A Good Fountain Pen—Like the Lamy 2000—Lets You Enjoy the Finer Things in Life
There are very few instruments most individuals suppose much less about than pens. They appear to spring logoed and logoless from a type of inexhaustible reserve in cups, drawers, and backpacks. Any of those pens—or most, given a little bit of saliva—will do the job of inking up no matter you want.
But when you think about your expertise with a memento ballpoint from an online model which will or might not have evaporated with the NFT market, you understand simply how poor the pen actually is. The ink is cheesy and horrible, the wrestle to roll throughout the web page is palpable, and the tiny plastic shafts dig into your fingers and pressure your fingertips to slip.
This all modified for me after I obtained my first low-cost fountain pen—I spotted I might even have enjoyable with the bodily act of writing. The first time you set a moist nib to the web page, it feels such as you’re in a Tolkien novel. Each event to make use of it turned an occasion as a substitute of a secular chore. I felt like Bilbo Baggins, wrapping up There and Back Again in Bag-End, however as a substitute of grand tales of journey, I’d be writing a test to the IRS or addressing a letter to an accountant.
I nabbed one other fountain pen rapidly after faculty and used it day by day for a number of years. But it was after I turned 30 that I discovered my delight and pleasure: the Lamy 2000.
Inkredible
This black polycarbonate torpedo has been handmade in an similar vogue in Germany since the mid-Sixties. A medium-tipped Lamy 2000 comes with a hooded, platinum-coated, 14-carat gold nib floor to the level that it surfs throughout the web page, depositing gloriously thick traces of no matter ink you’ve sucked in by way of a superbly hidden piston filler. Forget cartridges—this can be a pen you set straight into the bottle. I pair it with this ink, and don’t fear, it’s by no means as soon as leaked.
I’ve used it to sort out to-do lists and journal my manner by private crises. I used it to jot down my marriage ceremony vows (which I admittedly then typed and printed for concern I’d be unable to learn my very own handwriting). It’s laborious to explain simply how enjoyable it’s to jot down with a device that’s so well-engineered; I really feel like Uma Thurman with the Hattori Hanzō katana from Kill Bill. It’s that empowering.
Photograph: Lamy
