Lamy Safari Fountain Pen Review

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23 Comments

  1. Serena Lewis says:

    What is the yellowish ink in the photo?

  2. Bill Kalenborn says:

    I did not notice any mention of the Lamy italic nibs that I have on two of my pens that give you varied widths on the various parts of your letters without the varied pressure for some other pen nibs.

  3. Rocio Alcantara says:

    Hello little coffee Shelby, I’m sure its being long time since you wrote this article. Just found that as recently joined the morning pages club 🙂 meaning its being 4 days that I am doing my 3 pages. I found a video of you in YouTube and I found the tips you shared very valuable. Then I got this review and again, very useful so I didn’t want to miss the opportunity for saying thank you!!! 🙂

    1. Thank you so much, Rocio! I truly hope you continue to write your morning pages and see all the subtle ways it can improve your well-being. Keep going and good luck to you!

  4. Maybe a little out of date – maybe it’s time to take another look at pens.
    I just picked up a bunch of pens from China – and I must say the quality is pretty high.

    I do have one Lamy pen, as well as a pencil, but now want some inexpensive options for my son, and also to keep a few different colours and styles at hand…

    So starting off, take a look at Jinhao (the Swan Clip writes well) and Wing Sung – I have two piston fillers costing $1.50 each and they have Lamy style nibs that write very nicely.

    Wing Sung 3013 looks very nice, but cost more – 3 times more (that’s about $4)

    And my favourite ‘luxury’ pen is now the Bobby Launch Jinhao 51A which came in at almost $5 but has an absolutely gorgeous blend of blue/green resin colour that has to be seen to be appreciated.

    These pens all write just as well as my Lamy – reliable and not likely to dry up, also smooth and consistent.

    So look at Lamy as a budget western brand – but certainly not ‘cheap’. The extra quality control improves matters by 10% and pushes the price up to 1000%. I’m happy to say that spending 1/5 of the price of one Lamy, I got THREE swan clip pens that all work just as well.

    1. Miss Idle Smith says:

      Lamy Safari is cheap! In europe, especially in Germany and Netherlands, Lamy Safari is used by school kids!

  5. Alex Fields says:

    The Pilot Metro… Great entry pen also, that has metal (brass?) body and some elegance with variety of options. That said, just bought the Lamy Safari from Munich airport and very excited.

    1. Little Coffee Fox Team says:

      I’m a huge fan of both the Lamy Safari and Pilot Metropolitan! They are both great entry level pens. I hope you enjoy your Lamy!

  6. Oooh! LAMY fountain pens!

    They got me addicted to fountain pens again after an almost 40-year absence. I first started using fountain pens in high school in 1980, back when Sheaffer still made their fat-bodied No Nonsense fountain pens with the italic nibs. I also collected and used the smaller “school” grade fountain pens made by Sheaffer, too, and collected all the ink colors in cartridges.

    Then I set them aside when I went to college and only just now picked them up again, upgrading to LAMY.

    I have several of them and I’ve converters for most of them so as to take advantage of all the bottles of ink out there. In the past year, I’ve learned a few tricks:

    1.
    If you run out of ink in your cartridge, double check the cartridge interior for drops of ink or dried ink residue. If either are present, you can reconstitute it with plain water to make a diluted version of the ink.

    I reconstituted half a dozen cartridges this way when I took my pens on vacation with me and they spent the daylight hours baking in my luggage in the trunk of my car. I was dismayed on finding my pens “dry”. I had a syringe with me–the kind people use to refill printer cartridges or to apply henna in teeny amounts–and on a hunch, I added half a cartridge’s worth of water, carefully reinserted the cartridge into my pens, and voila! The dried residue (the actual dye that makes the ink) reconstituted and flowed nicely out of my pen. The color of the ink was only a little lighter than the original.

    Since then, I’ve saved all my “empty” ink cartridges, thinking to get the last bit of dye out of the corners by adding a little water and writing some more with them.

    You can use this syringe trick to reconstitute ink that has “evaporated” out of your converters, too. Several of my pens on that vacation were fitted with converters and they too had suffered the same fate as the cartridges.

    In one pen, the ink evaporated much more slowly, turning the ink color darker as the water content was reduced … but a drop or two of water from my syringe brought it back to the original hue.

    Also–that syringe made filling my pens WAY EASIER. I was always bumping my fingertips against the lip of the ink bottle when filling my pens via converter. It wasn’t a lot of ink but it only takes a drop going astray on your kitchen counter or onto your shirt or pants to make a mess you’d rather not deal with.

