Imperial Purple, Diamine

Last week in a car museum I saw a Lincoln Sedan Delivery Deco Liner, with a Harley Davidson. In a bright dark purple. The car was out of reach, but such an ink color might not be. Searching online I found Diamine's Imperial Purple. Beautiful and bright, especially in a broad and web nib. A bit too much for the workspace, but excellent for all sorts of personal writing. The color is pleasant to read, which makes it suitable for personal notes and correspondence.

I found the ink a bit more dry than usual from Diamine, but other than that the ink behaved very good. The shading is phenomenal. No feathering and negligible show-through. Water makes an instant mess of the ink, be careful.

Compared to other purple inks this is by far the most saturated, bright and dark purple. Montblanc's Lavender Purple is more red. So is Herbin's Larmes de Cassis, and much less saturated. The closest match is Améthyste de l'Oural (Herbin 1798, shimmer ink). That ink is darker and less bright.

Imperial Purple is a good color to have in the collection!

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Gele oker van Frans, P.W. Akkerman

P.W. Akkerman in The Hague has a series of Dutch masters, based on colors 17th century Dutch painters used. It is a nice series, with some lovely colors. Stone red by Vermeer for instance is amongst my favorite ink colors. And these bottles, absolutely stunning! Gele Oker van Frans (Yellow ochre by Frans) is based on paintings by Frans Halsema.
But why this color? It's likely to cause eyeball cancer or at least some severe retinal burns. Observing the sun through binoculars is less painful. The ink is nearly impossible to read on Crown Mill or Rhodia paper. A broad or stub nib is a necessity, or even a glass dip pen.
The ink characteristics are simply good. Akkerman has high quality inks and this one is no exception. No feathering, no show through, moderate wetness, sufficient lubrication and some nice moderate shading. Drying times below average and water resistance very poor. With a price of around 25 euro for a 120ml bottle, the inks are very reasonably priced too.
But this col…

Esenin, Noodler's

The ink looks quite toxic in the bottle, but I do like red inks and a Moldovan friend likes the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin, so when I stumbled across this bottle, I had two reasons to buy it. For the occasion and for fun, I experimented with Russian handwriting.
It's a typical Noodler's ink. The color is neither ugly nor beautiful, the bottle is chock-full (careful), the ink dries quickly and it behaves decently in almost every pen and on every paper. Plus, it's not very expensive. Looking further at the characteristics I was amazed with its behavior on Crown Mill Vellum paper... even after a few seconds the ink didn't smear anymore. Incredibly fast! There was hardly any feathering, but be careful with a dip pen or broad nib, the ink didn't do very well with that. Show through is significant, even on heavy 90g paper. Shading is low. You don't have to be afraid that an occasional spill of water will ruin your writing. I left water on the grid for 20 seconds be…

Red Fox, Mont Blanc, Le Petit Prince

Red Fox is a Montblanc Limited Edition, based on their Le Petit Prince series. The ink is a dark brown orange, not unlike the fur of a fox. I wasn't sure what to expect of this ink to be honest, reviews are mixed, but in the past week I have been writing a lot with it. It's great for personal use and at the same time, despite being a dark orange, it's a color that you can easily use in an office environment to take down notes. For longer reads the color remains pleasant.

The ink and its color surprised me and I must say, Ireally like this ink. At 35 euro for 50 ml the ink is expensive, but well worth it.

It's a high quality ink. As expected, no feathering, no bleed-through on decent paper, shading is strong and excellent and the ink behaves extremely well in my Parker Duofold (medium nib). Lubrication is a bit better than most Montblanc inks I know but still, some pens have difficulties with it. TWSBI and Montblanc is not a good combination for instance. This is a non pe…

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