I began using fountain pens after my rheumatologist, chiropractor, orthopedist, and massage therapist all recommended them to ease the burden of extensive writing with arthritic hands with RSIs and carpal tunnel pain. I've been looking for the ultimate "painful hands" pen ever since, and finally found it in the Lamy 2000. There isn't much anyone can add at this point about the design of this pen. It has a permanent spot in the Museum of Modern Art and has accrued a whole collection of awards for its design and engineering. The tolerances of the Makrolon body are so tight the separation between the filler knob and pen body cannot even be felt running a fingernail down the pen feeling for the join. It is meticulously engineered and perfectly produced. This is my second Lamy 2000; I'd had my eye on the limited-edition Black Amber one at Goulet for ages, and when it dropped to nearly half-price I treated myself to one. I tend to write very small, and sometimes in Japanese, which requires an even finer line to remain legible, so I prefer Japanese EF or F nibs and rarely stray from EF nibs when I buy from non-Japanese manufacturers. The EF nib on my Black Amber is astonishingly smooth for its size and nearly comparable to a Japanese EF, unlike every other Lamy pen I have purchased. EF nibs tend to be scratchy simply because they're so very pointy, but the nibs on the Lamy 2000s are quite different from other Lamy nibs and the exceptional nib on the Black Amber put me in the uncomfortable position of wanting to carry a very expensive pen as my EDC. Not wanting to risk loss, damage, or theft of the most expensive pen I'd ever treated myself to, I decided to get a Makrolon 2000 for EDC, and uncharacteristically chose a M nib so I could use it to play with some of my showier shading/sheening inks for EDC. I thought if the EF was that remarkably smooth, the M would be even smoother. And yet still... I. Am. Stunned. The M nib on this Makrolon Lamy 2000 is beyond buttery-smooth, beyond glassy-smooth. I have several glass dip pens, and none of them FLOAT the way this pen does. I collect Parker 51s, famous for their smoothness and effortless writing experience. This pen here blows them away, as much as it grieves me to admit it. My beloved 51s have nothing on this. I honestly cannot tell when I am making contact with the paper, aside from seeing the line appear. There is no feedback whatsoever. The "Makrolon" fiberglass body is so much lighter in comparison to the stainless steel Black Amber that filling it with ink detectably changed the weight of the pen. I find the grip exceptionally comfortable; the taper means that my hand can always find the width it wants on the grip. The brushed texture of the Makrolon is repeated on the stainless grip and it gives effortless traction for the fingers; there is no need at all to squeeze the pen to maintain control. The grip warms quickly and gently in the hand. The net effect of all these qualities -- the feather-light weight, the warmth and friction of the grip, the always-perfect diameter, and the ice-skating glide of the perfectly-tuned, very wet nib -- is that the pen seems to disappear completely in the hand. I feel as though I am waving an empty hand above the paper and the ink magically appears behind it. The overall performance is some Platonic ideal of penhood, the form so in tune with the function that it vanishes completely, leaving only its finished work behind. For anyone who has been told they should switch to fountain pens for medical reasons -- carpal tunnel pain, RSI, arthritis -- this is exactly what the doctor (literally, in my case) prescribed. There is no need to squeeze, no need to apply pressure. Despite all three conditions I just listed, I can write pages at a time with this pen without tiring or feeling pain. This is the most effortless writing experience I have found in over a decade of collecting excellent fountain pens. It is not a pen for everyone. If you prefer a bit of feedback from your nib, you won't find it in the medium nib. If you prefer a bit of flex or line variation, this is not the pen for that. If you want the ease of cartridges, you should note that this pen uses bottled ink exclusively and will never accept a cartridge. If you want a glassy, near-gushing-wet nib that floats across the paper on a buffer of ink and lays down a bold, reliable line, in a pen that feels like nothing at all in the hand, skip my decade of searching and just start here.
