My New Fountain Pen Acquisition

This is my new fountain pen acquisition: The Lamy Safari with a fine nib. I have now owned it for 24 hours and am ready to write about my first impressions.

These are my three current fountain pens: the one closest to us is a Mont Blanc (bought in the late 1990s; I have long since forgotten the model name), the middle one is a Hero from Japan (bought in 1985), and the farthest one is the Lamy.

The MB and Hero both have slim barrels and caps, whereas the Lamy has a chunkiness to it. Despite the bigger size, the Lamy is very light. Probably because it's made of plastic. The Hero has a metal cap and a denser plastic barrel. The MB has metal accents all over and the heaviest plastic body.

I like to write with my caps posted on the end of the pens—it gives me the length and balance that I like in my hand. The Hero is the shortest, whereas the MB and Lamy are the same length. The Lamy cap is the heaviest by far and makes writing posted harder, because I feel like my hand has less freedom to move so the writing comes out stilted, constrained.

The Hero and MB barrels are smooth, whereas the Lamy has distinctive grooves—there's only one right way to hold the pen. This took some getting used to. I'm used to shifting the pen around a bit as I write, but with the Lamy you can't; the nib writes only when you hold it in one exact position.

The MB has an 18-carat gold nib and is the smoothest fine point. The Lamy's fine steel nib is not as smooth as the MB but better than Hero's fine steel nib. Speaking of nib sizes, the Hero exposes just the tip, a quarter inch, whereas the Lamy nib is the broadest and longest.

I'm still learning to write with the Lamy but the writing certainly improved the more I wrote with it. Overall, I'm happy with my purchase and am looking forward to trying out some more ink samples from Goulet Pens. After all, what's a fountain pen purchase without new ink purchase?