Four Favorite Inks

It’s been some time since Scriblets has featured a post from the world of fountain pens and ink, and as a result the feeling of neglect is knocking about in my head. Easy to explain in some ways and daily habits do still include the use of one or more fountain pen and a whole assortment of inks. Most of my pens get a regular workout, and I’m often dithering over this or that ink to a degree many would call unreasonable. Still a passionate hobby, but one that has been affected in a large way by a change of scene.

It could be true that only a fountain pen hobbyist who has made the move from a major city to a very small and isolated town can understand the impact of change as far as fountain pens and inks are concerned. For many years my world was a heavenly realm of pens, ink, paper and fellow enthusiasts, Tokyo a paradise of stationery goods, an anytime avalanche of choices from basic to connoisseur. My little post-Tokyo beachtown in Florida is home to those for whom a Bic ballpoint and a giveaway memo pad are instrument enough for whatever needs jotting. And my guess is, you’d be confounded if you were shopping for a color other than black, blue or red. The inability to browse and experiment has had a negative influence on my love of pen and ink. Sure, there is a wide world of choices to look at and buy on hundreds of different websites, but my initiation was hands-on and looking at a digital image onscreen is nothing compared to holding it in my hand and giving it a try.

But still I scribble with my assortment of fountain pens, change ink for small reason, dabble with bottles of ink and Q-tips, read what I can to keep up with the game but purchase little outside of ink or paper from online stores. I can count on one hand the fountain pens I have purchased untested from online sources. Happily though, ink continues to be an easier and more trustworthy buy from distant vendors. Unless someone is badly screwing up the scans or photos of swab samples, ink is a safe bet without actually getting it on your fingers before purchase.

I have my favorites, though they change often enough to confound those on the outside, whose first question is always, “How will you ever use so much ink?” But for those on the inside, the question is hardly relevant. I have a bottle of Montblanc black ink purchased in Tokyo in 1985 which only improves with age; rather than using it up my concern is making it last. Ever changing, the three or four at the top of my list this month are shown below, all colors I use if not every day, then every other day. The case will probably be different in two or three weeks, but for now…

None of them new, and one unfortunately discontinued, these are the inks that color, stain, smear and highlight my journal pages these days. The oldest is the marvelous classic shade of gray-green from De Atramentis, Charles Dickens. Next is in my opinion an incomparable Turquoise from Montblanc, an ink no longer available and another I use carefully. Wine inks can be risky and shouldn’t be left too long in a fountain pen, but the Dornfelder from De Atramentis is one hard to deny. Nothing too special except it is a shade of red that appeals to me. The Diamine Denim is the newest and a very special shade of blue that instantly erases thoughts of ‘boring blue’ and hits the target dead on in terms of name and color. Seems like they stole the color straight out of the Levi Strauss dye pot.

The samples above (from top to bottom) were written with: (1) Pelikan Souverän 600 and De Atramentis Charles Dickens ink; (2) Sailor Profit with a Naginata nib and De Atramentis Dornfelder ink; (3) Montblanc Marcel Proust pen from the famous writers series and Montblanc’s Turquoise ink; (4) the wonderful Pelikano Junior with Diamine Denim ink.

All of the inks are available at Goulet Pens, where quality and service are unbeatable.

Seven Oranges

Prompted by Brian and Rachel Goulet’s October inkdrop from Goulet Pens, I went digging in my ink stacks pulling out some resonant oranges to line up beside their “Autumn Leaves II” October inkdrop palette. Pretty much a sucker for inks in the orange range, and with shades enough to satisfy any Halloween or Autumn theme I have probably wasted money on some I too rarely use. But addiction to ink being what it is, the phrase ‘waste of money’ doesn’t easily get through to me.

