brandonh
October 19th, 2013, 01:47 PM
Hero 359: The Lamy Safari Knockoff
The Hero 359 fountain pen is a a plastic knockabout school pen that features a "triangular" grip, stainless steel nib, international cartridge/converter filling, and all the good looks of a Lamy Safari. Here is a brief rundown of the Shanghai Hero Pen Company's Lamy Safari clone, the Hero 359.
As a longtime Lamy fan and a Lamy Safari collector of late, I was skeptical of the Hero's ability to deliver on the tried and true design of the Lamy. When news and pictures hit the Internet last summer, I was curious to get my hands on the Hero. When I saw 359s emerge on eBay earlier this week, I went to the king of Hero sales in the USA, Todd Nussbaum. (I've been buying pens from Todd for years, but he doesn't know me from Adam).
I don't claim objectivity here, but I want to give the Hero a fair shake. Consider these initial impressions until I've had time to spend with them.
Now where I have I seen these before?
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3674/10366033256_f04c04971d_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366033256/)
Ah yes...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7319/10366046506_9d09f58d1b_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366046506/)
Look closer, there are some differences…
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5482/10366034035_70af4cbcc6_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366034035/)
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7369/10366035085_f4e043c578_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366035085/)
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3681/10366050856_4c8c7f4f82_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366050856/)
Completely interchangeable nibs. The best part of the Hero 359. (That's not saying much.)
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7318/10366051936_5948ef12a3_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366051936/)
Safari has two flat and two rounded planes (sides) on its body as seen at right; the Hero 359 is rounded most of the way around with one flat plane (side) as seen at left. Note the poorly finished plastic work on the Hero 359.
Can't beat the real thing
I liked Hero 359 when I unpacked the shipping box: friendly colors, good looks, cheeky ripoff. Could this be a contender? Hero 359 sits in hand much the same as Lamy Safari. The colors are subtly different (see post below for color comparisons). The clips look pretty well indistinguishable. I kept grabbing for the Hero and nabbing a Safari, and vice versa.
The basic measurements of size, length, and weight are roughly the same, though the tolerances are not exact. For example, you can't reliably swap a Hero cap for a Lamy. The threading of section and body is not the same across brands either, so you can't create a frankenpen.
My earliest "nice" pens were a Lamy Vista, Lamy Al-Star, and Lamy Safari. I've always appreciated their reliability and performance. However, I didn't recognize the details Lamy puts into production until I got tried the Hero 359.
An example: The metal Lamy Safari clip exits the cap through two holes on a level horizontal plane, before being bent down. Every Safari from my collection (a large sample size) exits the whole at the exact same angle. On the 7 Hero 359 specimens, the clip exited angled up, down, and only twice on the level.
Another: The Lamy Safari design doesn't have the most robust cap I've ever owned, but it caps and uncaps with a satisfying click. I can post the cap when I want to write and I know that it will post at the same spot across all of my pens. The Hero 359 was stiffer to cap and uncap; different colored caps didn't seem to want to switch bodies; big variation in how well the cap posted; some sections unthreaded from the body with normal writing; and so on.
The Lamy Safari feels like it was engineered to perform well. The Hero 359 feels like it was engineered to be good enough.
A few positives
Hero 359 comes in purple.
Showdown round
(+) to the winner (-) to the loser (/) for a draw
Filling system
(+) Hero 359: international cart/converter filling system; converter included with pen
(-) Lamy Safari: proprietary Lamy cart/converter filling system; cart included with pen
Point to Hero 359 for using non-proprietary filling mechanism and supplying international converter
Nib and writing
(-) Hero 359: stainless steel nib. Hard to pull off/swap out. Nibs write consistently dry out of the box.
(+) Lamy Safari: stainless steel nib. Sure you may get a dud every now and then, but these at least swap out.
Point to Lamy Safari for quality control on nibs. (I bet you never thought you'd read that in a fountain pen review.)
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7390/10366042875_afbb66b32d_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366042875/)
Clip
(-) Hero 359: chrome clip. Way too stiff and tight; hard to clip to shirt placket or pants pocket using one hand.
(+) Lamy Safari: chrome clip. Springy but secure.
Point to Lamy Safari.
Cap and posting
(-) Hero 359: Wildly varying ability to post cap on the body amongst the amongst the 7 pens I tried. I felt like I had to force the caps on and off. Swapping caps and bodies didn't help.
(+) Lamy Safari: Opens and closes with satisfying feedback. Caps are interchangeable. Caps post with no resistance.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5479/10366053126_53dc18881d_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366053126/)
Presentation
(/) Hero 359 clear plastic presentation box; some pens visibly scuffed.
