About a month ago, I spent a day in New York City. The weather was gorgeous—a sunny 74 degree day. As others from my bus trip scurried away for Broadway tickets, bargain shopping, and fancy restaurants, I took off on my own to see the stationery sights.
One of the stops on my walking tour was the four month old flagship LAMY store in SOHO (452 West Broadway)—which has the distinction of being the first LAMY store in the US.
The store is narrow and tall—sleek and modern—and full of some of my favorite workhorse pens.
I had a fun chat with the shopkeeper. That’s him the first photo—casually sketching an impressive superhero with a Safari or AL-Star. When I try out pens, I usually write my name or the name of the pen. Boring! Gotta work on that. I should be able to muster up enough creativity to sketch a stick dog or cat.
After I let him know how much I enjoy most of my LAMYs, I voiced a couple of minor complaints about the uninspired all-black 2018 Special Edition Safari and the poor performance of the LAMY Balloon refill. (Love the look of that pen but dear god, it needs a better refill.) Not sure why I did that—heatstroke? dehydration?—because obviously he doesn’t have a direct line to LAMY executives. (Or DOES he?)
Quickly moving on from my little rant, I mentioned how much I LOVE my LAMY Aions. I have the black one with a medium nib and it’s crazy smooth—one of my favorites. I also have the Olivesilver (I see no olive in the pen’s color, but this time I kept my mouth shut) with a fine nib and it’s an excellent writer as well. But that medium…SO good.
In the course of our conversation, he revealed that the Aion will be coming out in two new colors. WHAT?! Yup—blue and red. You heard it here first, folks! (Oliveblue? Olivered?)
AND, get this, the LAMY 2000 will ALSO be coming out in a new color in 2019, but the actual color was not revealed to me despite some good-natured begging. He wouldn’t budge. Top secret. Loose lips sink ships.
I have so many LAMY pens that it seemed stupid to pick up more, but I needed a souvenir (or two). Eventually I settled on the economical LAMY Logo ballpoint pen in Laser Orange and a LAMY Joy, 1.1 mm, with the black body and silver cap—two pens that are new to me and don’t require deep pockets.
After I left the LAMY store, I had lunch at a wonderful little restaurant on Grand Street—Le Botantiste, where I enjoyed an artfully composed/deliciously healthy salad, and played with my new Logo.
Next stop (and next post)—CW Pencils. What a great day.
From the Pen Cup 