Lamy 2000

We have a lot of wonderful customers who spend time chatting with us in the store, or send us emails sharing about their pens and requesting brands or models, and one of the pens we've heard the most about is the Lamy 2000. "It's Lamy's flagship pen!" "It's German Bauhaus design!" "It's German engineering!" We've always done this model as a special order, but we've finally decided it may be time to bring in the pen full-time. Jon and I argued, and after some heated debate, he came out the winner, and we ordered a pen for him to test drive and see how it would do. We've now got the pen in store and online, so I think it's safe to say that he likes it.

The Lamy 2000 was originally produced in 1966, and it's still in production today, so there must be something about this pen. It's Lamy's only piston-fill pen, so it will only take bottled ink. In our shop, we see a lot of people starting off with the Safari or the heavier Studio, and eventually upgrading to this model. The finish on the pen is a black Makrolon, which is some sort of fiberglass resin. The result is almost a brushed finish, which is smooth, but still has a bit of texture to it.

Because this is a piston-filler pen, this will only take bottled ink. This means you turn the piston (the back of the pen), and a piston slides down inside the pen. Dipping the nib into a bottle of ink, and as you twist the piston back in the other direction, you draw up ink like a syringe. This filling mechanism is like the TWSBI 580, and it will hold more ink than a Lamy cartridge or the Z24 converter for the Safari or other pens. About two centimeters from the end of the silver section you can see the very discreet ink window. When the pen is totally full, the ink window fills into black so the entire pen looks seamless. Even as your ink draws down, you almost have to pay attention or look carefully to see how much ink is left or if you need to refill.

The Lamy 2000 has a snap cap, making it easy to scribble down a quick note. Jon prefers this to the twist cap, which is one of the reasons he likes this pen so much. The silver nubbies are what hold the cap in place, and you can feel a definitive "snap" into place.

It's not a particularly large or small pen, right around a Safari or 580, but the cap does post nice and snugly if you need some added weight to the back. It's also neither a heavy nor a light weight pen. It's got a bit of heft to it, but it's not as heavy as an all-metal pen, making it good for longer writing sessions, without being super light. I would say it's a well-balanced pen, with a good amount of weight towards the section, which helps the nib point towards the paper.

The writing sample is a Lamy 2000 with a Fine nib. It's quite wet, so it writes almost like a medium with their regular nibs (that go on Safari, CP1, Studio, etc.). It's a 14k gold nib, and despite it being a gold nib, and having a bit of spring to it, it's certainly no soft gold nib. It will have just a touch of give to it, while being quite smooth. This is a nib for all kinds of of paper, super smooth Clairefontaine, textured laid paper, copy paper. It's plated in platinum to match the finishes of the pen.

As a special treat, we've brought in a very, very limited number of less common nibs - we've brought in the double broad (i.e. paintbrush) and oblique double broad (i.e. oblique paintbrush). If you're interested in these nibs, send us an email! Our distributor mentioned that the oblique nibs are no longer available in Germany, so we were pleased to be able to get some!

In all, this is Lamy's star quarterback - Makrolon finish, piston filler, 14K gold nib. This is a truly iconic fountain pen, despite of, or likely because of its simple and sleek design. Everything about this pen is engineered for both vigorous use and clean aesthetic.