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.

Rose No. 5

Journal notes remind me that exactly five years ago to the day, I brought home from Shosaikan in Tokyo a new bottle of ink, a color that impressed me as a lone standout among inks. The color was Arabian Rose from Private Reserve. In 2006 purple inks were few in number and apart from Pelikan Violet, there was little to choose from. On my shelves at least, there was only the bottle of violet (Pelikan) and from De Atramentis a darker purple, Nicolaus Copernicus. Fast forward five years and you can easily find a wide selection of purple inks. The Goulet Pen Company offers a choice of thirty-two.

One of the many great things about Brian & Rachel and Goulet Pens is their monthly Inkdrop offer of five sample inks for a reasonable cost. The February theme is “My Inky Valentine” and is a selection of five ‘rose’ inks: (1) J Herbin Rose Cyclamen, (2) Noodler’s Ottoman Rose, (3) Noodler’s Shah’s Rose, (4) Private Reserve Rose Rage and (5) Private Reserve Arabian Rose.

With a bottle of Arabian Rose already on my ink table, the sample from Brian & Rachel was rather than an introduction, more along the lines of a reminder. For a long time Arabian Rose has been absent from my line up of weekly inks, but thanks to Inkdrop it has rediscovered the spotlight.

I’ve read reviews comparing this Private Reserve color to other shades by other makers, but no one has convinced me, or shown me yet that Arabian Rose is similar to another shade of purple. The closest match I’ve been able to find is a sister ink from Private Reserve, Plum. Compare the swatches on the right. The big difference is in saturation, but on the written page this difference is hard to detect. The color has an elegance to it, and while it is not an ‘office’ color, it makes up for that with practicality on the home front. Perfect for letters, cards and journals. Curious as to what would pop up, I googled Arabian color images—through squinted eyes the dominant color in the page of samples is pretty close to Arabian Rose ink.

The pen used to sample the ink today is a vintage Pelikan 100N with medium nib. I call it my ‘communist’ fountain pen, one that had its heyday in Budapest of the 1950s. (I bought it from a dealer in that city.) No question of ink flow and smoothness, the Private Reserve ink moving across the page like the silk of ballet shoes, a pas de deux of fine pen and ink. Shading is good, though some might wish for more saturation. I hesitate because I don’t wish to make that a complaint; the saturation of this ink is not a negative.

Drying time? Here is something that many users might find fault with. Arabian Rose is still sopping wet after fifteen seconds on the page. On the other hand, it is quite waterproof. I wrote several lines on white premium 90g copy paper and after allowing the ink to dry for ten minutes ran it under cold tap water for thirty seconds. The result was nine lines of still legible writing.

In the end it really comes down to the color. This could be the ink to nudge a person beyond the confines of standard shades. Arabian Rose is almost guaranteed to evoke comments from friends who see it in cards and letters. A good choice for Valentine’s Day. As Brian & Rachel suggest, be somebody’s inky valentine.

Tea & Walnuts

Two very warm and individual brown inks arrived yesterday from Brian Goulet’s Inkdrop. This time Brian has selected an assortment of samples which he very aptly calls, “Mudslinging,” and which includes five shades of ‘muddy’ brown ink, plus a bonus sepia ink new from Private Reserve. Of the six samples, the Lie de Thé from J Herbin grabbed my attention right off, because it’s an ink long on my wish list. The other color that struck me as bold and off the curve is the Noodler’s Walnut.

Hard to speculate on what is prompting the interest, but judging from all the variety out there now, brown ink has suddenly become the new thing in ink colors. Look back as recently as two years ago at what was then available in brown, and you’d have difficulty seeing more than three or four brands offering a brown ink. Seems now that every ink maker out there is stirring up pots of brown.

But in my opinion brown is a hard color to get right. I expect that mixing up a batch of something in the ‘brown’ family is pretty basic at this point, but getting it right, getting all the desired qualities working together in an original shade is perhaps where the challenge lies. And to my delight, there are a few of them who have gotten it bang on target.

J Herbin’s Lie de Thé is one of those, and Noodler’s Walnut is another—one milk chocolaty, the other dark and bold. No hesitation in describing the Walnut ink as dark and bold, but I have sat staring at the Herbin ‘related to tea’ ink for forty-five minutes and still can’t settle on an accurate comparison. It does not look especially like tea, even tea with milk; it doesn’t look like coffee, nor milk chocolate. Because of a faint yellowish cast, what I am most reminded of is a spoonful of water stirred into soil from China. What I can say about this color is that—for those partial to brown—it is a pretty shade, and one that is standard enough to be rated useful, and not merely a mood ink. You could sign your mortgage with this ink and illicit no more than “Mmm…pretty color” from your banker. In the same sense, the Noodler’s Walnut is dark enough to pass for brown-black under ‘civilian’ eyes. For my tastes these browns are a combination made in ink heaven.

Writing… I tested the Herbin Lie de Thé in a Lamy 2000 with what I believe is a medium nib. (The Lamy 2000 carries no identifying marks as to nib size.) Granted the Lamy is a most agreeable pen, but it is sensitive to an ink that lacks cooperation, and with Lie de Thé, ink and pen sort of hit it off and wove themselves into immediate partnership. Great flow of ink; the Lamy 2000 tends to be a wet pen. Shading is good, giving to the lines what most would call a good balance. Saturation is okay, but this is not a shade that invites deep saturation, though there is enough to produce the kind of written page most are comfortable with. I will give this mix from J Herbin a bunch of gold stars, and soon dial up Ink Nouveau for a bottle of Lie de Thé.

