Shane of The MIG Shed has been on Fountain Pens Australia for several years ago. At some point the topic of me reviewing one of their pens came up and today before what became a successful Kickstarter campaign I was send this pen for review.

The MIG Fountain Pen was originally a hand made pen that has taken a few different versions over the years, I believe, until it got to a point where it was able to be mass produced and turned into a Kickstarter. The campaign reached all of its stretch goals and the pen came in brass, copper, titanium and black (titanium oxide coated brass). As I had already received this Fountain Pen I backed the campaign with a bolt-action ball point that I will use at work.

The pen I received for review is Brass with knurled brass grip but the grip is also available as a grid pattern with different materials.

Unlike too many manufacturers and designers who try to obfuscate where the products is made, assembled or designed, MIG are very up front about production. They have designated their mass produced products as “+61”, a reference to Australia’s country calling code. In a page on their site they discuss the reasoning behind outsourcing manufacturing for some of their products. I appreciate the openness with this.

Details

The brass is just that, brass. As a material this is not an unfamiliar material. The machining is very crisp with seemingly very fine tolerances. You can’t see of feel the seems, granted the seems also occur near the textures grip section.

The clip is at an angle but I am told this was an issue with early production tests (of which this is from) and is not an issue with final production versions. The clip is fairly small and made of steel. It is the size of the whole cap, more or less, and a simple shape. My clip is quite firm but easy enough to clip onto clothing. The clip also contains the only branding with M I G etched vertically into it. The cap itself is fairly small. Both the finial on the cap and the body are the same with a flat round brass cut with smoothed edges.

Nib

Iridium Point! Sometimes a phrase that is not well received among the fountain pen community. That is because of “IPG” nibs, or “Iridium Point Germany”. IPG nibs are often extremely cheap nibs with no quality control at all. They may write and if they do they often won’t feel good. But this is not an IPG nib! It is a Schmidt Iridium Point! Schmidt is a major nib maker like JoWo and Bock and you’ll get comparable quality with all three brands. They aren’t perfect all the time but they have decent quality control and are mostly consistent.

The nib has some generic filigree, an F in a stylised box in the centre and the “Schmidt Iridium Point”. The pen is a well designed and comfortable piece but the nib won’t win any design awards for aesthetic but it doesn’t have to either. It still looks good on the pen and the most important thing is that it writes well. Out of the box this wrote really well. Good flow and no baby’s bottom is a good start!

The nibs is decently smooth with only a little bit of feedback. The flow is consistent as is the line width. Writing with the pen is comfortable even if the pen is fairly narrow. The weight is also quite comfortable.

The line width is quite decently fine for a Western nib. Both Lamy Fine nibs are noticeably broader. This Schmidt Fine is around the same width as a Sailor Fine which is pretty good! It is broader than a Pilot Fine, however. Overall a very nicely sized fine nib!

Dimensions and Comparison

Shown above in its full pen size the MIG Fountain Pen also comes in the Mini Size so that is compared below as well as giving its dimensions. The pen a cigar shape (maybe cigarette shape is closer, especially in its Mini arrangement)! It tapers a little at the end of the barrel but is otherwise straight. It has a short cap which means most of the length is still holdable.

It is a weighty pen! It is heavier than all other capped pens shown here when uncapped! That shouldn't be unexpected from a metal and brass pen of course.

In its Mini arrangement this pen is shockingly small! Capped it is smaller than the Liliput but uncapped and posted it is smaller both times! It has a little more girth still. It is noticeably smaller than the Sport and the Model 45! All of these pens are cartridge only.

Conclusion

This is a well designed thoughtful pen with a well build and solid construction. This should be a pen that handles bumps and falls very well. It is comfortable and it writes well. It’s also nice for me to support a local pen maker.

I also think the price on this is very respectable! While on sale at the time of writing, the prices for the full pen are: Titanium (AU$149.95), Copper (AU$139.95), Brass (this pen) (AU$119.95), and Black (over brass) (AU$149.95). These are all very decent to me. The Mini Conversion Kit comes in at another very respectable AU$29.95. You can also mix and match some parts if you buy the additional kits (additional grips are AU$32.95). I think the prices on this pen are really quite decent, especially for its quality.

As an aside the bolt action titanium pen I backed and received is an excellent work pen for me.

Congratulations to Shane on the successful Kickstarter!

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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I was sent this pen for the purpose of an honest review.

There are many different approaches to notebook systems and the Endless Explorer fits into the modular approach with gives the end user more control over how they adopt the product to their personal needs. The Endless Explorer exploits multiple notebooks and some accessories to provide a reserved but functional experience.

Thanks to Endless for sending this notebook system in for review. Use code MACCHIATOMAN10 for 10% off!

As mentioned in the preamble there are multiple different approaches and The Gentleman Stationer has has a great set of four articles that cover the general concepts and categories (I, II, III, IV). From simple notebooks, to binder-based systems, to single use bound notebook systems, to modular systems. The Endless Explorer sits into the latter (which comparable to the binder-based system but still quite different).

At its core and its most basic the Endless Explorer is a rectangular piece of leather (or vegan cactus leather) with some holes and cuts in it and some elastic bands. This is an oversimplification in one sense but it is still true. An obvious comparison here is to other modular systems such as Traveler’s Notebook or Lochby (and others). The Traveler’s Notebook is not different in that it is a single piece of leather and some elastic bands.

While the binder system allows for individual pages to be swapped in and out and moved about, this modular system is based around smaller but separate notebooks. The idea being to have one than one notebook for different purposes. It can also be used as a simple cover and bookmarks but it allows for more than that. That is a little more restrictive, in one sense, than a binder approach, but this restriction can offer simplicity in approach.

Packaging

The packaging that comes with the explorer is a lovely premium feel box with a drawstring that opens the draw that includes a Regalia Paper Storyboard Notebook and, if purchased, room for a pen loop. The draw is very smoothly operated. Packaging is ultimately not hugely important for any product (behind keeping it safe) but it is nice to see the attention to detail.

Explorer Notebook System

The Explorer is relatively spartan. It only includes the ENDLESS name with their Dash Dot Dot Dot logo underneath that on the bottom of the back of the notebook. The helps otherwise to know which way is front and up when handling the Explorer.

Otherwise the only things visible on the outside of the Explorer is the brown elastic band to keep the Explorer closed and the two red and yellow internal elastic bands for holding notebooks inside. The brown elastic band also works internally as a third holder for notebooks (or potentially as a bookmark)

My Explorer is the simple Brown Leather version but there also exists Green Leather, Blue Leather, Maroon Cactus Leather, Beige Cactus Leather, and Black Cactus Leather. Finally there is also a pocket version which fits much smaller notebooks that is available in Brown Leather.

The pen loops has to be put on last (after closing the Explorer and strapping it closed with the elastic band) and sits on top of everything keeping it more closed. This does mean that you have to remove the pen loop every time to open the notebook, keep it somewhere, and then put it back after you finish. Not a big deal by any means but something to note. An approach like that of Traveler’s Company does (where the loops is clipped onto the leather) means the loop doesn’t need to be removed but also means that there is a loop that can get in the way a little in use (it also somewhat permanently indents the leather). There’s nothing stopping you from using the Traveler’s Notebook Loop or another third party pen loop here but both approaches have the positives and negatives.

The leather is a matte finish with no gloss. This means that it might scratch, stain and age quicker than something with a glossy finish (such as the leather in Traveler’s Notebooks). One of the attractions of leather is how it wears or patinas. I treat my products fairly carefully and I have only had this a few months so I haven’t been able to develop anything so far but it will be interesting to see.

The loop does come in vegan cactus leather as well. The Endless Explorer is 20.6cm x 14.5cm (or 8.1” x 5.7”) with the notepad inside measuring 19cm x 13cm (or 7.5” x 5.1”).

