The Ultimate Lamy 2000 Fine Vs Medium Nib Comparison!

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The Lamy 2000 is one of the most popular intermediate level fountain pens currently available on the market with both its reputation and sales steadily increasing with each passing month since its release. The pen has so many things going for it that it was guaranteed to be a big hit due to its very fair price tag for the level of performance and build quality that Lamy delivers.

Just like the majority of other fountain pens at this price point in the market, the Lamy 2000 is available the four main nib sizes. As the extra fine and broad are the least popular of the available nib points, we have decided to focus on the fine and medium nibs for this article. Due to the popularity of the Lamy 2000 as well as the fine and mediumnibs being the most popular options on the pen by far, we are confident that our article will be able to help people who are considering adding the Lamy 2000 to their collection.

Although the Lamy 2000 fine nib point definitely does have its place in the market and a huge user base, we do feel that the medium nib point will be the better option for the majority of our readers. Although we will go into more detail as to why we feel that this is the case throughout our article below, we also have our comparison table that gets many of the reasons across quickly for any of our readers who are short on time.

Lamy 2000 Fine Vs Medium

Pen
Our Pick
Lamy 2000 Medium Point
Lamy 2000 Fine Point
Image
Lamy 2000 Fountain Pen Black Medium
Lamy 2000 Fountain Pen Black Fine
Nib Material
Rhodium-Plated 14k Gold
Rhodium-Plated 14k Gold
Smoothness
Super Smooth
Smooth
Feathering
Scratch
Nib Creep
Writes Wet
Replaceable Nib
Our Rating
Lamy 2000 Fountain Pen Black Medium
Lamy 2000 Fountain Pen Black Fine
Our Pick
Pen
Lamy 2000 Medium Point
Image
Lamy 2000 Fountain Pen Black Medium
Nib Material
Rhodium-Plated 14k Gold
Smoothness
Super Smooth
Feathering
Scratch
Nib Creep
Writes Wet
Replaceable Nib
Our Rating
Lamy 2000 Fountain Pen Black Medium
Check Current Prices
Pen
Lamy 2000 Fine Point
Image
Lamy 2000 Fountain Pen Black Fine
Nib Material
Rhodium-Plated 14k Gold
Smoothness
Smooth
Feathering
Scratch
Nib Creep
Writes Wet
Replaceable Nib
Our Rating
Lamy 2000 Fountain Pen Black Fine
Check Current Prices

We will now be going over some of the points covered in our comparison table in more detail as well as a few other points that we feel are relevant when comparing the Lamy 2000 fine and medium nib points to each other. As we touched on above, the fine point nib does have its place in the market and it is hard to get this across in a small comparison table so it could be the better option for your situation. That said though, we do defiantly feel that the Lamy 2000 Medium Nib will be the better option for most of our readers.

Comparative Nib Sizes

The first thing that we want to cover with regards to the listed nib points for the Lamy 2000 is that they run wider than listed. If you are new to using Lamy pens then this can take some people by surprise as the majority of western fountain pen brands have standardised their nibs so customers know what to expect with a listed nib size but the Lamy 2000 decided to shake things up a little.

The Lamy 2000 fine point nib is somewhere between a regular fine and medium nib and the Lamy 2000 medium point nib is somewhere between a medium and a broad nib. This is due to the production process that Lamy uses to create their pens to keep quality as high as possible and to only resort to machining where essential.

This means that you can have two Lamy 2000 pens in front of you that are both listed as a medium point nib but one will write like a regular medium but one will write closer to a regular broad nib. Although some people don’t like this feature of the Lamy range, most people don’t mind it as so many competing fountain pens at this price point are now all machined meaning they often all have the same faults if there is a problem during the manufacturing process.

Writing Feel

It is harder than most people think to comment on the writing feel of a pen as each person has their own individual standards and preferences. We are confident in saying that the Lamy 2000 fine nib does offer a smooth writing experience no matter what quality of paper you are writing on.

In our opinion, the Lamy 2000 medium nib offers a super-smooth writing experience that has a clean and glassy feel to it when you write with the pen. That said though, this does definitely taper off with lower quality papers and if your handwriting is smaller than average. If you do have smaller than average handwriting or know you will be writing on cheaper paper the majority of the time then the fine nib will probably be the better option.

Although the Lamy 2000 extra fine can be a little scratch to write with, the fine and medium nibs are not so neither lose points for having a scratch writing experience. Although the smoothness of the medium nib does reduce with cheaper paper, it is still far from being a scratch pen and provided you are using a decent fountain pen ink with your Lamy 2000, you will have no issues.

Ink Performance

Both the fine and medium nibs of the Lamy 2000 write wet and this if even more so when using a wetter ink with your pen. The medium nib does definitely lay down more ink due to its medium size and the ink feed being slightly larger so the wetness of the pen tends to remain consistent throughout, even for any longer writing sessions. The fine nib tends to start out wet but then dry up a little as the ink flow starts to reduce after writing for an extended period of time.