In one important characteristic, orange inks are like their distant cousins, the grays. For both colors to work well they must have good saturation, otherwise the words wash off the page and a reader will have to squint to read. No matter how beautiful an ink is in the bottle, or in a swab test, if it produces hard-to-read lines of writing, then you don’t have an ink that is very useful. I could name a half dozen orange inks that fail the test—I have a few bottles gathering dust—but for this comparison I left those inks out and lined up seven oranges that have rich saturation and are not difficult to read on the written page.

Another thing about the seven inks displayed here is that each one comes from a reputable company consistently producing quality inks. The range is broadly international, covering inks from the US, Switzerland, Germany, England and Japan.

A word about each…

The inks on the chart here are by no means listed 1-7 in any particular order of preference or quality. It is a totally random arrangement.

1. Private Reserve Orange Crush: I lied. Private Reserve’s Orange Crush is one of my longtime favorites that has as much to do with a childhood full of Orange Crush pop as it does with the richness of the color. This one is perhaps the most saturated of the seven and produces lines that can almost be called delicious.

2. Caran d’Ache Saffron: Similar to Diamine’s beautiful Pumpkin ink, this one too has the needed saturation, and a softness not seen in the Orange Crush. Part of the Earth Colors series from Caran d’Ache, it is a perfect fit, looking much like something squeezed from the earth.

3. De Atramentis Buonarroti Michelangelo: De Atramentis has long been a favorite ink maker and this one comes from Dr Jansen’s Historic Persons series. Very close to butterscotch and not terribly far from its Saffron neighbor, this ink definitely has a renaissance flavor, a color familiar in the works of Michelangelo.

4. Diamine Sunshine Yellow: Perfect name for a near golden yellow-orange. Sprinkle some orange zest beside this ink and it would be a match. This is one in the October inkdrop which arrived yesterday and there hasn’t been time yet to try it a pen, so I am trusting the saturation will be similar in a written sample.

5. Sailor Custom Mix Persimmon: Another ink that is always in one of my fountain pens, it was mixed by Osamu Ishimaru at a Tokyo pen clinic. I placed a persimmon on the table and asked him to match the color. No question he hit the bullseye. It is the color of late autumn persimmons hanging on trees in Japan.

6. Iroshizuku Fuyu-gaki (Winter Persimmon): No argument with Pilot and blenders of the Iroshizuku inks; they too have captured the essence of persimmons. My tiny complaint about the color is that it is closer to the color of the fruit in autumn and not winter. As the fruit ripens you will see more red.

7. Iroshizuku Yu-yake (Sunset): Another ink I like despite not using very often. That isn’t because of anything that bothers me specifically, except that it always looks better in a swab than it does in a letter, journal or notebook scribble. Saturation is fine and it has all the good qualities of Pilot ink.

For those with a penchant for orange, red-orange or yellow-orange inks, any of the above seven will do the trick and have your pens drunk on smoothness. Except for the De Atramentis Buonarroti Michelangelo they are all available at Goulet Pens, where the service is No. 1. If you are interested in the De Atramentis ink, it is available at Art Brown.

From Fidel with Love

Been three years at least since I bought a bottle of Waterman Havana ink. For a couple of months after that I used the ink regularly, never overly fond of it, but then not really disappointed either. I liked having seven or eight pens inked with a variety of colors and the Havana fit well into that custom. Some months passed and for one reason or another the Havana slipped into the background among the bottles on my shelves. In all honesty, it began to collect dust from lack of use and when the day came to pack it all up for shipping to Florida, the Havana got dusted off, wrapped carefully and nestled safely among its brothers and sisters in a big packing box. Unpacked and resettled on its new shelf it once more began to collect dust. Until I read something the other day about Waterman Havana on Peninkcillin.

Chances are good that Peninkcillin is already a familiar site to many, but if not then let me be one to recommend it. Especially for pen and ink lovers it’s a good read. But back to the Waterman Havana…

Reminded of the old bottle on my shelves, long unused and nearly forgotten, the urge came to once more dust it off and give it a wake up scribble. Since it's a Waterman ink I decided to fill a Waterman Carene medium nibbed pen with Havana and see if it balanced out with my earlier impressions.

