Bottled Clover

My first bottle of Montblanc black ink dates from around 1982 or 83. Still have that bottle. Nobuhiko Moriyama of Fullhalter pen shop in Tokyo told me that the ink is probably better now than when it was purchased. Have to trust him since he worked for Montblanc thirty years before opening his own store specializing in Pelikan and Pilot fountain pens. Whatever the vintage, Montblanc inks have for a long time been a great favorite of mine and at present there are fourteen bottles on my ink shelves. Two of my favorite colors—Turquoise and Racing green—have been discontinued and as a result are now rationed inks.

January’s issue of the Japanese magazine Shumi no bungu bako (Stationery Hobby Box) included a notice (and page sample) of the latest ink from Montblanc—Irish Green. Obviously they needed something to replace the very popular Racing Green, and why not a color at the other end of the green spectrum, something evocative of the Emerald Isle? The new Irish Green is a fresh green, a color that reminds us of clover, and while it is a big step away from the darker, browner Racing Green, it is a welcome shift if a tiny bit familiar in shade. Good chance that many will find Irish Green too much like other greens and lacking in individuality. I won’t argue that except to say that Montblanc’s quality is a large part of its singularity. Montblanc’s stronger focus is on writing instruments, but their history is long in a country that to many is undisputedly the premier maker of ink and fountain pens. All that history and quality is unmistakably a part of Montblanc inks.

The Irish Green flows beautifully—I tried it first in a Sailor Naginata with an M nib—laying down a smooth line with minimal shading. I personally would like to see more shading, but the freshness of the green may be an influence. Would impress me to see a page of Irish Green resemble more a patch of clover with dark and light highlights. That isn’t what I see, though disappointment is not a word that applies. I tried the ink on three different kinds of paper and all three liked the ink, leaving minimal show through and zero feathering. The best results were with white Clairefontaine Triomphe stationery, where the shading was more noticeable. It has a short drying time, much faster than several American inks I could name, but is also less waterproof that the bulletproof inks. I held a page of the Irish Green under running water for thirty seconds, leaving the words faint but at least legible if you get your squint just right.

Surprising that the $18.00 price tag (at a Montblanc store) is higher than the cost of the same ink in Tokyo. I could buy the ink there for $15.00 at one of several Montblanc stores. Understandable that Pilot Iroshizuku inks cost more here, but the Montblanc price caught me off guard.

For some green ink junkies maybe the high price tag is worth a spot-on Saint Patrick’s Day ink.

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.

Trying to Find the Color

[The embedded sound clip of Chopin’s Prelude Op. 28 No. 4 in E Minor at the bottom may lend a faint breeze of color as you read the words below.]

Chopin is at the piano, quite oblivious of the fact that anyone is listening. He embarks on a sort of casual improvisation, then stops. Nothing will come… nothing but reflections, shadows, shapes that won’t stay fixed. ‘I’m trying to find the right colour, but I can’t even get the form…’ ‘You won't find the one without the other,’ says Delacroix, ‘and both will come together.’ ‘What if I find nothing but moonlight?’ ‘Then you will have found the reflection of a reflection.’ The idea seems to please the divine artist. He begins again, without seeming to, so uncertain is the shape. Gradually quiet colours begin to show, corresponding to the suave modulations sounding in our ears. Suddenly the note of blue sings out, and the night is all around us, azure and transparent. Light clouds take on fantastic shapes and fill the sky. They gather about the moon which casts upon them great opalescent discs, and wakes the sleeping colours. We dream of a summer night, and sit there waiting for the song of the nightingale…

Despite the appearance of the words ‘blue’ and ‘azure’ in this George Sand description of Chopin composing, I like to think that the ink blender at De Atramentis pondered this excerpt when he mixed the green called, Frédéric Chopin. The words seem to imply that the composer may have seen colors in notes.

Not the first time I have written about the Frédéric Chopin green ink from De Atramentis, but in the earlier post about green inks, a swatch was all that was offered of this distinctive shade of green.

At one point along the process someone tagged this ink with a ‘pine green’ label, but that isn’t what I see. Pine green suggests a color with a tinge more yellow and less gray or black. One quality of the De Atramentis famous name inks is the conjuring of exactly what you imagine that famous person would have in his or her fountain pen. The first moment I saw the Chopin ink I felt it reflected the composer.

J. Herbin’s Vert Empire is close to the De Atramentis green, but with more gray. I suspect the two could be confused without a careful comparison. In writing out the sample lines in the attached scan, I had to stop and start over two times because of smeared ink, so I would call it a slow drying ink. There is no feathering or bleed through, and minimal show through on Clairefontaine paper, and both saturation and shading are good. For my example, I filled a Platinum 3776 with Chopin green and the ink behaves beautifully in this pen. Excellent flow and lubrication and zero nib creep.

There are seventeen famous name inks from De Atramentis on my shelves, and the Frédéric Chopin green is neck and neck with my number one favorite, Charles Dickens. Strong recommendation for this composer’s special green.

Green Squiggles

The location of ink around here is for the time being haphazard. The Kugayama ink cabinet was something not shipped from Japan, and as a result there are now homeless ink bottles about, stacked in untidy rows on top of a chest. Staring at those bottles, I moved a few of them around, trying to put some order to the jumble. I’ve always been a sucker for green ink (among a half dozen other colors), so ended up with six bottles of green ink off to one side, the finalists chosen from a baker’s dozen of different greens.

I balked at the idea of filling six different pens to accommodate each of the greens, so divvied them up among pen, Q-tip, brush and folded paper. My purpose was to get a good, clean color sample, no more than a swatch of each color, and to leave out any observations about drying time, shading and such. I am happy enough offering just a simple color chart of green inks.

The attached scan may be difficult to read as far as the descriptions go. Here’s the order of colors and tools used; start at the top left and read across and down…

1. O-cha Green (Green Tea) • Sailor, order blend • scribbled with a pen

2. Racing Green • Montblanc • Q-tip

3. Conway Stewart Green • Conway Stewart • Brush

4. Frederick Chopin • De Atramentis • Folder paper

5. Shin-ryoku • Pilot Iroshizuku • Brush

6. Gin & Lime • Itô-ya Cocktail Ink • Q-tip

My favorite remains year after year the now discontinued Montblanc Racing Green. Some may find the bottom right, Gin & Lime a beautiful ink, and I would agree, but warn that it is a difficult color to read. Despite my fondness for the Iroshizuku inks, the Shin-ryoku comes off weakest in this line up. Always liked the Conway Stewart, but how can you not like that luscious blue-green. The Frederick Chopin is from the famous names series by De Atramentis, with a ‘pine green’ label attached to the ink. I like the heaviness of the green. I’ve saved Sailor’s O-cha Green for last, because it holds a special place in my nuttiness for ink. There is rarely a time when a pen loaded with this ink is not within my reach.