Cotton Wallet Accessory

Along with the pen loop the other accessory provided by Endless is the Cotton Wallet. This wallet adds slots, pockets, and holders to your Explorer to expand its functionality, especially in terms of EDC uses. This is an important accessory for Endless, in my personal opinion. Traveler’s Notebook is an old and very established notebook system and it has many accessories as well as third party accessories. This Cotton Wallet adds a lot of functionality in one single product.

Is this necessary for everyone? No it won’t be. It will depend on how much you integrate this wallet into your every day carry and indeed how you use it. Do you already have a bag or wallet system with lots of pockets you take with you everywhere? Maybe this won’t be needed as much but if try to be more minimal with what you carry with you then this adds options for a bunch of small extras to take around with you. That said, if this notebook just mostly sits on a desk waiting for you to use it at home, maybe this isn’t as necessary. But for those it is useful for I think it is a well thought of an well made accessory.

It offers a large zipped compartment on the back, a cable holder, on the front as well as a larger pocket protected by only a flap this time. Also on the front is a slim deep pocket, a slightly larger deep pocket and three card slots. It offers a decent amount for it’s size.

I was able to fit cables, a Bellroy wallet, a small battery pack, some polaroids.

The Cotton Wallet is well made with leather trims and well regarded YKK zippers. The sticking seems tight and there is a nice piece of leather protecting the end of the zipper section.

Thickness and dimensions

With a Cotton Wallet loaded with what I mentioned above as well as three notebooks the Explorer is a little chunky. The internal notebooks also starts to peak out beyond the leather cover (this also happens with chunky Traveler’s Notebooks so nothing new).

With a thinner Cotton Wallet and two notebooks the Explorer feels like a very practical thickness (as with no Cotton Wallet but three notebooks). With two notebooks and no Cotton Wallet it seems a little sparse (as would a single notebook). I say seems a little sparse only in relation to how thick it can be. It works perfectly fine and looks perfectly fine with a single notebook.

Notebook System Comparison

While The Gentleman Stationer did a great job of this I want to touch on it all the same but this time within the context of comparing some of the others to the Endless Explorer specifically. I have, for better or worse, a lot of notebook systems in various states of use.

At its fundamentals, the Endless Explorer adopts same approach as the Traveler’s Notebook. They are both a simple piece of leather with elastic bands that create a modular system of separate notebooks. The main difference between the two is the size and the accessories. Traveler’s Company, previously under the Midori brand, have well established products with third party and their own accessories to complement the product. The Endless Explorer hasn’t been around as long and so the accessories aren’t as abundant. The Cotton Wallet helps a lot with closing the gap, however. As for paper sizes the Endless Explorer is noticeably wider in practice than the Regular Traveler’s Notebook but technically it is only 2.5cm wider while being 1.4cm shorter. Subjectively I find the Regular Traveler’s Notebook to be an awkward size to work with; I find it too narrow. I, personally, prefer the wider paper of the Endless Explorer and I don’t notice the loss of hight (in comparison to the Regular Traveler’s Notebook). The Passport Traveler’s Notebook more directly compares with the Endless Explorer Pocket but the dimensions of both are below.

The Lochby Field Journal is another modular notebook but this time in builds in the pockets, pen holders and accessories into a larger and more complicated case (this time made out of canvas). With an A5 notebook this whole setup is more standard than the Endless Explorer but is also chunkier (which may or may not be beneficial to you).

Hobonichi is another very popular approach but this one pre-fills the the internals (while giving you lots of options) but limited the purpose to more of a journal or diary. It offers a lot and has a lot of pages but is otherwise restrictive to how you can approach each predetermined sections of the notebook offering very limited customisability. It does have a lot of options for covers and some accessories of which many are third party.

The Milligram Agenda Planner A5 is a binder approach which means that you can completely customise the experience. As each page can be moved around you could technically mix and match different pages. For example you could theoretically put a notes pages after each set of weeks pages to expand notes for the week. Or you could treat it more like a notebook nodular approach with dividers separating items. This approach is much more fiddly but that offers a lot of customisability which may or may not be needed. Again, as it is A5 it is quite a bit larger than the Endless Explorer.

As for paper size of the Endless Explorer’s Storyboard Notebook the size is a peculiar one. Like the Traveler’s Notebook it is unique size. Not exactly proprietary but with practically unique dimensions for Endless. At 18cm x 13cm its closest common paper size would be B6 at 17.6cm x 12.5cm. B6 would then be 0.4cm shorter and 0.5cm narrower. This would mean that if you wanted to put B6 notebooks in the Endless Explorer it would work quite well with limited overlap. While I do think Regalia paper (discussed bellow) is lovely paper if you had B6 size Notebooks you could easily swap them in with little ore no issues.

Regalia Paper

The Storyboard refill notebooks (though they obviously can be used standalone and not as ‘refills’) use Endless’s ‘Regalia Paper’ which is a bright white paper. While some of Endless’s products use Tomoe River, this doesn’t - which is interesting!

The notebooks come in this standard large size or pocket size and can be Dot Grid, Ruled, or Blank and it shows which on a little icon on the front bottom right of the cover. The Regalia Paper is 80gsm and you are give 64 pages per notebook.

The back cover has the Endless Logo as well as details of the notebook.

The stitching down the spine is tight and the single signature text block has many sticking incisions.

Nib, Pen and Ink details

I used either Lamy Safaris. Lamy Vistas, Lamy AL-Stars, a Lamy Joy or a Lamy Studio for these reviews (I can’t remember which exactly) and seven different stainless steel Lamy nibs on that pen. The choice of pen (be that Safari, AL-Star, Vista, Joy or Studio) will have little impact in the writing performance. I will not use a Lamy Dialog because there is the rare chance of the nib drying out slightly which might affect the writing performance.

1. Lamy 1.9 Stub: this is a very wet nib

2. Lamy Broad: this is a wet nib;

3. Lamy Medium: this is a very wet nib; and

4. Lamy Fine: this nib is moderately dry.

The inks used in this comparison and the general characteristics are:

• Lamy Crystal Ink: This ink is high saturation wet ink that presents with a moderate amount of sheen;

• Robert Oster Bondi Blue: This ink is a moderate saturation and moderately wet ink with good lubrication that presents with a low moderate amount of sheen that occurs at the edge of where the ink pools and can show with various degrees of saturation. It can present with decent shading in the right conditions;

• Montblanc Irish Green: This is a drier ink with low moderate saturation that can show with good shading and generally no sheen (apart from on the swatch);

• Bungubox Omotesando Blue: Is a moderate sheen Sailor ink with little shading that is quite dark and moderately saturated that is very wet and can show dual sheen;

• Noodler’s Pushkin: is a poor performing ink. It nearly always feathers and bleeds and displays as quite faded and splotchy; and

• Diamine Skull & Roses: Is a super sheening wet ink with limited shading and high saturation.

These inks were chosen because they offer a variety of different characteristics from dryer inks to wet inks, from flat inks to shading inks, from sheen to no sheen and from high performance quality to low. These inks also come from a variety of manufacturers as well as different regions.

For comparison sake here are other papers using the same inks:

Lamy Crystal Azurite is rich and saturated. It leans a little more blue than some other papers have (but of note is that this paper is very white and some others more yellow which could contribute). It shows a strong golden-green sheen (almost bicolour) on the swatch even the writing has a very decent amount of sheen which is a surprise. The shading is smooth, frequent and low-to-moderate contrast and there is no halo.

As we’ll see later there was some very limited Bleeding on the swatch. No Feathering.

Robert Oster Bondi Blue is more saturated than can be shown here to limitations on colour spaces in the cyan colour spectrum. It has some red edge-sheen on the swatch which is very subtle on the written line and only really in the more saturated parts. Shading has some high contrast and frequency with a sudden gradient; delightful! There is some limited haloing.

As we’ll see later there was some very limited Bleeding on the swatch. No feathering.

Montblanc Irish Green is quite dark and rich on Regalia Paper (which is how I prefer it). There is decent contrast in the shading with a fairly sudden gradient and with decent frequency. There is a subtle halo. The sheen is a subtle dull pink-silver sheen but it doesn’t really show on the written line much (apart from a couple of very wet letters).