If you know that you will be using your Lamy 2000 for longer writing sessions on a regular basis and you are a perfectionist then the Lamy 2000 Medium Nib definitely wins this section. Its consistency, even when used for an extended period of time keeps your writing looking the same throughout the document or notebook whereas the fine nib does tend to change the way your writing will look after it dries up a little.

In addition to this, we have seen a number of reports that the Lamy 2000 fine nibs can feather with wetter inks on a regular basis. Depending on what you are planning to be doing with your pen, this may not be a major issue but we have not seen any reports of feathering with the medium nib variant of the Lamy 2000 from the community. With wetter inks becoming increasingly popular for fountain pens, we just wanted to make our readers aware of this as this could be a deciding factor in the nib size that you choose for your pen.

Nib Creep

Another issue that can be common with the fine point Lamy 2000 is that it can suffer from nib creep. This can become worse throughout the day as you apply and remove the cap of the pen for use forcing you to have to waste time in a potentially busy day to clean the nib creep to keep the pen in working order. In our opinion, even though the Lamy 2000 is at the lower end of the intermediate fountain pens price range, this is not acceptable and are surprised that Lamy have not managed to work this issue out of the fine and extra fine point sizes.

On the flip side of this though, nib creep is minimal for the medium and broad point sizes of the Lamy 2000 helping to score the medium nibs additional points over the fine nibs. Now, just to confirm, if you will not be using your pen often throughout the day or will be using it for extended periods of time at once then the nib creep on the fine nib may not be an issue but we just wanted to point it out.

Paper Performance

We feel that this is an area where the Lamy 2000 fine nib does push out ahead of the medium nib as the fine nib remains consistent in its writing performance across all paper qualities. Depending on what you will be using your pen for, this can definitely score the fine nib points over the medium nib and make it the better option for you.

As we touched on above, the medium nib variant of the Lamy 2000 does tend to write smoother than the fine nib on better papers such as tomoe river paper but their writing experience is close to neck at neck on regular paper with the medium nib being ever so slightly worse on cheap paper. If you know you will be writing on high quality of regular quality paper the majority of the time, this is not an issue to worry about but again, we just wanted to make our readers aware of it.

Recommended Ink

One of the best things about the Lamy 2000 is that it performs very well with a huge range of different ink products on the market right now. This is one of the reasons that the pen has been so successful with the community of fountain pen fans as you are not tied down to using a small range of inks when writing.

Due to this, you can often get away with using your favorite ink with your Lamy 2000 and have an excellent experience. That said though, if you don’t have a preferred ink we would highly recommend that you give the Noodlers Ink range a try with a Lamy 2000 as it really is a match made in heaven. Even if you do have a preferred ink type that you have used for years with other fountain pens, we would still recommend that you at least pick up a small bottle of Noodlers ink just to try with your Lamy 2000.

Noodlers Ink performs very well with all four nib point sizes of the pen and offers a glassy, super smooth writing experience without having to break the bank for your ink supply. Many Lamy 2000 owners seem to agree that Noodlers Ink is one of the better options for the pen on the market right now as it seems to be the most popular ink type used with the pen.

Writing Comparison

We know that many of our readers will want to see a writing comparison between the two nib sizes so we wanted to share the video below. It offers plenty of writing comparisons between the Lamy 2000 fine point and medium point nibs so you can clearly see what you are getting. In addition to this, there are also comparisons to some other popular fountain pens at this price point on the market right now too.

Replaceable Nibs

Although this applies to both the fine and medium variant of the Lamy 2000, we do want to quickly mention that it is an absolute nightmare to source replacement nibs for the pen. Although the build quality of the Lamy 2000 is excellent and it can easily last you over a decade if you treat it with care, accidents can happen and getting a replacement nib is extremely hard due to the unique nib design Lamy have chosen to go with.

Although some specialist pen stores do carry replacement nibs for the Lamy 2000, they are almost always salvaged nibs from damaged pens that the store have been able to recover. For whatever reason, Lamy have decided to not make replacement nibs for the 2000 widely available like they have with the rest of their range and the ones that can often be found online cost almost as much as a brand new pen!

We know that this can put some people off the Lamy 2000 range of fountain pens with some people opting to go with the Pilot Custom 92 instead. This is because replacement nibs for the Pilot Custom 74 are easy to source and the Custom 74 and Custom 92 both use the same nib size. If you do choose to go with the Custom 92 over a Lamy 2000 as you feel you may need to replace the nib yourself with a nib from a Custom 74, please don’t swap the feeds on your pen! Just fit the replacement Custom 74 pen to your Custom 92 and be done with it, there is no need to play with the feed during the process.

Conclusion

As we have touched on throughout our article above, the Lamy 2000 fine nib really is an excellent fountain pen that can definitely be the better option for some people for the specific situations highlighted in our article above. That said though, we feel that the Lamy 2000 Medium Nib will be the better option for most people as it offers better performance and a better writing experience in more writing situations.