The challenge that Waterman faces with this ink is the recent popularity of brown inks and the dozens of new colors in the brown range that have been introduced in the last couple of years. There was a time when brown ink was uncommon and there weren’t more than one or two companies producing it, but that has changed and these days brown ink is battling traditional colors for place. Sepia ink especially has enjoyed a boom, and with the appearance of Pilot’s Iroshizuku series the bar has been raised. Their Tsukushi (Horsetail) and Yama-guri (Mountain Chestnut) are top of the heap. Then came Maruzen’s Athena ink and a limited edition (1000 bottles only) of a hard to beat Sepia. Noodler’s has entered the competition with their class A Walnut ink and Diamine Chocolate is no less impressive than Chocolate Truffles from Godiva.

The result of all that leads to a slippery slide for Waterman Havana. The first swab I made today reminded me of nothing more than Shinola brown shoe polish, a comparison I have also used to describe Montblanc Sepia (or here in the US, Montblanc Toffee Brown). Surely there are many who like the particular brown typified by shoe polish, and for them the Havana will meet expectations. As one who especially likes brown ink, color-wise the Waterman Havana leaves me lukewarm.

Waterman makes high quality ink, of that there is no question. Like my favorite Waterman, Florida Blue, the Havana performs well in all the areas that draw attention. The shading is good, neither too much nor too little, and on both white and cream colored paper the result is a good balance. Saturation is good, and on the paper I used for testing—bright white copy paper and Rhodia Webbie cream-colored paper—drying time was exceptionally fast. Two, three seconds at most and the ink is bone dry. That might be particularly good news for left-handed writers.

I allowed the example in the second photo here to dry for an hour and then put it under running water for close to forty-five seconds, allowing it to lay submerged in cold water. At the end of that every word was perfectly legible. Let no one tell you Waterman ink is not waterproof.

In the end, chances are good I will go back to my favorite browns in the Iroshizuku and Maruzen families after using the Havana now in the Carene fountain pen. Waterman of course has never pretended to be a frontrunner in the production of ink, and the feeling now with the Havana ink is that the Waterman ink blenders have allowed it to be superseded by other inks in the brown spectrum.

Keep an eye out for a future Waterman Havana review from Peninkcillin. His review will most likely be more thorough than the one here.

Splish Splash

Always a noteworthy day for us ink mavens when a new batch of inkdrop samples arrive from Goulet Pens. Of course, after one look at the ink already stacked up in my workroom almost anyone would write me off as hopelessly obsessed. I remember chatting with nibmeister Nobuhiko Moriyama in Tokyo one day, and his casual comment—with a smile and the experience of having seen it often enough—that I was suffering from an ink malady. I plead guilty, if guilty is the correct word. I like my ink and sometimes feel undressed if there aren’t multi-colored ink stains on all ten fingers.

As is the case in each and every aspect of business at gouletpens.com, the inkdrop samples go out in the mail promptly on the first day of each month. Not the first time to say it, but no one beats Brian and Rachel in customer service. They do it all so very, very well. As is usual, the samples arrived in my mailbox before the fifth day of the month. Unlike last month however, the five samples this month arrived with the names of each sample attached. April was “Guess What” month as far as the brands and names went, an experiment that didn’t work for me, but in defense of Brian and Rachel’s unnamed mail outs, they did include labels this month for the unnamed ink last month.

The five inkdrop samples this time are: (1) Noodler’s Apache Sunset, (2) Diamine Majestic Blue, (3) J Herbin Poussière de Lune, (4) Iroshizuku Kon Peki and (5) Noodler’s Cactus Fruit Eel. Forget for a moment the individual colors and consider what a impressive set of inks this is as a group. Brian calls them the ‘Goulet Favorites’ and in response to that I am prompted to say the man has perfect pitch in putting one ink against another and another. The five shades seen in the photo here are well matched—the spicy orange Apache working so well with the dusky purple from J Herbin, the Iroshizuku blue a perfect sidekick to the richness of the Diamine Majestic, and that matchless Cactus Fruit tying the knot.