No feathering, spread, or bleeding.

Bungubox Omotesando Blue is a fairly rich darker blue. It leans a little more purple than it does teal. The ink is fairly flat but still produces some nice shading with moderately sudden gradients and moderate contrast (if somewhat infrequent). The sheen is a subtle pink on the writing but not very strong. You can see it more on the swatch but still it isn’t a strong sheen.

No feathering, spread, or bleeding.

Noodler’s Pushkin often performs quite poorly with a patchy look to it and with feathering, bleeding and spread being common. It isn’t the worst ink I have ever used but it is probably one of the poorer performing inks that a user might reasonably run into.

On Regalia Paper Noodler’s Pushkin performs excellently! The ink still looks like paint but it isn’t flat or pale. It doesn’t look like it absorbed itself into the paper but sat on top like other inks. It is relatively saturated for this ink. Very surprised to see how excellently this poor performing ink performs.

There is no feathering, spread or feathering!

Diamine Skull & Roses is a practical super sheening ink. It isn’t quite as extreme as Organics Studio Nitrogen Royal Blue but it is a little more practical because of that. The ink presents as a very rich blue that leans a little more to the teal side of the blue spectrum. The shading is decent with moderate frequency but smoother gradients and moderate contrast (a higher contrast being exaggerated by the sheen). The sheen is a very strong bright red that shows wrongly on most of the written line from each nib. The sheen sometimes makes it look like there is a halo but the ink (as distinct from the sheen) doesn’t create a halo.

No feathering, spread, or bleeding.

As mentioned there is some limited feathering in the swatches of Lamy Crystal Azurite and Robert Oster Bondi Blue. Otherwise this paper performs very well with all inks I have tried it on.

The dry time of this paper is fairly similar to what you would expect on Tomoe River (somewhat in between 52gsm and 68gsm Tomoe River). It isn’t quick by any means but it isn’t crazy slow. If you don’t mind Tomoe River you’ll not mind this (in terms of dry time). Dry time here was from Bungubox Omotesando Blue (which is a typical Sailor ink in terms of dry times).

So how does the paper feel?

It is 80gsm so thicker than Tomoe River but about what many paper types are so feels fairly normal. It is quite smooth but there is still some texture to it. A little more texture than Tomoe River 68gsm (much more than Tomoe River 52gsm) but not near something like parchment paper. It’s in the ballpark of Rhoda but with a little more texture.

One issue the paper has that Tomoe River also has is that it is quite susceptible to hand oils. Touching the paper with your hand or fingers has the potential to affect how ink will go on the page. This issue is very noticeable on 52gsm Tomoe River. The way it presents here is finger prints being visible and also some scruffy edges around written lines or shading. It certainly isn’t a big deal but again worth a note!

Final Remarks

There are a few different angles to comment on with this Explorer Notebook. Overall the general concept and design is similar to Traveler’s Notebook. The matte leather finish will be interesting to see down the track compared with a glossy finish. I also personally much prefer the size and while the choice of a paper size that isn’t common is unusual; there still remains the option to use B6 notebook sizes but in practice for me I really like Regalia paper and I am perfectly happy to purchase the refills of these from Endless. I like Regalia so much that I am considering using it over Tomoe River for my Minireviews (at least). It is a very nice fountain pen friendly paper that handles poorer inks well and still highlights the characteristics of inks. The accessories, while currently limited to what Endless produce for the experience (of which the Cotton Wallet which I bought myself offers a decent amount of functionality), are easily enough for what I want and you can always still use generic accessories (such as divider tabs or various clips etc.).

The Endless Explorer in Leather is US$50 (Cactus Leather is US$60) and that comes with a supplied notebook). The Pen Loop is US$15, the Cotton Wallet is US$24.99. Finally replacement notebooks are US$8.5ea. I think these prices are easily within what would be expected for a product like this. Shipping is decently priced with free shipping over US$60.

Thanks again for Endless for sending this notebook system in for review. Please use code MACCHIATOMAN10 for 10% off!

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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. I was sent these items for the purpose of an honest review (I purchased the Cotton Wallet myself, however). Endless Explorer does sponsor the blog (although during the pandemic I have suspended any payments).

Around August 2022 Esterbrook released three premium versions of their Camden fountain pen. I’ve reviewed Esterbrook’s Estie three times with different nibs and pens sizes. In between I also reviewed the JR Pocket Pen. The only pen model left for me to review now is the Phaeton 300! The Camden sits somewhat in between the JR Pocket Pen and the Estie.

A big thank you to Esterbrook for sending this in for review!

I’ve been eager to try the Camden for a while now. I love my flat end pens and the overall shape of this one is subtly unique. While there are some differences between this and the non-premium Camdens I like to think of this as a review of the Camden more generally as well.

These three initial Premium Camdens are from the Norther Lights series which had three colours: Alaska Purple, Icelandic Green, and Manitoba Blue (the pen in this review). All three have the same general material design with swirls of each designated colour with white. All of them have DiamondCast in the material as well (like some of the more premium Estie releases). Lastly all three have a trim that matches the colour of the pen. That is the Icelandic Green has a green nib and clip, the Alaska Purple a purple nib and clip and this Manitoba Blue has, shockingly, a blue nib and clip. All the nibs are coloured by Hinze Pen Company.

Packaging

Like the Premium Esties this Premium Camden comes with the more flamboyant packaging from Estie. These aren’t crazy fancy but are definitely just a little nicer than the normal boxes they make (which are also nice).

Inside my box is a little sticker from Esterbrook (I’m unsure if this was just included for me or it is standard), a little tiny envelope with a card inside to “Activate Your Pen”, and a pamphlet from Hinze Pen Company. And obviously the pen as well!

The QR code brings you to a warranty activation page where you need to fill out a form with some information on the pen. The Hinze Pen Company pamphlet give some important details on maintenance of the nib (more on that below).

Finally, what was included with my review pen was also an Esterbrook stamp that I wanted to show off. I want to note that this is not included with a standard purchase of the pen!

Details

The trim, on the Camden is somewhat spartan. There is metal furnishings on the cap only with the barrel only being the pen’s material. Both the finials are flat while having smooth rounded edges.

The cap has the clip, naturally, but the finial is a round metal medallion with the Esterbrook logo. Of course both of these are blue. This is also no different from the the Classic Camden however in the Classic Camden the material is Anodized Aluminum. Esterbrook has started introducing some more Limited Edition Camden with an Oktoberfest introduces in 2022. Inside the cap is a plastic threads to screw into the plastic threads on the section of the body. The clip is a fairly minimal and flat clip.

The pen is, of course, a cartridge converter pen. There’s nothing special going on there. The pen comes with a nice quality converter.

Lastly on the clip there is a painted cursive Esterbrook name withy a line the around the circumference of the cap.

This material can generally be described as a teal leaning blue with white swirls. The white is opaque but the blue is a translucent. Where some of the mix together (or probably more accurate where some of the blue is above the white) then it starts to look like a light blue opaque material mixed in there as well. Like with the other DiamondCast pens the sparkles are much prettier in person than on a photo. This is a glitzy look in person but it definitely does sparkle when you rotate the pen. What I like about the DiamondCast material compared with some other sparkly materials is you can’t see the particles but yet it still sparkles.

Nib

The pen here is, form a use perspective, a standard medium nib. It is worth noting straight away that this is where the pen differs from the Classic Camden as this has a (modified) JoWo nib where as the Classic Camden has a Schmidt German. Ultimately all of these nibs are fairly common nibs with known quality and feel that isn’t too different from each other. Substituting a Bock, Schmidt, or JoWo are not huge differences. The Hinze Pen Company is customising the JoWo nibs here by colourising them using electro-plating to get a “nano-ceramic lacquer” applied to it but there are some caveats for these coloured detailed below.

