Lamy Safari Review

This was my first fountain pen. It is a solid workhorse of a pen at a reasonable price. I've actually used 4 different nibs on it:

• Extra Fine
• 1.5mm Caligraphy
• 1.1mm Caligraphy
• 1.9mm Caligraphy

The fact that it is so easy to swap the nibs in an out is great and was part of what lead me to get more into Calligraphy and pens in general.

This pen has been reviewed many time on the internet before so I'm not going to go into too much detail. However looking at it you can see particularly on the cap that it has soaked up some damage due to being carted around everywhere with me for 6 months. Despite this it has worked great for me.

My only real frustration is that I find the 1.1mm nib while it is the best calligraphy style nib for day to day writing, it also has the least calligraphy to it. The nib is nearly rounded.

Overall though I find this pen to be a fantastic start to the world of fountain pens.

Fountain Pens

There is something pleasing about writing with a fountain pen. The way the ink flows and the pen glides on paper is just a very different experience. There are also so many different things to geek out about.

• The way the nib is shaped. (Round Nibs, Italic Nibs, Flex Nibs)
• The way that it draws ink down the nib and onto the paper with capillary action.
• The way you fill the pen. (Cartridge, Converter, Piston, Pump, Vacuum, Bladder)
• The ink formation and the properties thereof. (Color, Saturation, Lubrication, Wetness, Viscosity)
• The paper qualities. (Weight, Thickness, Absorbency, Opacity, Surface Smoothness)
• The pen body ergonomics. (Weight, Balance, Grip Size, Length, Grip Shape)

And all of this is really before you get down to the actual visual aesthetics of the items themselves. There are pens out there elevated to such a high degree of art I would be afraid to use them for fear of damaging them.

As a related hobby I've gotten into Calligraphy, and have been trying to clean up my abysmal Palmer Cursive. At the moment I'm ending up with some amalgamation of Palmer Cursive, a basic Italic Cursive, and Chancery Italic.