(/) Lamy Safari paper presentation box.
Draw. They are both ugly, cheap, and functional. Who buys a pen for the box, anyway?
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2870/10366047734_208d7e4a8a_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366047734/)
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5511/10366252943_b65928b668_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366252943/)
A note on copyright and patent
The Hero 359 is clearly a knockoff/clone/ripoff of the Lamy Safari. However, it is not a copyright infringement. It is not a patent infringement. It is not a trademark infringement. As odious as some might make it out to be, Hero is within its right to produce such a brazen knockoff. Here's why. (I am no legal expert, so don't base your business model on what you're about to read.)
Copyright is generally reserved for creative endeavors: a novel, a musical recording, a painting. Section 106 of the US Copyright Act of 1976 gives the owner of a copyright the exclusive rights to reproduce a work, prepare derivative works, and distribute copies of a work to the public by sale, lease, or rental. Well, clearly the Hero 359 is a derivative of the Lamy Safari! I don't disagree. However, copyright generally does not apply to "useful articles" which have a utilitarian function, such as clothing, furniture, vehicles, and even fonts and fragrances.
So how does Lamy protect its research and development of the Lamy Safari design if copyright protection is not available? Through patent protection. A patent gives exclusive rights to an inventor for a fixed period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of a new invention. There can be utility patents (that protect a functional process, machine, or article of manufacture), design patents (that protect ornamental design), and plant patents (that protect the breeding of agricultural good, such as apples). In this case, Lamy filed to patent (http://www.google.com/patents/USD264854) the ornamental design of the Lamy Safari in the USA on July 30, 1980. While I am not familiar with German patent law, I do know that most patents expire in 17-20 years--meaning the ornamental design of the Lamy Safari is no longer protected by patent.
Conclusion summary
The Hero 359 looks a lot like the Lamy Safari. The nibs are even interchangeable. For me, that's where the positive comparison stops. Heidelberg has nothing to fear from Shanghai. I like owning these pens for my Lamy Safari collection; if you're only interested in trying it out, I recommend the purple pen.
http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/3.0/88x31.png (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) by Brandon Hollingshead for fpgeeks.com, October 2013. This license extends to all text, images, and videos associated with this work.
The Hero 359 fountain pen is a a plastic knockabout school pen that features a "triangular" grip, stainless steel nib, international cartridge/converter filling, and all the good looks of a Lamy Safari. Here is a brief rundown of the Shanghai Hero Pen Company's Lamy Safari clone, the Hero 359.
As a longtime Lamy fan and a Lamy Safari collector of late, I was skeptical of the Hero's ability to deliver on the tried and true design of the Lamy. When news and pictures hit the Internet last summer, I was curious to get my hands on the Hero. When I saw 359s emerge on eBay earlier this week, I went to the king of Hero sales in the USA, Todd Nussbaum. (I've been buying pens from Todd for years, but he doesn't know me from Adam).
I don't claim objectivity here, but I want to give the Hero a fair shake. Consider these initial impressions until I've had time to spend with them.
Now where I have I seen these before?
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3674/10366033256_f04c04971d_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366033256/)
Ah yes...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7319/10366046506_9d09f58d1b_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366046506/)
Look closer, there are some differences…
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5482/10366034035_70af4cbcc6_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366034035/)
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7369/10366035085_f4e043c578_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366035085/)
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3681/10366050856_4c8c7f4f82_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366050856/)
Completely interchangeable nibs. The best part of the Hero 359. (That's not saying much.)
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7318/10366051936_5948ef12a3_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366051936/)
Safari has two flat and two rounded planes (sides) on its body as seen at right; the Hero 359 is rounded most of the way around with one flat plane (side) as seen at left. Note the poorly finished plastic work on the Hero 359.
Can't beat the real thing
I liked Hero 359 when I unpacked the shipping box: friendly colors, good looks, cheeky ripoff. Could this be a contender? Hero 359 sits in hand much the same as Lamy Safari. The colors are subtly different (see post below for color comparisons). The clips look pretty well indistinguishable. I kept grabbing for the Hero and nabbing a Safari, and vice versa.
The basic measurements of size, length, and weight are roughly the same, though the tolerances are not exact. For example, you can't reliably swap a Hero cap for a Lamy. The threading of section and body is not the same across brands either, so you can't create a frankenpen.