This is a very standard feel for a medium nib. It is on the finer side for a western medium which is noteworthy but probably more representative of the tolerances in manufacturing of most western nibs. Out of the box this nib was perfectly useable but it was a little dry for my preference. I did slightly open the tines to get more flow but this was still a very useable nib straight out of the box.

This is where the caveats of this this colourised pen come in. The number one thing Hinze says not to do with this nib is use Noodler’s or Private Reserve ink due to PH level issues. I know that regardless of Noodler’s claim of PH Neutral inks that they do sell inks that aren’t very neutral but also Noodler’s have some variety in terms of acidity or alkalinity. I would be very surprised if every Noodler’s ink actually did strip the coating but it is clear that Hinze believe there are enough to warrant this warning. Same with Private Reserve inks.

Secondly they recommend distilled or demonised water and not Pen Flush. This is an interesting recommendation that I don’t expect many people will actually follow

They recommend cleaning with a bulb syringe as should be the most common practical cleaning method but don’t recommend removing the whole metal nib from the housing. Removing the whole nib can be very useful for a thorough clean but clearly here it is best to stick to the blu syringe.

Handle with care is an obvious one. As it is a coating then of course the coating can be damaged by bumps or scratches. Generally you should want to avoid bumps and scratches on all of you you pens’ nibs though!

Finally Hinze recommend not using shimmering inks. Not necessarily because the particles would damage the pen but because they might require more extensive cleaning which means removing the nib. While shimmer inks aren’t my favourites types of inks this sparkly pen definitely would match nicely with a sparkly ink!

This nib has some feedback but is generally a smooth pen. The feedback is also fairly universal regardless of which direction the nib moves. As I mentioned out of the box the pen was perfectly useable and had decent flow but I increased to flow because I simply prefer my nibs to be wetter.

This JoWo Medium on this Camden is finer than the Medium nib on the Aurora Duocart, Lamy-Al-Star, Lamy 2000, and Parker Duofold International. It is fairly similar to the Sailor Standard 21 (which is a 21k gold slim-sized 1911/Profit) and slightly thinner than the TWSBI ECO

Dimensions and Comparison

The Camden isn’t a small pen and I was surprised by how tall it actually is. I expected something a little smaller than the Estie (but still larger than the Pocket JR of course). In reality the pen is quite tall when capped. The pen is a little thinner and maybe that slimmer profile makes up for the length because while the pen is tall it doesn’t look like a large pen. Once uncapped the pen because fairly normal for your average larger pen though.

The pen is also heavier than the Estie even though the Estie has more metal components. However the pen is lighter when uncapped. Overall this pen is slightly more towards the heavier side but still fairly moderately weighted. The pen feels nicely balanced so I didn’t notice the slightly higher weight.

I like to compare the pen to other colours but since a lot of my Esterbrook Pens happen to be blue as well I included them as well as the Estie Oversized as an extra comparison.

The Camden Manitoba Blue is a is a Verdigris or Tiffany Blue type colour, especially if you include the average colour from the whiter parts. The parts without white are more vibrant and have more of a Caribbean look to them. This gives the pen a light but mostly vibrant green-leaning blue colour. It is slightly greener than the Estie Aqua. It is lighter and greener than the Blue Paradise Pocket JR. It is greener and lighter than the blue parts of the Pelikan M805 Ocean Swirl. It is less green than the Aquamarine Candy Lamy Safari. I have two blue Sailor Pro Gears; the Wancher Maldives (first from left to right) which is definitely more of a teal but also darker and richer in colour, and the second, the Cocktail Series’ Kure Azur is much more saturated, much bluer (even the green tinted cap). Finally the Pelican M120 Iconic Blue does not lean green at all.

Final Remarks

I’ve really enjoyed using and reviewing this Camden. I’m generally a big fan of flat ended pens and it seems I like blue pens! This is a subtly unique design for a flat ended pen shape. It’s thinner with some noticeable tapers. Strangely, I think I still prefer the Estie - I only say strange because generally lean more towards flat ends - but I do love the Estie shape. What about the coloured nibs and other furnishings? For me personally could take it or leave it. I don’t mind it but I also wouldn’t mind a simple silver trim. It certainly matched nicely but I don’t think it is necessary. I think you could easily swap a silver nib in here as well and it would still look great, even with the blue clip, partly because of the silver ‘Esterbrook’ logo.

The nib is a nice western medium that is a little finer than you might usually expect. I did adjust it very slightly but not from something that was bad just to something that more aligns with my preferences. It has the feel otherwise of what you should expect from a Jowo, Schmidt, or Bock nib. It is a bit of a shame that the nib comes with so many precautions, especially regarding shimmery inks which would match very nicely with all of the Northern Lights Camdens, but apart from knowing to avoid Noodler’s and Private Reserve and having to be more conservative when cleaning this isn’t a nuisance for me.

The Northern Lights Camdens are premium models; they come with the DiamondCast material and come with the coloured nibs. They differ from the recently released (at time of writing) Oktoberfest Limited Edition and the regular aluminium editions which are the same price and have Schmidt nibs and materials without diamond dust in them. These Premium models run for US$350 from Esterbrook (AU$555, €356, ‎‎£‎311). This isn’t a cheap pen but it is in line with the premium Estie prices. The lovely Limited Edition Okotoberfest model is the much more affordable US$185 from Esterbrook (AU$293, €188, ‎‎£‎164) which is the same price as the classic aluminium editions.

Thanks again to Esterbrook for sending this pen in for review!

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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I was sent this pen for the purpose of an honest review. Esterbrook does sponsor the blog (although during the pandemic I have suspended any payments).

Duotone, dichromatic, or whatever you want to call it. Inks that present on the paper with different colours have been very popular in recent years. The first of these inks that really took off were from Sailor’s Ink Studio set of inks but since then there are many from Sailor, from Troublemaker, Vinta and of course Birmingham Pen Company. Many of the dichromatic inks are based around a pink dye that separated from a blue teal or green dye. That is fundamentally the same combination there! The ink is green with a pink that separates when the ink pools and dries.

The small two-brother run Birmingham Pen Co. have quite a few inks (which certainly made it difficult to pick which I wanted) and they add new inks to the lineup all the time and I believe they retire inks as well. If you see something you really want, it is probably best to jump on it early. As a very general theme, Birmingham inks tend to be lower in saturation and dusty, dirty, or muddy coloured. This ties them all together and also makes them stand out which is a difficult thing to do with the amount of inks we have available to us now. The inks are handmade in Pennsylvania in the US. Birmingham Pen Co. divided their inks into different categories and sub-categories when I bought this ink:

Traditional Ink

• Crisp Formula: “Formulated to perform well with a variety of premium, mid range, and discount papers.”

• Swift Formula: “Designed to start quickly, write wet, and operate easily within a wide variety of fountain pens.”

• Rich Formula: “Built with a unique vehicle and dye combination to produce vibrant color and intermittent sheen.”

• Wishy-Washy Formula: “Washable from most fabrics and cleans easily from most surfaces.”

Specialty Ink

• Everlasting Formula: “Permanent and highly water resistant.”

• Twinkle Formula: “A unique blend of proprietary fountain pen ink formulas and iridescent pigment carefully calibrated for optimal luster and performance.”

But now they are divided into four categories:

• Keystone Formula inks are engineered using water-soluble dyes to produce a broad spectrum of colors with a variety of unique and desirable writing properties. Fitting the bill for a traditional fountain pen ink, this series by far the most popular. 

• Wishy-Washy Formula inks are constructed with dyes selected for both performance and washability. Colors in this series will clean easily from most fabrics and surfaces with soap and water.

• Everlasting Formula inks are compounded with pigmented colorants to produce highly water resistant and archival properties on paper.

• Twinkle Formula inks are formulated using hybrid dye and pigment combinations to create a unique twinkling luster. 

