Fountain pen review: Lamy Accent Brilliant

Category: Fun

7:17 PM, Tue, Aug 7 2007

I just received my new Lamy Accent Brilliant Briarwood fountain pen, with a medium 14kt gold nib, made in Germany:

Lamy fountain pen

It's an old-fashioned writing technology in a beautiful, modern body, but how does it write?

Lamy fountain pen writing sample

I'm not a fountain pen aficionado by any means, but to me, this is perfect. It is smooth, ink flow starts quickly, no blots, no running ink. The cartridges themselves are about twice as large as "standard" cartridges.

I realize that fountain pens are considered obsolete technology. Why bother with ink and expensive pens, which can easily be damaged? The answer is obvious when you compare how fountain pen writing with the output of a typical high-quality roller ball pen, the Uniball Signo 207 (medium), which I also use:

Uniball Signo writing sample

These images are magnified about three times. And by the way, I'm using this Uniball as a comparison point, not because it's a bad pen, but because it's a good rollerball pen and makes a worthy comparison to this Lamy.

Note that the ink I am using is Lamy's blue-black cartridge ink. The pen came with a cartridge of their blue. When this cartridge is empty I will try either their black, or their blue. I think either would give a stronger line than the blue-black, which has a subdued and gray quality. The pen also came with a converter (see the Wiki fountain pen article), which lets the user fill the pen from a bottle of ink, but for me, I prefer the convenience and cleanliness of cartridges.

Pen and cartridges were ordered from Joon Pens in New York.

In comparison, I also have a Louis Vuitton fountain pen. It was beautiful, and wrote well, but the finish started bubbling and flaking on the barrel near the nib. That's not good for a pen in that price range. And somehow the feed became entirely clogged. I think one of the small balls in the ink cartridge somehow got in and clogged the feed. Again, something which shouldn't happen in a pen in that price range. So I'm glad to have replaced the LV pen with this Lamy, which is beautiful and writes beautifully. I will have to get the LV pen unclogged, because, despite the problems, it is a great pen.