Lamy Cursive Nib: Why didn’t anyone tell me?
Hi, All. Catching up on some fountain pen-related stuff now that Diamine Inkvent 2023 is done.
Sometime before Christmas, I finally ordered a Lamy cursive nib because I was curious to see whether it would offer noticeable line variation. I had heard about this nib a long time ago and looked at various reviews for it, but none of them seemed to show very much line variation between vertical and horizontal strokes, so I didn’t feel super compelled to try it out right away. But I finally picked one up as part of a larger JetPens order, and am so glad I did!
Backing up a bit: I only have two Lamy pens, a dark blue Dialog CC and Lx Marron. For a while the Dialog CC was my only Lamy, and I was using it fairly regularly since I was enamored by its gadgety retractable nib mechanism. It is a pretty weighty pen, though. While I got used to writing with it, it was still kind of fatiguing to use for longer writing sessions. It came with a nice 14K gold fine nib:
Oops, in my haste to write out this sample, I got “quick brown fox” slightly wrong here and in the italic writing sample below. 😒
I later got the Lamy Lx Marron from r/Pen_Swap and started using it more regularly because it’s much lighter and more of an easy “workhorse” pen. I love the satin, metallic brown pen color with the shiny copper clip.
I also bought some random “Lamy-style” nibs that someone on r/Pen_Swap ground to various sizes of stubs/italics. So for a long while I was using a fine italic on the Lx and really liked the line variation already. It is sharp, though, and for the writing sample below, it felt like it was dragging on the paper a bit, perhaps because this ink is not as wet as others I used previously?
(Ignore the goof in quick brown fox)
Since I was already happy with the italic, I wasn’t sure whether the cursive nib would offer me a better or a different enough experience, but, oh, was I pleasantly surprised! It pretty much feels like an architect nib that I didn’t have to have anyone specially grind for me, just popped it on the pen and went on my merry way.
The cursive nib spiffs up my block-style writing so well, and feels smooth. I can even write in reverse with it, but the triangular “forced” grip section of the Lx makes it awkward to do so. It’s still nice to have the option.
I am definitely going to buy another cursive nib for my Dialog CC, or for whatever Lamy pen I get next. It’s a great, inexpensive way to update your Lamy* if you’re interested in an architect-style nib.
*Not the Lamy 2000, since it uses a different nib.