Birmingham also listed the generalised ink ingredients in the bottle (which were different for each category). Antique Copper was a Crisp Formula ink (now Keystone) and has the following ink ingredients:"

Diluent - Highly purified laboratory grade water to ensure consistency
Thickener - Tempers feathering
Humectants - Influences dry-time
Lubricants - Regulates flow & performance
Surfactants - Regulates flow & performance
Preservative - Adds shelf life for safe long-term use & storage
Colorants - Powder dyes to bring colors alive in the solution

As you can see, in the bottle the fluid of Antique Copper is a fairly green. A fairly cool green, in fact, in the bottle. On paper this green doesn’t come out nearly as strongly. In areas of haloing you can see some of it but generally the green loses a lot of saturation and becomes quite a bit warmer. The pinkness of the dichromaticism also warms of the colour of the ink a lot as well. Overall it still leans more green than otherwise but not as much as what the fluid would suggest.The ink is fairly light and the saturation is low and it has that dustiness that I often associate with Birmingham inks. The ink is a little on the drier side of performance. I definitely would prefer this in a wetter pen. The flow is good but the ink feels a little not highly lubricated..

The ink does have some variance depending on the paper it is on with some papers bringing out the saturation of the green much more that others.

That said, it is difficult to describe the inks actual colour because it changes quite a bit depending on the paper it is on. Whiter papers have a cooler look, unsurprisingly, but they are also greyer with less green saturation overall but the yellower papers have a higher gree saturation. The pink colour also comes out to various degrees depending on the paper. As a swatch, performance of this ink isn’t amazing on poor quality paper but in the written line (which is the important part) the performance is OK to decent on poor quality papers. There is even some shading on decent copy paper. Examples of the ink on 15 different paper types is at the end of the review.

Birmingham inks, with the exception of the Twinkly Formula (shimmering inks) which is only in 60ml bottles, are available in 30ml, 60ml, and 120ml. I’ve come to enjoy 30ml as a size and so all of my inks (bar two because I wanted to have one of each bottle) are 30ml. The 120ml bottle comes with a built in eye dropper just like the larger Noodler’s bottles (in fact this 120ml Birmingham bottle looks very similar to the Noodler’s (but it is different). The bottles are all glass and all of them (especially the smaller ones) have a simple vintage look about them as if they are from the the industrial era. They remind me of Noodler’s in this regard and I love the look.

Nib and Pen details

I used Lamy Safaris in Savannah for this review and seven different stainless steel Lamy nibs on that pen. The choice of pen (be that Safari, AL-Star, Vista, Joy or Studio) will have little impact in the writing performance. I will not use a Lamy Dialog because there is the rare chance of the nib drying out slightly which might affect the writing performance.

1. Lamy 1.9 Stub: this is a very wet nib

2. Lamy 1.5 Stub: this nib is moderately wet to write with (this is used for the brand and ink name title);

3. Lamy 1.1 Stub: this nib is on the drier side;

4. Lamy Broad: this is a wet;

5. Lamy Medium: this is a very wet nib;

6. Lamy Fine: this nib is moderately dry; and

7. Lamy Extra Fine: this nib is moderately wet.

I also use a fine JoWo nib attached to a James Finniss Serendipity (from Pensive Pens) for the comparison ink names. This nib’s wetness is moderate but the feed is primed which gives it a wetter character than would be a normal writing experience. This generally as the effect of reducing shading and luminosity, while increasing sheen and saturation. The possibility of feathering and bleeding is also slightly increased. This is still more accurate than a dip pen or a glass pen in my experience.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

On Tomoe River Birmingham Antique Sepia is lighter, warmer and less saturated. There is quite a bit of pink that shows in the swatch and the the written line. I only have a couple of comparable dichromatic inks.

• Troublemaker Kelp Tea: is lighter, more saturated (both colours) and a little warmer;

• Sailor Ink Studio 280: is much more yellow (even if the pink has taken over here) and much more saturated;

• Sailor Ink Studio 370: is darker, more saturated and a warmer;

• Sailor Manyo Shirakashi: is much darker more saturated and a little warmer;

• De Atramentis Cement Grey:is slightly greyer with less saturation but isn’t a whole way off;

• Robert Oster Moss: is not too far away from what you’d expect this to look like from the fluid colour but isn’t that close on the paper; and

• Robert Oster Khakhi: not similar at all.

On Tomoe River Troublemaker Kelp Tea comes the closes with Cement Grey being not too far off!

There is a decent amount of shading with quite a lot of lovely haloing as well (which is where you see the cool green come through). The shading is frequent and fairly contrasting but has a mixture of sudden and smooth gradients which can hide the shading a little.

There is no sheen whatsoever.

Sailor Manyo Shirakashi has some lovely copper sheen, Robert Oster Moss has some dull copper-magenta sheen and Khakhi has some silver. There is a hint of a dull brown-silver sheen on Cement Grey but none of the dichromatic inks have any sheen.

Looking at the chromatography shows a pink gradient at the start that breaks into a little bit of yellow before another gradient of light cool green. You can see two separate dye gradients which is interesting.

There is absolutely no water resistance, dry time is decent and there is no smearing.

80gsm White Rhodia

On Rhodia the ink is darker, cooler with more green saturation and less of the pink showing.

• Troublemaker Kelp Tea: lighter and warmer, the pink is much warmer now too';

• Sailor Ink Studio 280: more yellow than green and the pink is now orange. Much more saturated;

• Sailor Ink Studio 370: a little warmer and more saturated but not too far off;

• Sailor Manyo Shirakashi: too dark and desaturated. More brown now;

• De Atramentis Cement Grey: again not far off but a little darker and desaturated;

• Robert Oster Moss: too green and saturated; and

• Robert Oster Khakhi: not even close.

The closest here would surprisingly be either Sailor Ink Studio 370 or, again, De Atramentis Cement Grey.

I feel link the pink comes through on Rhodia less on the swatch compared with Tomoe River but more on the written line! There is a decent amount of pretty pink showing though. Shading isn’t as strong as on Tomoe River with less contrast but a similar frequency and the similar mix of gradual and sudden gradients. There is still a nice halo.

No sheen whatsoever.

None of the comparison inks have sheen.

There is still no water resistance and the dry time is very fast. Almost less than 10 seconds. There is no smearing.

Final Remarks

⭐️ = One Star

★ = Half a Star

☆ = No Star

🚫 = None/Not Applicable

(Star ratings are a rough and glanceable indication and are more quantitative than qualitative. They are not saying that something is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but rather that, of the particular characteristic, the ink has a ‘high’ or ‘low’ amount)

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

• Shading: ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆

• Sheen: 🚫

• Shimmer: 🚫

• Halo: ⭐️⭐️⭐️★☆

• Saturation: ⭐️★☆☆☆

• Luminosity: ⭐️★☆☆☆

• Feathering: 🚫

• Bleeding: 🚫

• Flow: ⭐️⭐️★☆☆

• Dry time: ⭐️⭐️⭐️★☆

• Smear: 🚫

• Water Resistance: 🚫

80gsm White Rhodia

• Shading: ⭐️⭐️★☆☆

• Sheen: 🚫

• Shimmer: 🚫

• Halo: ⭐️⭐️★☆☆

• Saturation: ⭐️⭐️☆☆☆

• Luminosity:⭐️⭐️☆☆☆

• Feathering: 🚫

• Bleeding: 🚫

• Flow: ⭐️⭐️★☆☆

• Dry time: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️★

• Smear: 🚫

• Water Resistance: 🚫

I’ve been really happy with the Birmingham Pen Co. inks I have put in my pens. I’ve got four reviews prepared (including this and the already published Projector Film) and I’ve inked six inks so far (I think). In general the feel of the inks is slightly drier than I prefer but the colour and and look of this ink makes it easy for me to look past that. They have such unique colours and some subtle dichromaticism as well. I’d definitely recommend looking at their range (they also make some pens periodically)!

I’d also like to commend on the professionalism of this small run ink studio! The second group buy (which was close to AU$1000 - a little of US$700) came in two packages. Because of the pandemic shipping was very slow (this is definitely not Birmingham Ink Co.’s fault!) It actually reached almost 60 days with no tracking and the way Nick and Josh handled this was amazing so I can definitely confirm that you will be treated very well!

