serenity Blue? 

 

I saw those Al-Stars and immediately thought it was a shame that they came along 5 years too late.

 

Perhaps it was a regrettable and unavoidable matter of timing: perhaps Lamy needed more advance notice for 2016's CotY, the better to tool their assembly line to match Pantone's announcements. 

 

It would be so awesome if Lamy and Pantone matched each other on any given year. It would be an added incentive for me to buy. 

 

Not that I need much more reason to buy.

 

I don't think the "cosmic" matches rosequartz. Completely different color. It matches the color of the universe - cosmic latte. The azure matches the complementary color to that. My guess is the name is a hint.

 

I wonder if Pantone will begin a downtrend after they made some of their colors only available by licence fee to Adobe CC users. Other color companies tried the same and shrunk to minor players on the market.

[taimdala]

22 hours ago, Astronymus said:

 

I don't think the "cosmic" matches rosequartz. Completely different color. It matches the color of the universe - cosmic latte. The azure matches the complementary color to that. My guess is the name is a hint.

 

I wonder if Pantone will begin a downtrend after they made some of their colors only available by licence fee to Adobe CC users. Other color companies tried the same and shrunk to minor players on the market.

 

On Cosmic not matching Rose Quartz—totally fair, as I wasn’t able to get to a good picture of either pen at the time of my post and I was going on memory alone.  And lemme tell’ya, my memory ain’t what it used to be! 

 

As for Pantone shooting itself in the foot, I wasn’t aware of their practice of making some of their colors available only to Adobe CC users via license fees. I thought if you paid their license fees/bought their products outright, you got all the colors available.  (I’m thinking of their color chip fans and notebooks.)

I have Photoshop (PS 11/CS4) on my machine and it’s so far out of date I don’t expect any Pantone palette I have in PS to be anywhere near up to date. Not that I use it anyway. I like discovering colors for myself via the color picker. Pantone’s hijinks haven’t yet hit me.

[ljz]

On 11/7/2022 at 2:50 AM, midnightblues said:

are they repeating popular previous colours?? squints in "I just paid over 450AED to get pastel 2019 editions from Dubai to UK"

sorry that I can’t answer your first question because I’m not that keen on hoarding a lot of Lamy safaris with special/limited edition colours, but I’m sure there’s someone tabulating safari past releases, so go figure that out yourself

 

450aed = 107ukp, the price is not absurd if you got all the three colours plus international shipping, bear in mind that Lamy tends to sell their pens at higher profit margins outside Europe 

[ljz]

@taimdala you went overboard 😄 thanks for sharing your blissful experience in collecting limited edition safaris and al-stars, let’s hope the 2023 new colours would be more beguiling in the flesh than in the catalogue photos 

[taimdala]

21 hours ago, ljz said:

@taimdala you went overboard 😄 thanks for sharing your blissful experience in collecting limited edition safaris and al-stars, let’s hope the 2023 new colours would be more beguiling in the flesh than in the catalogue photos 

 Ooops!

 

Here’s hoping that 2023 sees Lamy do something BOLD …! 

 

I would love an AL-Star in the following colors:

1. Blood Red, like this year’s special release, but in brushed aluminum instead of a lacquer coating
2. Deep Emerald/Pine Green—not too blue-leaning (Emerald), not too yellow-leaning (Pine), but something that falls between but again in brushed aluminum instead of lacquer
3. Deep Purple, between the Violet of the Candy Safari release and the Dark Lilac Safari release, AND visibly darker than either, in brushed aluminum rather than lacquer.

And yes, I am stressing brushed aluminum over lacquer because I can see Lamy opting for a run of lacquer-coated Al-Stars as a change of pace. 

 

IMO, the defining feature of the AL-Star is its brushed aluminum construction. Why hide it? I can go elsewhere for lacquered pens but nowhere else for the brushed aluminum Lamy AL-Star. 

 

Yes, I know there are plenty of knock-off versions available and I suspect, in my initial and blissfully uninformed fall down the rabbit hole, I’d purchased a few. But still, there’s nothing like a Lamy but a Lamy. ^_^

 

[taimdala]

I confess, 2021’s Cosmic and Azure release was a big disappointment after the vivid Turmaline. I know some felt that Turmaline was too close to Pacific Blue but I could see the difference in the temperature bias (more toward yellow than blue) and the vibrance (Turmaline’s is stronger). 

