LAMY Pen Deals: Compare Sale Prices & Find the Best Discount UK

Ask a room full of urban sketchers what pen they draw with and you’ll hear LAMY more than almost any other name. Usually it’s a LAMY Safari, often with an extra fine nib, clipped to the front of a sketchbook and covered in paint smudges. In sixteen years in the UK art supplies industry, I’ve watched fountain pens move from the stationery cupboard into the art shop, and LAMY has done more than anyone to make that happen. It’s a pen brand that artists genuinely adopted for themselves.

The company was founded in 1930 by Josef Lamy, a former Parker Pen salesman, who bought the pen maker Orthos in Heidelberg to start producing his own pens. LAMY is still based in Heidelberg today and still makes its pens in Germany. The brand really became LAMY in 1966 with the LAMY 2000, designed by Gerd Alfred Müller, who’d worked on Braun’s famous designs. Its clean, minimal Bauhaus look was decades ahead of its time, and the pen is still in production almost sixty years later, practically unchanged. In February 2024 LAMY was bought by Mitsubishi Pencil, the Japanese company behind uni-ball, but the pens are still designed and made in Heidelberg.

The LAMY Safari is the pen most people know. It launched in 1980, designed by Wolfgang Fabian and Bernt Spiegel, originally as a sturdy pen for schoolchildren. That’s why it’s made from tough ABS plastic and has that distinctive triangular grip that guides your fingers into the right position. It turned out adults loved it too. The Safari comes in a huge range of colours, with a new special edition every year that collectors chase. The AL-star is essentially the same pen in a lighter, aluminium body, and it’s my favourate of the two for the slightly more grown-up feel. Both take the same interchangeable steel nibs, from extra fine through to broad, and you can swap them in seconds.

For artists, the nib choice is what makes LAMY so useful. An extra fine or fine Safari nib gives a crisp, consistent line that’s perfect for sketching, line and wash, and urban sketching, and with a converter you can fill it with waterproof ink so you can paint over your lines with watercolour. The LAMY Joy is the calligraphy pen of the range. It’s long and elegant, sold with italic nibs in 1.1, 1.5 and 1.9mm widths, and it’s one of the best value pens for anyone learning calligraphy or hand lettering. LAMY also makes the LAMY 2000 in fountain pen, rollerball, ballpoint and pencil versions, the Studio, the Dialog, and the popular LAMY Logo, plus T10 ink cartridges, Z28 converters and its own T52 bottled ink.

The honest bit. That triangular grip on the Safari is brilliant if your fingers like it and annoying if they don’t, so try one in a shop before buying a stack of them if you can. The standard LAMY ink isn’t waterproof, so for line and wash you’ll need a converter and a waterproof ink like De Atramentis Document or Platinum Carbon Black. And the LAMY 2000, beautiful as it is, has a nib that some people find a little scratchy until it’s worn in. None of that changes the bigger picture. LAMY makes some of the most reliable, best designed pens you can buy at almost every price point, and a Safari is still one of the best first fountain pens you can get.

I spent nearly a decade as Digital Marketing Manager at ARTdiscount, and one thing I learned about pens is how much prices vary between retailers. LAMY is sold by art shops like Cass Art, specialist pen shops like Cult Pens and Pen Heaven, and on Amazon, and the same Safari can differ by several pounds in the same week. Colours matter too. The current year’s special edition is often full price while last year’s colours drop in price, so if you’re not fussed about the exact shade, last season’s Safari is a geniune bargain.

The best times to buy LAMY are Black Friday, the run up to Christmas when pen shops push gift sets, the January sales, and back to school in late summer, when the Safari and ABC school pens are heavily promoted. I post deals every day for a community of over 36,000 UK artists, and LAMY gift sets and discounted special editions come up regularly in the autumn. Pen Heaven and Cult Pens both run seasonal pen sales, so it’s worth comparing before you buy.

Is LAMY a good pen brand? Yes. It’s German made, beautifully designed and one of the most reliable brands at every price. What is the best LAMY for drawing? The Safari or AL-star with an extra fine or fine nib, filled with a waterproof ink through a converter. Is the LAMY Safari good for beginners? It’s one of the most recommended first fountain pens in the world, tough, affordable and easy to use. Which LAMY is best for calligraphy? The LAMY Joy, which comes with italic nibs designed for lettering. Are LAMY nibs interchangeable? Yes. Safari, AL-star, Joy, Vista and many other LAMY models share the same push-fit steel nibs, so you can swap between widths easily. Who owns LAMY now? Mitsubishi Pencil bought LAMY in 2024, but the pens are still made in Heidelberg.

Looking for a LAMY sale, discount or discount code? Check the price comparisons above, updated in real time, and you’ll always know you’re getting the best current UK price.