The ink is quite decently priced for my mind. The 30ml bottle is US$13, the 60ml is US$16, and the 120ml is US$19. Shipping internationally isn’t very affordable (but you can’t blame them for that - I recommend a group buy!). US shipping is free over US$40 (which should not be difficult to get to) and I should also note that they often have sales that knock a couple of dollars off the ink. I should note that the Twinkly (shimmer) inks are US$29, and the Everlasting inks are US$19, US$29, and US39 for the respective sizes

What are your favourites from their current lineup? If I’m ever part of another group order I need a list!

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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I purchased this ink myself .

In September 2019 La Couronne du Comte, a stationery store based in Tilburg, Netherlands (and sponsor of this blog) released Comte d’Or (“Count of Gold”), a gold ink made by Diamine exclusively for their store and the first from what will become their Les Couleurs du Comte (“The Colors of the Count“) ink series. La Couronne du Comte describe the series as “a range that focuses on special colours, rich in colour intensity, with a wonderful shading and/or sheen”. A year later they released three more inks, Bleu Cuivré (“Copper Blue”), a blue ink; Pan d’Epices (“Gingerbread”), a red ink; and Vert Sapin (“Pine Green”), a green ink . I’ll be reviewing all the ink in the series alphabetically.

I received Comte d’Or as part of a general promotion from La Couronne du Comte and I purchased Bleu Cuivré, Pain d’Epices, and Vert Sapin myself. You can find the inks here and use code “MACCHIATOMAN10” for 10% off!

Diamine/La Couronne du Comte Vert Sapin means Pine Green in English. Pine trees aren’t all that common around where I am in Australia and as with most things around me, tree colours lean decidedly more yellow. Same with the pines I see! The greens might be dark but they aren’t as blue as this or as vibrant as this.La Couronne du Comte describes Vert Sapin as a “pine-green ink with a beautiful burgundy sheen that is reminiscent of a pine forest.”

Because if how colour spaces work, such as sRGB that is common on the internet and AdobeRGB etc. this colour family (teal leaning greens) aren’t represented as accurately on most monitors compared to real life. In fact not even the more recent ProPhoto RBG doesn’t accurately represent what human eyes can see. In real life this ink is more saturated than what can be displayed here.

This ink is a fairly rich teal leaning green. For a “Pine” Green it is fairly neutral when compared with other pine green inks I’m familiar with. Many have a decidedly teal colour (often with lower saturation) this one is quite saturated and has a little more yellow in it which I prefer (personally). Depending on the paper there is some variance on how much yellow comes through, however. Examples of the ink on 16 different paper types is at the end of the review.

The ink is quite wet and quite lubricated with a high dye content (hens the sheen). The ink performs quite well on all papers, even the least fountain pen friendly which is nice.

The ink only comes in 30ml and not the glass 80ml bottles that Diamine inks usually also come in. 30ml is still a decent amount of ink these days and it is priced as a 30ml Diamine ink usually would be priced. The plastic is fairly soft on the sides and otherwise unremarkable. It does come with a unique sticker that features a swatch of the colour, the La Couronne du Comte crown logo and the name of the ink.

Nib and Pen details

I used a Lamy Safari Aquamarine pen for this review and six different stainless steel Lamy nibs on that pen. The choice of pen (be that Safari, AL-Star, Vista or Studio) will have little impact in the writing performance. I will not use a Lamy Dialog because there is the rare chance of the nib drying out slightly which might affect the writing performance.

1. Lamy 1.5 Stub: this nib is moderately wet to write with (this is used for the brand and ink name title);

2. Lamy 1.1 Stub: this nib is on the drier side;

3. Lamy Broad: this is a wet;

4. Lamy Medium: this is a very wet nib;

5. Lamy Fine: this nib is moderately dry; and

6. Lamy Extra Fine: this nib is moderately wet.

I also use a fine JoWo nib attached to a James Finniss Serendipity (from Pensive Pens) for the comparison ink names. This nib’s wetness is moderate but the feed is primed which gives it a wetter character than would be a normal writing experience. This generally as the effect of reducing shading and luminosity, while increasing sheen and saturation. The possibility of feathering and bleeding is also slightly increased. This is still more accurate than a dip pen or a glass pen in my experience.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

On Tomoe River La Couronne du Comte Vert Sapin is a little lighter than on Rhodia. It is also just a tiny bit more teal leaning. As you can see the ink get quite dark from one layer on the swatch to the second and the shading is quite strong as well.

• Diamine November Rain: more neutral (as in more yellow leaning) but a similar darkness and saturation;

• Diamine Bloody Absinth: a little bluer and less saturated but a similar darkness;

• Monteverde California Teal: lighter, bluer and slightly less saturated;

• Private Reserve Cadillac Green: lighter, slightly less saturated and even bluer than the Monteverde;

• Sailor Ink Studio 864: much less saturated and much too blue and light;

• Robert Oster Emerald: lighter and less saturated but the hue isn’t far off; and

• Robert Oster Green Diamond: slightly more saturated than Emerald above but otherwise quite similar.

I think from these I’d pick either the Diamine November Rain or Monteverde California Teal. Neither are very similar but they are the closest of this bunch I think.

There is a lot of shading with this ink. It is frequent with a sharp gradient and a lot of contrast (mainly because of how dark the ink gets). Very good shader. Haloing is almost non-existent.

If it’s a good shader its an even bigger sheener! I don’t know of many inks that are quite high in shading and sheen so that is interesting. This ink has a very rich, very saturated bright magenta sheen. Almost dominated the ink in the right light. From top down (without the light bouncing off the ink) the colour is still red! But it is is dull red that muddies the general observed colour very slightly.

Bloody Absinth’s sheen is pretty much identical. Not a surprise that it is another Diamine made ink. November Rain is equally strong but the saturation of the sheen isn’t as high. Monteverde California Teal has some strong sheen but noticeably weaker than Vert Sapin. The rest all have fairly subtle sheens of various warm or magenta colours.

The chromatography has a gradient of very pale light blue that breaks into a green that gets dark with hints of yellow at times before ending with a line of dark azure blue.

The dry time is quite slow. Not unsurprising for a high dye content high lubricant ink.The water resistance is non existent and there is some smearing on Tomoe River (not a surprise for a high sheen ink though!)

80gsm White Rhodia

Vert Sapin is slightly less teal leaning but also slightly less saturated and also darker than on Tomoe River.

• Diamine November Rain: Even closer but still slightly more yellow leaning;

• Diamine Bloody Absinth: Much closer this time but still slightly bluer;

• Monteverde California Teal: again not far off but a little lighter;

• Private Reserve Cadillac Green: much too light, blue and unsaturated;

• Sailor Ink Studio 864: much to unsaturated;

• Robert Oster Emerald: A similar hue but lighter and less saturated; and

• Robert Oster Green Diamond: also a similar hue but much lighter and less saturated.

Vert Sapin fits somewhat in between both the Diamine branded inks being bluer than November Rain and yellower than Bloody Absinth so depending on which you prefer they would be the best bet for a similar ink!

The shading isn’t as strong here because the ink is darker overall which means the contrast isn’t as high. Even the frequency has dropped a little on Rhodia. The gradient is still mostly pretty sharp but perhaps also a little smoother! Haloing is almost non-existent.

The sheen on Rhodia is much more subtle. There is some of the rich magenta that shows but it is less frequent and more of an edge sheen now than a sheen that covers the written line.

Only Bloody Absinth and Monteverde California Teal show as much sheen (and so not much) the rest of the inks are essentially sheen-less!

