Review: $8 knock-off of a Lamy 2000
plus: a pile of owls
This is the Jinhao 80.
It is notable for (1) having the same outward appearance as a Lamy 2000 and (2) only costing $8.
It’s the perfect pen if you want to impress people who know the Lamy 2000 and you can always come up with a plausible reason for why they can’t handle the pen or see you write with it.
That’s because while these pens look very similar at a quick glance, things sort of break down when you take the cap off or handle it.
That is: imagine you told your friend that you bought a Mercedes and when he saw it he said “wow that looks great, can I ride in it” and you said “no” and then he asked “why not” and then before you could stop him he opened the hood and instead of an engine there was just a pile of owls.
That’s what this is like.
For example, the Lamy 2000 has a matte texture made of Makrolon, a made-up marketing word for some kind of fiberglass composite. And while neither “fiberglass” nor “Makrolon” sounds particularly appealing, the pen really is incredibly pleasant to the touch.
The body of the Jinhao 80, on the other hand, is made of Ewgrossitex, a trade name I just made up for a plastic that feels inexplicably and perpetually oily.
You can attempt to fix this with a Clorox wipe; it will not work. You may also feel like whatever substance is on the pen gives you a headache, and then you may in turn think to yourself “that’s absurd, stop being stupid,” and then you may get in your head about that and that may give you a headache. (Or not; it’s possible the pen I bought was just a dud. It is safe to say a $8 price point may require some quality control compromises.)
Moving on to the nib: the Lamy 2000 uses a tiny little nib made of gold.
When assembled, this is mostly concealed by a metal hood so you can pretend there’s a regular-sized nib under there.
This nib is compatible with zero other pens, including other Lamys.
By contrast, the Jinhao 80 uses a regular-sized steel nib that is compatible with every Lamy pen except the Lamy 2000. The ultra-extra-fine on my Jinhao is also better than every other Lamy nib I own.
This is actually really nice, but it’s safe to say no one is going to confuse these two pens with the cap off.
Moving up the pen, the Lamy 2000 has a tapered bullet grip, which is to say no grip. I’m just going to re-use the diagram from my original Lamy 2000 post to explain how this works.
By comparison, the Jinhao 80 has a regular grip. Like, a grip-shaped grip.
While this grip is fine and works fine and that’s kind of all a grip is supposed to do, its does lack the pen-enthusiast gatekeeping function of the Lamy 2000, wherein you earn your membership in the community by going through the entry rite of spending several years trying to figure out how to hold it comfortably and then gush about what an amazing design it is to perplex the uninitiated.
And of course, this is not all. The Jinhao has a plastic snap-on cap instead of some kind of mechanical fin-based cap securing system, fills with a converter instead of a piston, and has a decorative metal ring instead of an ink window.
Because of course it does. It’s $8!
It does write really well, but I could not get over the texture and how it made me think I always had stuff on my hands and/or was losing my mind. I now just use the nib in my Lamy pens, but that alone was worth $8.
To conclude: should you get it? Well, do any of these describe you?
You want an ultra-extra fine nib that works on your other Lamy pens and this is cheaper than having one ground by a nibmeister
You want to engage in a long-term troll of a coworker who is into pens by insisting you have purchased a “new version” of the Lamy 2000 and this is what they look like now
You have always wanted a Lamy 2000 but hate how it’s not covered in some kind of weird oil
You already have a Lamy 2000 and are tired of covering it in weird oil yourself
You only have $8 and want to waste it on a kinda-sorta Lamy 2000 knock-off instead of two of Jinhao’s vastly superior shark-shaped pens
If any of those apply, go for it. Otherwise, just use your $8 to buy two shark pens and have a shark fight.
I love this post. It's really on point and thoughtful while still being amusing and just a tiny bit snarky. Full disclosure, I do own 2 L2Ks and do have some previous Chinese tribute pen to the Lamy. It's not oily, but does dry out quickly, which the Lamys never do.
One more reason: you want to be able to drop it without having a heart attack because you dropped the real deal!