Collecting hype
Children love these pens – and they get on parents’ last nerve
Bears, penguins, unicorns: Legami’s colorful animal pens are a hit with children. Many people spend all their pocket money on this, to the chagrin of parents and teachers.
Two girls, both barely older than ten, are standing in front of a stationery shelf. They make long faces. “We don’t have the Christmas pen here,” says one, and just to be on the safe side, she digs deep into the box that contains colorfully patterned pens. Some are green with a dragon head, blue with shark fins, or black and white like a panda bear. “I already have them all,” the girl grumbles quietly. Her favorite, a reindeer pen with Christmas trees, is not included.
“Unfortunately, the Christmas edition is already sold out,” says the saleswoman in a Hamburg bookstore who became aware of the two children. The sentence comes out of her mouth often during Advent. Not only for parents who want to use the pens to fill their children’s Christmas calendars, but also for students who are chasing the latest models. Because hardly anything is as popular as the colorful ones right now .
Legami pens are traded like rarities
Parents, grandmothers, uncles and godmothers have long been familiar with the brand from Milan: it stands for fineliners for erasing that are decorated with colorful animals or cartoon characters. They are collected, exchanged and hoarded like treasure. Although the product catalog is as extensive as a thick telephone book, the company is best known for the pens, which are available individually or in sets of three for special occasions. The Halloween edition was sold out after a short time in the fall. The Advent calendar also sold completely within just a few days. It originally cost 46 euros, but it has long been sold on eBay at top prices. Collectors and desperate parents don’t care that it contains erasers and highlighters, but only one of the coveted gel pens. Even in mid-December you still pay 190 euros for it. The main thing is that their Legami-crazy children finally calm down!
Why do plastic pens with funny animal caps that neither glitter nor make any noise cause such hysteria? “The pens are cute, but not tacky,” says Manja Milberg, owner of the Hamburg stationery store Otto FK Koch. They have been part of it since 2022 to their range and the demand is not slowing down. Since you can erase the ink and always buy new refills, the gel pens are very popular. This became apparent a few years ago when Frixion pens came onto the market. They were also able to make the writing disappear using the heat generated by rubbing. But the brand never achieved hype like Legami.
The Italian company has been around since 2003, but sales grew primarily due to the animal and themed pens. In its home country, Legami operates around 100 of its own shops, and the brand is represented in bookstores and stationery stores in 70 countries. It has recently also been available in the USA. The company report on Legami’s homepage shows how successful the company has been in recent years. Since the company was founded, sales have increased rapidly. In 2022 it was still at 76 million euros, in 2023 it was already 143 million euros.
Children sacrifice their pocket money for the pens
The fact that the pens are now often located near the checkout is reminiscent of whining areas in the supermarket. Since they only cost about two euros, they are like take-away items. Parents also buy them for their children every now and then for no reason, if the children beg long enough. The price of 1.95 euros is also so affordable that girls and boys can afford the pens with their pocket money. It only becomes difficult when the pressure increases to own all 30 models. Then the animal bargain quickly becomes a bullying trap. Because not every family can afford to fill their children’s pencil cases with animal pens from monkeys to zebras.
But as successful and popular as the pens are, teachers don’t like to see them at all. Because in children’s cases they don’t replace the felt pens, but the fountain pens. Legami instead of Lamy – more and more teaching associations are resisting this. In their opinion, writing with a fountain pen strengthens the fine motor skills of primary school children and helps them to write legibly. Many people also ban Legami pens in class work because the writing can be easily erased.
The two girls leave the Hamburg bookstore that day without a Christmas pen. But her disappointment has disappeared. Both of them are holding their cell phones in their hands; they saw on TikTok that there was supposed to be a store in the city center that still had remaining stock. “My mother is taking us there now,” says one of the two. The Legami hunt continues.
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Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