Water resistance is not as poor on Rhodia but it is quite messy. Dry time is still quite slow and there is a little bit of smearing (not much though)

Final Remarks

⭐️ = One Star

★ = Half a Star

☆ = No Star

🚫 = None/Not Applicable

(Star ratings are a rough and glanceable indication and are more quantitative than qualitative. They are not saying that something is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but rather that, of the particular characteristic, the ink has a ‘high’ or ‘low’ amount)

80gsm White Rhodia

• Shading: ⭐️⭐️★☆☆

• Sheen: ⭐️★☆☆☆

• Shimmer: 🚫

• Halo: 🚫

• Saturation: ⭐️⭐️⭐️★☆

• Luminosity: ⭐️★☆☆☆

• Feathering: 🚫

• Bleeding: 🚫

• Flow: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Dry time: ⭐️★☆☆☆

• Smear: ⭐️⭐️★☆☆

• Water Resistance: ⭐️★☆☆☆

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

• Shading: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Sheen: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️★

• Shimmer: 🚫

• Halo: 🚫

• Saturation: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Luminosity: ⭐️⭐️☆☆☆

• Feathering: 🚫

• Bleeding: 🚫

• Flow: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Dry time: ⭐️★☆☆☆

• Smear: ⭐️⭐️☆☆☆

• Water Resistance: 🚫

This is a rich green ink that leans a little to the teal side. I, personally, prefer my greens to lean more yellow but I love the shading and richness to this and it doesn’t lean too much the teal for me. It is still very much a green. Good performance on different papers which is nice as well. A great green.

The ink is really affordable too, like most Diamine inks. It is €3.50 (including VAT) and €2.89 outside Europe. Before any importation fees or taxes this is roughly AU$4.50, US$3.5, or £2.5. For 30ml of ink that is excellent value for money in my opinion! If you are ordering anything from La Couronne du Comte (which so often has great prices) just throw one of these in the cart (or all of them)!

Use code “MACCHIATOMAN10” for 10% off your order from La Couronne du Comte! Check out their website, sales and new releases as well as their socials: Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

✒︎ ✑ ✒︎ ✑

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I purchased this ink myself .

Esterbrook’s latest release is the CANDY Estie and for this review I have the oversize model (which I haven’t tried before) and most importantly the new Kirk Speer of Pen Realm Needlepoint nib. Esterbrook release many different finishes for their Estie line and they are seemingly very popular. I’ve bought a few myself and received a few for review just like this one. I’ve said it before on reviews but custom nibs are always exciting to try!

A big thank you to Esterbrook for sending this in for review!

Back in April last year I reviewed and tried my first Esterbrook pen (with a custom nib) the Honeycomb with the Journal nib. I gave a short overview of the company there and it has had its ups and downs, sellers, buyers and relaunches. I really (personally) enjoy the products that are being made right now but that doesn’t mean I have a chance of keeping up with all the launches! I’m grateful for Esterbrook sending me goodies to share every now and then but I also try to pick up the pens that really catch my eye! With my reviews here I avoid reviewing the same model of pen if it just a material change. I don’t do this because for the purpose of a review of a model, one is enough. Other materials of the same model just need a photograph to see what is different about it. But I have reviewed the Estie a few times now‽ Well That is because of the custom nibs and (in this case) a slightly different model.

This Candy is the first oversize Estie I have used and the differences aren’t huge but certainly noticeable. The Candy has a lovely mostly pink swirl pattern with white and blue mixed in (some photos I’ve seen show more blue than what mine is showing so there probably is some variance). The pen is also one of Esterbrook’s Diamon Cast pens. Here the Diamine Cast is swirled into the material more subtly than the Gold Rush models.

This is Esterbrook’s third custom nib. The first was the fine cursive-italic like Journaler by Gena Salorino, the second was a medium architect nib like Scribe by Joshua J. Lax Esq. and this is the very fine Needlepoint by Kirk Speer of Pen Realm. I love that Esterbrook are collaborating with different Nib Grinders which gives everyone an easy worry-free way of trying different grinders and different specialty nibs!

Packaging

The packaging is what you should expect from a special or limited release from Esterbrook. A larger box than the regular releases with a card sleeve over the top that is related to the pen model. This says CANDY and has the pink, purple and gold that is swirled into the pen material.

The box has a red fabric outside and is itself a sleeve that olds the box that pulls out to reveal the pen pillow. This isn’t a coffin-style box that is usual for pens.

There is a ribbon to assist with pull the pen box out.

Details

Where this Oversize model differs from the regular is the size of the Barrel, the size of the Cap and how the cap threads onto the barrel. The section part is identical for both.

The Barrel and Cap are obviously longer and thicker which will be discussed below but the threads are also more prominently metal near the section. On the regular model they are made from the pen’s material on the outside with some metal rings (the inside threads are still metal on both).

The designs, size notwithstanding, are so similar that some of my regular caps do screw onto the Overzise barrel and the Oversize cap does screw onto the regular barrel perfectly. They don’t look great but they work to some degree.

The material is certainly something that will be somewhat different on each pen. How much different I can’t say. Overall mine is fairly pink overall but in some places the blue is more prominent. It is a colourful and pretty swirl pattern. There is some gold-coloured Diamond Cast material that is interspersed within the blue pink and white swirls and it is fairly subtle but I think that works very well. There is some subtle sparkles throughout as well. The saturation of the colours is less than I would have expected but I like it more because of that. It is still a vibrant colour but none of the colours are highly saturated

As with otherregualr Esties this also has the spring loaded cap that keeps the inside more air-sealed. The turn of the cap is shorter than the regular Esties.

Nib

This nib is always the most exciting thing for me. What makes a Needlepoint special? Well compares to a Cursive Italic or an Architect grind not that much. It is, in essence, just a very fine nib but the difference between this and an extra fine ore extra extra fine is that you are going to get an extra extra fine that someone has taken great care to make sure it writes with a fine line, has good flow and isn’t scratchy. With factory nibs, even tested ones, some of these aspects can be lacking but you can be much more confident with a custom ground Needlepoint!

Interestingly, Kirk ground this EEF-like Needlepoint from a Fine JoWo nib. I imagine the extra tipping material makes things easier to work with. The nib tapers off quite pointedly This is a nib that does have some variation depending on the angle you hold it at. A shallower angle is a slightly wider line than more upright holding position. It doesn’t do reverse writing very well (not that that should ever be expected but I do test it)!

On the left is a Nagahara Needlepoint on a Franklin-Christoph Model 46 made from an Extra Fine JoWo nib. The middle is the Kirk Speer Needlepoint and the right is a standard Extra Fine JoWo in an Estie. The standard EF is the most rounded tip and the Nagahara is a little more round-rect while the Kirk Seer is the pointiest. Perhaps this pointless explains the line variation dependent on the writing angle.

The writing experience of this nib is very nice. It has feedback - which should be obvious that it would - but it isn’t overly sharp. The sharpness does increase a little of you angle the nib sideways but nothing extreme. The flow is excellent and the pen writes well under its own weight. For feel the nib is very good. Definitely a more premium feel than the standard Extra Fine (which is a very nice factory Extra Fine already).

First off apologies for some of the water marks on this page; I’m not sure where they came from. I think the standout here on this page is the factor Fine nib on the Estie at the top left. That is not a fine line! European nibs often go large and I have had similar experiences with Pelikan but this is definitely fatter than I would expect from a fine.

Where this Kirk Speer Needlepoint sits amongst the other fine nibs is a little on the wider side. It is definitely wider than the Masuyama Needlepoint and the Nagahara Needlepoint with the latter being the finest I have. I would say the flow is a little better than that the Masuyama. The Pro Gear Extra Fine is ever so slightly finer than the Speer Needlepoint but it is also much sharper and with more feedback. For merely a fine (and a soft fine) the Platinum is a surprisingly fine nib and around what the Speer Needlepoint is but again sharper and with more feedback. The Pelikan Extra Fine has a fairly wide line compares to the rest (bar the Estie Fine) but is very slim for a Pelikan.The TWSBI Extra Fine is similar to the Speer Needlepoint but sharper and the Retro 51 Extra Fine is a surprisingly fine line but the flow isn’t as nice. Overall this Speer Needlepoint has excellent feel and for a Needlepoint is surprisingly smooth but as a balance to that it isn’t quite as fine as the other two Needlepoints I have.

