Autumn Lamy

As you may have gathered (I do believe I might have mentioned it once or twice) I’m not a fan of the Lamy Safari and I don’t think it’s innovation just to bring out a new colour or two each year, however, this year, for me, is different.

This year I drank the Kool-Aid and bought one of this year’s terracotta Safari’s.

A few weeks ago, I was in one of my favourite stationery shops, Midwest The Stationer in Sherborne. If you haven’t visited them, you have missed a treat; it’s a wonderful bricks and mortar store in the heart of Dorset. They have a good selection of pens, inks and all things stationery and the staff are both wonderful and very knowledgeable; nothing is too much trouble for them, even when you make as many visits as I did.

In the space of two days I made about three visits, not least because they had a Lamy Imporium at a very attractive discount, I was very tempted but I did not indulge. 

But it was on one of the visits that I was looking at the range of Lamy standard inks and having decided to buy a bottle of the Red and a bottle of the Bronze I turned towards the counter and right in my eye line was the terracotta Safari.

And I had one of those moments when you see something or hear a tune or smell food and you are transported, for a few seconds, to a time and place connected to the trigger. For me it was the colour of the pen that reminded me of Autumn leaves, and it just seemed the perfect companion for the orangey brown bronze ink I was buying.

This Safari is a warm orangey terracotta brown and sports a black clip, nib and finial and it has a textured surface which gives it a slightly matte finish, all in all Lamy have done a good job with this pen; so much so that I added one to my shopping and left the store with two bottles of ink and a fountain pen. Since then, I have replaced the standard Medium nib with a Broad nib to make the most of the bronze ink.

For anyone not familiar with nib swapping Lamy have made this remarkably easy; all you have to do is get a firm grip on the pen in one hand and a firm grip on the nib in the other and pull the nib in a straight line and this will slide the nib off the feed. 

When gripping the nib, I recommend using a piece of thick rubber band and if the nib is resistant, I’ve put it in some very hot water for a short time and this has helped but this is very much at your own risk.

Once you have removed the old nib simply slide the new nib onto the feed and push it into place and you should be good to go. 

Nib swapped and pen loaded with ink it was time to take my new pen out for a spin and see if I liked the Koo-Aid.

As it turned out my choice of Kool-Aid was a good one as was my choice of nib. You can see from the ink test that the ink does dry somewhere between orange and terracotta, the one thing I noticed was it dries slowly at 35 seconds it was still wet however, I’m not sure why but the text test produced better results.

Would I recommend this pen and ink? Yes.

If you’re a collector then the pen is a must; if you are not then add it to your list, it’s a nice pen and Lamy have got the colour just right.

As for the ink, it’s not bronze by any stretch of the imagination but what it is is a midpoint between orange and terracotta making it a perfect colour for Autumn.

So, if you are looking for a seasonal colour this could be the one for you.

Disclaimer: Both the pen and the ink were purchased with my own funds at retail price. The opinions expressed in this review are my own; and I am not connected with either the retailers or manufacturers in any way.