No attempt here to evaluate the in-pen-on-paper qualities of the inks, too much enjoyment this first trial just splashing and dabbing, swishing and smearing with brush and Q-tip. The Iroshizuku Kon Peki is an old friend, one that has impressed for a long time with its behavior in a number of different pens and on different paper. Thanks to recommendations from Brian I’ve come to know that Diamine is a class ink, rarely failing to please in saturation, shading and depth of color. Noodler’s ink has on one or two occasions disappointed when it comes to performance, but that is by no means a write off. Several Noodler’s inks are among my regulars. J Herbin in my experience has never performed as anything but an excellent high quality ink in all the fountain pens I’ve paired it with. Why should the Poussière de Lune be any different?

I look forward to filling a few pages with each of the five inks and getting an idea of what they look like coloring words and not just splotches. The Cactus Fruit especially is calling my name.

An Oddly Named Beauty

Got a feeling that I’m moving backward on the autumn colors with today’s look at a GREEN ink. Anyone might have guessed that after pumpkin, orange crush and red would come brown, or something close, and I did actually consider writing about a brown ink. But I got blindsided by a green ink new to my eyes, and as chance would have it, I have sort of a thing for green inks.

I still think of Diamine as an ink new to my fountain pens. It is not marketed in Japan—or at least it wasn’t when I was last there several months ago—and my Diamine experiences before today were limited to Sapphire Blue, Syrah and Pumpkin. One quick look at Diamine Umber was enough to send a bottle to my Brian Goulet shopping cart. Like I said, I have a passion for green inks, and Diamine Umber is pretty much a green unto itself. I lined it up beside six or seven other related greens and none of them are a close match. I would say the closest match is Conway Stewart Green, but where the Diamine Umber employs a touch of gray to tweak the green, Conway Stewart shows a hint of blue.

‘Umber’ has to be called an odd choice for the name of a color that, simply put is not umber, and not even close. True umber is an earthy brown showing no trace of green. On the other hand, Diamine Umber ink is an earthy green showing no trace of brown. Go figure. But let me be clear on this point; forget about the name and feast your eyes on this remarkable mix of green. I don’t really care for the word, so rarely use it, but the Diamine Umber is gorgeous. I ordered a bottle from Goulet Pens on Saturday, and Brian got it to my mailbox on Monday morning. How’s that for service? —and including still the handwritten note of thanks for my order.

Filled one of my favorite pens with the new Umber, a Sailor 1911 Large, medium nib re-crafted by John Mottishaw of Classic Fountain Pens. Putting the pen to a sheet of Clairefontaine 90g paper I was impressed from the first line. The Sailor 1911 is a wet pen and handles the Diamine ink very well, with a beautiful shading. I wouldn’t describe it as a very saturated ink, and it certainly produced no show through on my sample. The result was not so good on the few lines I tried using cheap copy paper. The shading was still good, but the bleed through was nasty. I’m thinking that Diamine Umber is an ink to save for better grades of paper.

The review of this Umber by John Gill on Ink Nouveau offered an interesting waterproof test I wanted to try myself because the set up was one familiar to us all. You’re writing in your journal or otherwise in a coffee shop or café and a drop of water spatters your page… What happens? Grab a napkin and blot the already dry Diamine Umber and the result is a word, or words still legible, small mess, no problem.

In looking at definitions of the word ‘umber’ as it applies to this ink, I found one description that bordered on what I see in this earth tone green. Somewhere in the world lives an Umber Moth brownish gray in color, a coloring that resembles tree bark. Reading that I thought, forget the moth and imagine instead the moss or lichen that we sometimes see growing on tree bark. In that lichen I can see the beginnings of Diamine Umber.