 

This year’s Silverwhite was also a disappointment because it was REALLY close to the original release of the plain brushed aluminum model with the black clip. The one change I could see was Silverwhite had silver-tone trim. As I already had two of the plain aluminum, I didn’t feel any urge to purchase the Silverwhite. 

 

If one has grail pens (or perhaps just goal pens) in the AL-Star line, I would love to own a Silverblue: it’s a chamelon pen, changing color depending on the light.

 

One of the plain aluminum AL-Stars I own (black clip/trim) has some sort of coating on it that lends a green-to-pink shimmer to the barrel …. but only in incandescent lighting. Such lighting is fast becoming less common as CF and LED bulbs take over. I’ll be hanging on to this AL-Star because for all I know, that changeable sheen might make it a valuable anomaly. 

 

In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy using it and I’ll keep my fingers crossed for a Silverblue or one of the bold colors on my wish list.

[bogiesan]

I'd like to see multi-hued anodization (also known as splash anodizing) but definitely NOT in those insipid camo patterns.

 

I regret giving away my first two Alstars, were they graphite?, naked aluminum. Striking, but I was too ignorant to appreciate what I had. Like to see naked again, too. 

 

Internaitonal anodizing association, who knew? 

 

https://www.anodizing.org/page/what-is-anodizing

 

[Astronymus]

@bogiesan The first AL-Star was anodized in natural color without pigments. Graphite came later and is a bit darker.

[Nerdyhistorian]

Would this also mean the return of the petrol and dark lilac ink 👀 ?

[Astronymus]

12 minutes ago, Nerdyhistorian said:

Would this also mean the return of the petrol and dark lilac ink 👀 ?

In ten years tops?

[mixink]

7 hours ago, Nerdyhistorian said:

Would this also mean the return of the petrol and dark lilac ink 👀 ?

According to this post you will see the petrol and dark lilac again just not in a Safari. 
 

 

[inkstainedruth]

OOOOH!  a purple al-Star?  That would be on MY Christmas list....  

If those photos are real, I might even see a Petrol al-Star in my future (and I don't even like that color...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Nerdyhistorian]

1 hour ago, mixink said:

According to this post you will see the petrol and dark lilac again just not in a Safari. 
 

 

I was talking about the ink . When the Safari's were released there were accompanying inks released as well. Petrol and Dark Lilac were very popular.

[austollie]

53 minutes ago, Nerdyhistorian said:

When the Safari's were released there were accompanying inks released as well. Petrol and Dark Lilac were very popular.

 

I think that there is no better example than the Savannah Green and Terracotta Red Safaris, to show that Lamy is now prepared to re-release special edition products for which there is a clear demand.  There is a patent demand for Lamy Petrol (which I adore) and Lamy Dark Lilac (which I missed out on) ink.  There was post after post on this forum (which Lamy surely must read) of how good these inks were and of how disappointed people were of missing out.  I also have my fingers cross that the folk at Lamy see sense and re-release the wonderful inks.  I would be a buyer.

[ErrantSmudge]

I recently stopped at the Lamy San Francisco store and bought the special edition blue with red clip.  The blue is definitely NOT the French blue.  Instead it is the exact same color as the normal issue glossy blue Safari with chrome clip.  I compared the two in the store and the salesperson confirmed the colors are the same.

 

The Lamy San Francisco store offers a gift with purchase - a free box of blue ink cartridges if you buy the blue/red clip Safari, a free converter with the white/black clip model.

[austollie]

6 hours ago, ErrantSmudge said:

The blue is definitely NOT the French blue

 

Darn!  In that case, I will pass.  Had it been the French Blue, I would have been a customer.

[mixink]

10 hours ago, Nerdyhistorian said:

I was talking about the ink . When the Safari's were released there were accompanying inks released as well. Petrol and Dark Lilac were very popular.

I only had the cartridges but they are indeed gorgeous. 

[jchch1950]

New temptations from Lamy. 😀

[inkstainedruth]

12 hours ago, austollie said:

 

Darn!  In that case, I will pass.  Had it been the French Blue, I would have been a customer.

I'm still waffling on the new blue-red one.  If I get to NYC over Christmas, I'll try to stick my nose in the Lamy SoHo store and have a look (and ask them if they know if the purple al-Star for 2023 is really going to be a thing, as well...).

But of course when the "French Blue" reboot was first being discussed on FPN, I was facepalming because I'd lucked into a used French Blue on eBay and got it for about the same price as a new Safari would have been, since there was already a converter installed (and the matte finish hides the bite marks that were on the end of the barrel pretty well...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth