Earlier I had mentioned that I’m somewhat picky about the tools that I use, and pens are one of the tools that I make use of a lot and because of that they are one of the tools that spend more on than someone who’s not looked into higher end writing tools would expect.
So for background I’m left handed and a lot of cheaper pens don’t dry fast enough when I’m taking notes and that results in a bunch of smeared writing and ink on the side of my hand as I drag my hand across what I’m writing. At some point back many years ago I found myself walking past a pen shop that was going out of business while I was out of town for work and wound up picking up a Lamy All Star and a Lamy Safari for extremely cheap as an impulse purchase.
After using these pens for a couple of days on the trip I noticed that they didn’t wind up leaving ink all over my hand when I was using them. A combination of how I was holding the pen and how quickly the ink dries out resolved that issue and from that time forward I’ve stopped using the really cheap pens and have exclusively been using fountain pens for note taking.
Here we are going to talk about the first two pens that I bought. The Lamy Safari and the All Star.
Generally speaking the Safari and the All Star are the same design of pen. The Safari is a plastic pen that is available in a number of colours with special editions being released periodically that have different colour combinations between the feeds and bodies. The All Star is the same general design, however the feeds are generally transparent plastic with the cap and body being made out of aluminum not plastic and with similar special editions being released periodically.
Both of the pens can be operated with ink cartridges or using bottled ink if you have a converter handy.
Neither of the pens is very large or bulky, however the All Star is a touch larger in diameter than the Safari, and both have a grip that has a triangular profile. This makes it really easy to pick up the pen and get it into the correct position to be written with quickly.
The nibs on the pens come in a number of different sizes including some italic ones. I find that the fine or medium nibs are what I like to run with. They are not anything crazy, just plain steel either in black or silver depending on what Lamy decided to put on that specific pen when it was mad the Fine nibs that I have write more like a medium, and some of the medium nibs that I have write more like fines. So if you are picking one up and you can try the pen out in the store to get a idea of how it writes that’s likely a pretty good idea.
Writing with them, even given the variation in the nibs is generally pretty good, and any that I’ve gotten that were scratchy or dry were generally adjustable enough to make them work the way that I like without too much hassle.
Over the years I’ve picked up a few of these.
More than 60 of them.
They are fun to collect, relatively inexpensive as far as these things go, and good enough quality that I don’t think that I have had one break on me in over 20 years of collecting them.
All in these things are great daily drviers and while I have some other pens that I do enjoy writing with (yes there’s some Twisbi’s in that case) the Safari’s and All Stars are still my go-to pens with at least two inked in my backpack at any given time.