Steeped in Orchid

I never win anything. When I got word the other day from my friend Julie at Whatever that I won her Wancher ink giveaway, I figured something went wacky with the stars and planets. Maybe the moon is in the seventh house, as the flower children used to say. Such a rare phenomenon, I almost emailed Julie to say she’d better have Vanna White spin the wheel again just to be sure.

The ink arrived today, and I’ve been playing with it for the past couple of hours, testing it, comparing it to similar inks, and generally getting my hands so messy it looks like I’ve been squishing grapes in my hands. The ink is from a seller in Tokyo who makes (at least for now) only five colors: Matcha Green, Asuka Brown, Tenmoku Black, Imari Blue, and the one I have here, Ebine Violet. Believe it or not, he sells a 50cc bottle for $3.50.

The ‘violet’ in the ink Wancher has named Violet Ebine tôyôran was inspired by the purple of the Calanthe orchid. Let me include a brief of the explanation found on the Wancher ebay site:

‘This purple is the color of the Japanese tôyôran, which is ‘Calanthe orchid’ in English. In Japan the orchid has a long history dating back to the Edo Period (1600-1867). Orchids were loved by the rich nobles of the time, and the plants were often covered by a gold or silver net for protection. Flower viewers were required to cover their mouths with paper so as not to breathe on the orchids.’

Personally, I like very much the orchid-like beauty of this Wancher Violet Ebine. From first glimpse I recognized it as an ink I would go back to again and again. The only thing is, color and shade wise, there is not really anything to call completely individual about the color. In no time at all I pulled five other colors from my ink shelves that bear a close resemblance. But in saying that I intend no criticism. These days, it is quite difficult for even the top ink makers to come out with a color that is totally individual. Just too many out there, from Diamine, Noodlers, Private Reserve and J Herbin, to expect that one of them will release a never before seen color of ink. Subtlety, nuance and a hint of native color are what we can expect in the ink market of today. And of course, an ink that behaves well in more than one pen, on more than one kind of paper.

At first look, I thought the Wancher Violet Ebine resembled Private Reserve’s Plum. A little longer look and I thought of PR’s Arabian Rose. So, I decided to line up five inks beside the Violet Ebine. As it happens, all five are close enough to fool even the likes of Brian Goulet. The six inks in the photos here are from top to bottom:

(1) Private Reserve Plum

(2) Private Reserve Arabian Rose

(3) Diamine Syrah

(4) Wancher Violet Ebine tôran

(5) Iroshizuku Yama-budo

(6) Iroshizuku Tsutsuji

I call the Violet Ebine beautiful, but amidst such close similarity we have to consider performance. The best way to get a well-rounded feel for the ink was to try it in three different fountain pens, on three different kinds of paper. So that’s what I did.

(A) Montblanc Meisterstück Doué on Life Noble Note cream paper—The pen moved smoothly across the page, laying down wet, but unshaded lines of ink. Noticed right off that nib creep is a problem with this ink, in this pen. On this first test, I found the Violet Ebine comparatively fast drying.

(B) Pelikano Junior on Clairefontaine 90g paper in a Rhodia Webbie—The pen and ink both move well together on this paper. However, shading is almost non-existant. The flow of ink is good and not so wet on this thicker, richer paper. Drying time not quite as fast as the first trial.

(C) Waterman Carène on white Clairefontaine Triomphe stationery—Again almost no shading, and once more a case of nib creep. Drying time is the slowest on this paper. The Carène flows smoothly with this ink, wet, but not so much as on the Noble Note paper.

I might hesitate to say that the Wancher ink is performance wise in the same category as big name inks like J Herbin and Montblanc, or Diamine and Pilot Iroshizuku, but this Violet Ebine tôran from Wancher is not at all a bad or inferior ink. I rather like it and expect it will have its share of use in my fountain pens. If you’re partial to purple, or near purple inks, this one might be for you.

And thanks, Julie.