    My syringe has a dull needle tip and fractions of mililiters marked on the barrel. Much like with a clear glass measuring cup, it’s easy to be accurate on amounts needed and the needle tip keeps everything clean and tidy. ^_^

    Needless to say, I have a LOT MORE FUN with my fountain pens because of the usefulness of the syringe. If you get only one extra accessory for your pens, investing in a syringe is worth it. They’re rather inexpensive, less than a package of cartridges, actually, and most can be taken apart for easy cleaning.

    2.
    You will need to flush the ink out your pens, ideally whenever you run out of ink or at least whenever you change colors.

    The thing that makes it easy is a squeeze bulb syringe, just like the kind you get for babies to get goop out of their noses.

    Unscrew the nibholder from the barrel of your pen, fill the bulb syringe with water, put the nibholder (or section, as it’s called) over the tip of the bulb syringe, and squeeze. The water shoots out of the bulb, swooshes through your pen, and out the nib. Hold it over the sink when you do this, or you’ll get inky water everywhere. One or two bulb’s worth of water does the trick.

    I’ve been using fountain pens regularly now for nearly a year and it didn’t take me long to incorporate the two types of syringe into my maintenance kit. Other than a small bottle of pen flush (a cleaning solution made just for fountainpens) to handle the glitter/shimmer inks that are a little trickier to get out of your pen, these two syringes do 95% of the work.

    Hope this helps! ^_^

    1. Little Coffee Fox Team says:

      Thank you for all the helpful information Mary!! Glad to hear your love for fountain pens has been revived.

  7. Eli Harlan says:

    Does the Lamy have other size niba. I prefer something smaller than medium. And if so, have you used them and what do you think?

    Eli
    PA love the reviews!

    1. Little Coffee Fox Team says:

      I’m so glad to hear your are enjoying the reviews Eli! There are smaller nibs that you may like using better if the medium isn’t quite what you’re looking for. They have both an Extra Fine and Fine.

  8. My two favorite inexpensive pens are the Pilot Metropolitan and the TWSBI Eco. Fountain pens are a more expensive investment at first, but when used with bottled ink they are actually cheaper than ball point pens.

    1. Little Coffee Fox Team says:

      This is true, they definitely can end up being cheaper Mary.

  9. @Janine- Ink does make a difference! Try a different ink. I was at a Lamy shop (where they sell Lamy pens exclusively) and the owner did not like Noodler’s ink in his personal Lamy pens.

    I have two of these pens. I have had them for probably 6 or 7 years. Love them! I have a white one and a yellow one. The yellow one I put florescent yellow “highlighter” ink in it. The white one I have several inks I rotate through. I love grey, sepia and aqua colored inks.

    1. Little Coffee Fox Team says:

      What a fun way to use the yellow Debi!

    2. @Debi, thank you for the reply, I will try a few different inks soon ?
      I always usee the standard cartridges in my old school pens, so this is a step up in the experimenting ? So many beautiful ink colors..

  10. What a coincidence! I just gifted myself two Lamy AL-stars, and I absolutely love them!
    I have one in a purplish color, and use it with Noodler’s Burgundy ink, which is almost the same color as the barrel. Such smooth writing!

    I have another Lamy pen, a lamy logo, but it doesn’t write as smooth. I have different ink in it, I don’t know how much difference that makes? How often should you clean pens like tgese?
    As usual, a very comprehensive blog post ❤️

  11. Laura Jaimes says:

    Hi Shelby, thank you for your post! I felt so identified because really LOVE my Lamy Safari! It’s white like yours and I bought it a year ago in a trip to Berlin.
    I live in Argentina, and here you can get it in some “high level” stationery shops, but they are so much expensive!
    I continue reading you, bye, bye!

    1. Little Coffee Fox Team says:

      Thanks so much Laura! Glad to have you here 🙂

  12. This was a nice review. I was given one of these for my birthday in the Limited Matte Black color along with a bottle of Noodler ink and the converter add on. I think this pen is fantastic as the design always puts your fingers in the default position to write with. It is functional, stylish, and very smooth on the multiple types of paper I have used it with including normal tablet paper, printer paper, and my dot journal. I would recommend this Lamy for anyone interested in fountain pens as an inexpensive daily driver for regular writing. Calligraphy writing deserves it’s own pen due to the nature of it and you would definitely want to look into other options more suited for that task.

    1. Little Coffee Fox Team says:

      Thanks for sharing your experience with your Lamy, JC!

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