My earliest "nice" pens were a Lamy Vista, Lamy Al-Star, and Lamy Safari. I've always appreciated their reliability and performance. However, I didn't recognize the details Lamy puts into production until I got tried the Hero 359.
An example: The metal Lamy Safari clip exits the cap through two holes on a level horizontal plane, before being bent down. Every Safari from my collection (a large sample size) exits the whole at the exact same angle. On the 7 Hero 359 specimens, the clip exited angled up, down, and only twice on the level.
Another: The Lamy Safari design doesn't have the most robust cap I've ever owned, but it caps and uncaps with a satisfying click. I can post the cap when I want to write and I know that it will post at the same spot across all of my pens. The Hero 359 was stiffer to cap and uncap; different colored caps didn't seem to want to switch bodies; big variation in how well the cap posted; some sections unthreaded from the body with normal writing; and so on.
The Lamy Safari feels like it was engineered to perform well. The Hero 359 feels like it was engineered to be good enough.
A few positives
Hero 359 comes in purple.
Showdown round
(+) to the winner (-) to the loser (/) for a draw
Filling system
(+) Hero 359: international cart/converter filling system; converter included with pen
(-) Lamy Safari: proprietary Lamy cart/converter filling system; cart included with pen
Point to Hero 359 for using non-proprietary filling mechanism and supplying international converter
Nib and writing
(-) Hero 359: stainless steel nib. Hard to pull off/swap out. Nibs write consistently dry out of the box.
(+) Lamy Safari: stainless steel nib. Sure you may get a dud every now and then, but these at least swap out.
Point to Lamy Safari for quality control on nibs. (I bet you never thought you'd read that in a fountain pen review.)
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7390/10366042875_afbb66b32d_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366042875/)
Clip
(-) Hero 359: chrome clip. Way too stiff and tight; hard to clip to shirt placket or pants pocket using one hand.
(+) Lamy Safari: chrome clip. Springy but secure.
Point to Lamy Safari.
Cap and posting
(-) Hero 359: Wildly varying ability to post cap on the body amongst the amongst the 7 pens I tried. I felt like I had to force the caps on and off. Swapping caps and bodies didn't help.
(+) Lamy Safari: Opens and closes with satisfying feedback. Caps are interchangeable. Caps post with no resistance.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5479/10366053126_53dc18881d_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366053126/)
Presentation
(/) Hero 359 clear plastic presentation box; some pens visibly scuffed.
(/) Lamy Safari paper presentation box.
Draw. They are both ugly, cheap, and functional. Who buys a pen for the box, anyway?
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2870/10366047734_208d7e4a8a_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366047734/)
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5511/10366252943_b65928b668_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamy2000/10366252943/)
A note on copyright and patent
The Hero 359 is clearly a knockoff/clone/ripoff of the Lamy Safari. However, it is not a copyright infringement. It is not a patent infringement. It is not a trademark infringement. As odious as some might make it out to be, Hero is within its right to produce such a brazen knockoff. Here's why. (I am no legal expert, so don't base your business model on what you're about to read.)
Copyright is generally reserved for creative endeavors: a novel, a musical recording, a painting. Section 106 of the US Copyright Act of 1976 gives the owner of a copyright the exclusive rights to reproduce a work, prepare derivative works, and distribute copies of a work to the public by sale, lease, or rental. Well, clearly the Hero 359 is a derivative of the Lamy Safari! I don't disagree. However, copyright generally does not apply to "useful articles" which have a utilitarian function, such as clothing, furniture, vehicles, and even fonts and fragrances.
So how does Lamy protect its research and development of the Lamy Safari design if copyright protection is not available? Through patent protection. A patent gives exclusive rights to an inventor for a fixed period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of a new invention. There can be utility patents (that protect a functional process, machine, or article of manufacture), design patents (that protect ornamental design), and plant patents (that protect the breeding of agricultural good, such as apples). In this case, Lamy filed to patent (http://www.google.com/patents/USD264854) the ornamental design of the Lamy Safari in the USA on July 30, 1980. While I am not familiar with German patent law, I do know that most patents expire in 17-20 years--meaning the ornamental design of the Lamy Safari is no longer protected by patent.
Conclusion summary
The Hero 359 looks a lot like the Lamy Safari. The nibs are even interchangeable. For me, that's where the positive comparison stops. Heidelberg has nothing to fear from Shanghai. I like owning these pens for my Lamy Safari collection; if you're only interested in trying it out, I recommend the purple pen.
http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/3.0/88x31.png (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) by Brandon Hollingshead for fpgeeks.com, October 2013. This license extends to all text, images, and videos associated with this work.