For the Noodler’s Walnut I chose a Sailor Professional Gear, medium nib. This pen is what I call picky about inks, and is often quick to stubbornness with certain inks. I have on occasion felt like it was flashing signals telling me to change the ink. But it took right to the Noodler Walnut, and I admit to being surprised at that. With notable exception, Noodler ink has been less than cooperative in many of my fountain pens. Not so with the Walnut, and this too is one I will buy, or beg from Santa. With this one you will get tremendous saturation that leaves the backside of your paper free of all but the faintest show through. Shading is hard to discern, though it is there when you look carefully. Darker inks tend to not advertise their shading.

I scribbled a lot with both these inks and never had a problem with slow drying time. Reasonable and not an issue, though left-handed writers may have some concern.

My conclusion? Click on Goulet Pens and get yourself a bottle or sample of these well-rounded mudslinger browns.

Ink or Drink: It’s Good

In my childhood, along with the bottles of Coca Cola we all swigged through peanuts poured into the bottle neck, there were the dark brown bottles of Orange Crush. Of the two, the latter was always my favorite, but the growing popularity of Coke had already begun to nudge Orange Crush from the cold drink machines. Fact was, the Coca Cola company had already taken over those machines, all painted red with the white Coca Cola lettering. Still, the old Orange Crush soda pop in the dark brown ridged bottles was No. 1 with me.

Back in March of 2006, while browsing in Tokyo’s pen boutique Shosaikan, I came upon an ink from Private Reserve named Orange Crush. It had been years since those words had come to mind, and before even picking up the bottle of ink, I experienced a flood of Orange Crush memories that momentarily overrode any thoughts of ink and fountain pens. My head was quickly filled with images of a time before soft drinks thunked out of change-making vending machines, of the days when you reached an arm down into the icy water of a big, boxy, red cooler full of things like RC Cola, Nehi Strawberry and Orange Crush.

But back to the ink, I’m sure I would have bought it for the name alone, even if the color had not been to my liking. Stores in Japan allow customers to sample inks and fountain pens, and pretty soon I had a page filled with Orange Crush squiggles, doodles and lines of gibberish. True enough, the color did ring true to the old Orange Crush memories, and I bought a bottle.

It turned out to be a disappointing experience for me, and very likely for many other customers as well. The Private Reserve ink held true for about one month, and then the color became corrupted through some quirk in the chemistry. I returned to Shosaikan and learned that the store’s entire stock of Orange Crush had suffered the same horrible fate of alchemy. The ink turned an ugly, dirty yellow, and was consigned to a back corner of the ink cupboard.

Fast forward four and a half years and a package of autumn Inkdrop samples arrive in the mail. Among the six sample inks is that old, and hopefully improved Orange Crush from Private Reserve.

That same nostalgic thrill was missing this time around, and it’s only a couple of weeks later that I’ve gotten around to giving the ‘new’ ink a look-see.

Best thing about this ink, apart from the evocative name and richness of burnt orange color, is the shading. I just might have a hard time finding another ink that shades as BEAUTIFULLY as this Private Reserve Orange Crush. A similar color is available from Noodler’s called Cayenne, but the shading of that ink doesn't even approach this Private Reserve orange.

For those who want a more detailed description and comparison, I recommend the recent review of Orange Crush at Ink Nouveau.

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.

Heart of Blue

One definition tells us that blue is, ‘a color whose hue is that of the clear sky, or that of the color spectrum lying between green and violet.’ For most people blue evokes thoughts of water, sky and perhaps universe. Who hasn’t seen the well-known photograph of a blue earth viewed from space. Apart from sky and water, blue carries a wide range of associations. It is at times a calm, peaceful color, one aligned with infinity, eternity, faith, purity, chastity and peace. Illustrations often show the Virgin Mary and Christ wearing blue. The color has also been linked with melancholia, probably a connection that grew out of the blues sung by African slaves. Another more modern link is with pornography, or the ‘blue movies’—dim screenings of once secret films.

Surveys might suggest that a majority of people polled choose blue as their favorite color. That certainly has been the trend as far as fountain pen ink goes. Blue is the first color of ink offered by ink makers, and since the 20th century has long been a standard color in documents where black once dominated. Without checking sales charts, I would venture to say that the average person buying ink today will choose something close to the standard blue.

But for some of us looking for blue ink, there is an urge to look past the familiar stand by and go for something further along the spectrum. Distinctive fountain pen ink is enjoying a wave of popularity among many these days, especially for those of us with a passion for interesting inks.

From ten bottles of blue ink I have selected six for their special, unusual or particular qualities. Again, I make no mention of writing quality, but focus only on color. Similar to the earlier post on green ink (here), this swatch sample, too shows color, maker and tool used to produce the sample swatch. Starting at the top left and reading across and down…

1. Turquoise • Montblanc • Brush

2. Blue • Pelikan • Q-tip

3. Blue • Conway Stewart • Brush

4. Kon-peki • Pilot Iroshizuku • Q-tip

5. Blue Suede • Private Reserve • Folded paper

6. Hans Christian Andersen • De Atramentis • Pen

Sadly, the Montblanc turquoise is another ink the company has decided to discontinue. I will sorely miss it when my last bottle comes up empty. The Pelikan blue is a standard shade, and in my opinion inferior to none. The Conway Stewart blue is another standard, one with a good depth. As so many of the Iroshizuku inks are, the Kon-peki is a standout, and a particularly distinctive and beautiful blue. Blue Suede by Private Reserve is another color that shows some distinction. To me, it is nothing less than exquisite. Another in the famous names series, Hans Christian Andersen from De Atramentis is close to the Blue Suede, but darker and thereby a touch more traditional. I have one friend who uses this ink exclusively for business papers.

And last, from the imagination of one young student contemplating it all:

“Blue”

BY DAN AT THE ORCHARD SCHOOL

Blue are blueberries freshly picked

a sapphire stone

and an aquamarine shine

Blue is the color of ink in a pen

A long line that never ends