Thursday, May 25, 2023

Newest Acquisitions (Virtual "Show & Tell") ~ part 497

Continuing my quest to buy a fountain pen from at least one online store in each Canadian province (since the pandemic started) 🙄 ...

Thus far, I'd crossed British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia off my list.
I crossed one more province off my list after a recent online purchase --my new lime Lamy 'nexx' fountain pen from Endeavours & ThinkPlay, a brick & mortar store in Fredericton, New Brunswick !

(photos by Maja ~ please click on images to enlarge)

The pen was $29.99 CAD (on sale) and shipping was $18 CAD (ouch), but I also ordered a few other things from their web store at the same time--a Platinum ink converter, a mini ink converter, and a loose Pilot CM (stub) nib for a 'Metropolitan'. Unfortunately, they couldn't find the Pilot nib in their store stock, but the rest of the items arrived safe and sound.

The Lamy 'nexx' fountain pen was designed by Andreas Haug, who also designed the Lamy 'nexx m' (the nexx's fancier cousin), 'Accent', '4pen' and 'Smile' (a 'nexx' model with twistable emoticon rings in the cap). I believe the 'nexx' was first released in 2006, and in its earlier days was only available in a few colours---blue, green (now called "lime"), red and pink. The current 'nexx' lineup includes rose and smaragd ("emerald" in German, but it looks aquamarine to me). There were also some special edition colours that were released yearly -e.g. yellow, violet, black and neoncoralred (the SE colour for 2023).
 
It's available with Fine or Medium polished steel nibs, the same nibs found on the Lamy 'Safari', 'Vista', 'Al Star', 'Joy', 'Studio' and other Lamy models. My 'nexx' came with a Fine nib that's smooth and reliable, like the Fine nibs of the same type I have on some other Lamys. The pen fills via Lamy's proprietary cartridges (the pen came with one blue ink cartridge) and/or a Lamy Z28 (formerly Z24) ink converter.

Unlike the 'Safari'/'Al Star'/'Vista', the nexx's triangular grip section is made of solid rubber with rounded edges, making it non-slip and even more comfortable to hold. The barrel is made of naturally anodized aluminum and is very light, but sturdy. It starts out cylindrical in shape at the threads, and then tapers down to a triangular shape, which mirrors the triangular section at the other end of the pen---a nice design touch.

The pen's plastic clip (described as "selfsprung" by Lamy) has a flattened oval cutout showing the model name (in white), as well as a round hole at its top, presumably to accommodate a lanyard or chain. At first, I balked at buying the pen because the cap screamed "School Pen!!" to me, but it was a good price (and I really wanted to buy a pen from New Brunswick lol). I noticed that the clips on the newer 'nexx' models don't have a cutout or hole.

The triangular barrel end (like the whole barrel) is very smooth --no sharp edges at all--- and the pen is very comfortable to hold and use. The pen caps well, but doesn't post terribly deeply. When it is posted, I find that it's well-balanced ... but I don't tend to post it because the cap, though light, is so large.

The pen writes very well and is extremely reliable---no hard-starting or skipping, even after being capped for several days (and it caps very well, with a nice 'click'). I would not hesitate to recommend it to someone looking for a light, well-made, reasonably-priced knockabout pen that's comfortable to use for long periods of time. Many thanks to the folks at Endeavours & ThinkPlay for this cool fountain pen!

Specifications (from JetPens.com):

Length - Capped 13.7 cm / 5.4 inches
Length - Posted 15.5 cm / 6.1 inches
Length - Uncapped 12.8 cm / 5.0 inches
Diameter - Grip 11.8 mm
Diameter - Max 16.0 mm
Weight - Barrel (Empty) 0.36 oz / 10 grams
Weight - Cap 0.21 oz / 6 grams
Weight - Whole Pen (Empty) 0.57 oz / 16 grams

(Note: the 'nexx' was only made in fountain pen form)

(~blog post by Maja~)

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