Legami Friends Reference
At the airport on our way to Lisbon last year, my daughter came across a Legami gel ink pen with a little plastic unicorn clipped to the barrel, and immediately bought it. We knew of the brand, and seen other products of theirs before, but not this particular style.
A few days later, in the oldest bookstore in the world, we found a whole stand of other variants—teddies, llamas, even a panda; which she of course had to buy, as her favourite animal. From there, the collection began.
We started trying to find all the different animals we could. The ink varies in colour from pen to pen, and each animal has a little slogan on the barrel. Legami call it their Lovely Friends range, and I wanted them all!
Every time I thought we’d gotten all there were, I’d come across a one off in an independent stationery store or at the back of a corner shop, so I finally decided to actually do some research and figure out what the entire collection was.
Inspired by Robb Knight’s Mildliner’s reference, the end result of this is a new micro site I’m calling the Legami Friends reference. It includes all Lovely Friends pens (21 at the time of writing), along with their ink colour, pun-filled slogans, and details on any multipacks they’re available in or the occasion they were released for. My research led me to also include the erasable versions that feature the same Friends characters—there are a whopping 64, and many older out-of-production ones are listed for ridiculous prices on eBay.
The site lets you filter by pen type, ink colour, occasion, multipack, or character. I will endeavour to keep it up to date as new pens are released and older ones retired, and whilst I think it’s as complete as I can get it, I am sure there are some details missing. Let me know if you come across any out there!