Dimensions and Comparison

When I first opened the box I didn’t really see the difference of the Oversize. It didn’t look particularly huge. Keep in mind the regular Esterbrook is already a fairly large pen (length-wise at least). But when you pick it up you can feel the difference. For me the main difference was in the girth of the pen and while the section of the Oversize and the section of the regular are identical holding the larger barrel still was noticeable in writing and especially just generally holding the pen.

The pen is a little longer but not extremely so. This change in girth and length, however, does mean it can not be securely posted like the regular sizes can.

It is only 6mm longer than the Regular it doesn’t seem like much but it definitely is a decent amount. The step down of the threads to the section is pretty big and I think that might be the only change I could envision for this pen size. Perhaps a thicker section could benefit this as people who opt for the oversize would generally be people who would prefer a slightly thicker section as well. Visually I love how the regular size has bands of metal and the threads in resin and I’d love that here too. Both of these changes are quite subjective though. On the flip side, however, this same section does mean you can still grab a vintage Esterbrook nib holder and use vintage nibs with this!

Capped the pen towers over everything including the Montblanc 146 and the Pelican M805 - both fairly large pens! Uncapped on the TWSBI Eco comes close (which is a pen that always seems to go unnoticed with how large it actually is.

The pen is also fairly heavy. The Pelican M805 is a weighty pen and this is still 3.6g heavier! Uncapped it is double the weight of a Lamy Safari. Granted the Safari is a light pen but double is a big difference! That said the pen is fairly balanced in the hand so the pen doesn’t feel overly weighty to me. I prefer smaller pens and the size doesn’t strain my hands much - perhaps that is because the section isn’t that thick though.

I don’t have many pens with a comparable colour profile to this! This is quite unique in my collection which is great! From light pink maybe to a lavender purple to a Violet Blue the average colour of this pen depends on where you look at it and whether it has more pink or blue in it. Overall though the pen is definitely a cooler colour that is more mauve or lavender than pink or blue. It feels like a soft pastel hue because of that.

The pink sharp pens is too pink and the Lamy Safari Powder Rose is too soft and light but the Nagasawa Sailor Pro Gear Ajisai is a comparable cool pink-lavender colour and the closest I have from my pink-ish pens.

Conclusion

I love the colour of this material and I think I appreciate the subtle use of the Diamond Cast material here more than a more showy way of using it. I like that the colours are soft and not vibrant and I like the general coolness. It is a pretty material. For the size I think I prefer the regular size for my use. I quite like the regular size! For a larger pen though this is still comfortable to use which is great.

The nib is an excellent extra fine nib. Great flow, great feel and very consistent to use. It is slightly wider than I expected after coming from Japanese Needlepoints but it is also smoother to write with. I’m OK with that trade off and it is great to write with which is what I value the most.

This Esterbrook Candy is only coming up for sale around now with it popping up in friends of the blog Deskbandit with the regular sized model. As should be expected this is a premium model with the Diamond Cast material so it isn’t low or medium priced pen.

I really enjoy the nib and and the material!

Thanks again to Esterbrook for sending this pen in for review!

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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I was sent this pen for the purpose of an honest review. Esterbrook does sponsor the blog (although during the pandemic I have suspended any payments).

Pilot giveth and Pilot taketh away! In October 2021 we found out that Pilot was discontinuing three inks from their Iroshizuku lineup, Tsuyu-kusa, Tsukushi, and Ina-ho. In November the same year they announced three new inks that will essentially replace the discontinued inks. These new inks are Sui-gyoku, Hana-ikada, and Hotaru-bi. Overall the changes make the Iroshizuku lineup more vibrant and colourful. This is going to be a long post with six comparison reviews (which quite aren’t as extensive as normal reviews) packed into one post.

Thank you to Pen Classics for sending me the new Iroshizuku inks for review here.

I’ve never treated the Iroshizuku lineup as something I need to collect every bottle. They are such a staple of the ink world that if I wanted a bottle I just go and grab it! I can take a five minute walk and grab a bottle. I already had Ina-ho but I was, however, a little late to picking up Tsukushi and Tsuyu-kusa! By the time I went to buy locally (and by locally I mean in Australia) they were dwindling and no one place had both in stock (at least when I looked). The three inks that are on the way out are on the subdued side. A soft and someone generic blue with a couple of browns. The new inks add a soft pink, a very bright yellow-green and somewhat vibrant teal. I’m curious what people think here. Would you prefer to keep the old or the new?

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One thing I first noticed, obviously, was that the new small 15ml. The old three-pack box was large and plastic; it took up a lot of room for 45ml of ink! The new box is cardboard with faux-leather and is appropriately more or less the same size as a 50ml Irozhizuku bottle.

Nib and Pen details

I used Lamy Safaris in Blue Macaron, Mango, Aquamarine, Powder Rose, Mint Glaze as well as a Lamy Vista for these reviews and seven different stainless steel Lamy nibs on that pen. The choice of pen (be that Safari, AL-Star, Vista, Joy or Studio) will have little impact in the writing performance. I will not use a Lamy Dialog because there is the rare chance of the nib drying out slightly which might affect the writing performance.

1. Lamy 1.9 Stub: this is a very wet nib

2. Lamy 1.5 Stub: this nib is moderately wet to write with (this is used for the brand and ink name title);

3. Lamy 1.1 Stub: this nib is on the drier side;

4. Lamy Broad: this is a wet;

5. Lamy Medium: this is a very wet nib;

6. Lamy Fine: this nib is moderately dry; and

7. Lamy Extra Fine: this nib is moderately wet.

I also use a fine JoWo nib attached to a James Finniss Serendipity (from Pensive Pens) for the comparison ink names. This nib’s wetness is moderate but the feed is primed which gives it a wetter character than would be a normal writing experience. This generally as the effect of reducing shading and luminosity, while increasing sheen and saturation. The possibility of feathering and bleeding is also slightly increased. This is still more accurate than a dip pen or a glass pen in my experience.

Out with the Old

The inks that are being discontinued are Tsuyu-kusa, Tsukushi and Ina-ho. Tsuyu-kusa is a fairly neutral moderate saturation blue, Tsukushi is a pink-red leaning moderate saturation brown and Ina-ho is a somewhat light green-yellow leaning tan-brown ink.

Tsuyu-kusa

Tsuyu-kusa is known in English as as Asiatic Dayflower but the name more directly translates to “dew herb”. From the photos it seems the colour pretty accurately represents the flower!

The i8nk is decently wet and lubricated to write with, especially for the decent dry times that we will see below.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

Tsuyu-kusa is fairly consistent in colour or Rhodia and here on Tomoe River paper. It is a moderately light ink and moderately saturated. It isn’t an ink that stands out for me (personally). but sometimes that is the colour you want.

• Sailor Ink Studio 143: this dichromatic ink has a similar saturation (though still a little less) but has too much purple/pink;

• Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-peki: is clearly more saturated and more teal tinted; and

• Diamone Florida Blue: is a similar hue but flatter and more saturated.

There is some shading but it isn’t very strong. Frequency is pretty decent but the contrast is very low and the gradient is almost exclusively smooth.

On Tomoe River there is some low saturated copper-red sheen the swatch and if you look very closely on the wetter nibs it is on the written line as well but it is very subtle.

Water resistance isn’t terrible but it is a bit messy; you can still see the lines, however. The dry time is decently quick and there is no smearing. Chromatography is a fairly flat gradient.

Iroshizuku Kon-Peki has a higher amount of sheen that leads more pink than copper and Florida Blue is even more subtle with its sheen (if you can even claim it has any). Not pictured is Sailor Ink Studio 143 which has none.

80gsm White Rhodia

There is no sheen whatsoever on Rhodia. Not on the swatch or the written line.

The shading, however, is slightly improved from Tomoe River. The frequency is the same but the contrast is higher and the gradient is a little less smooth. This is still not a high shading ink, however.

On Rhodia the colour is quite similar but the ink does present a touch darker. Overall not too big of a difference though.

• Sailor Ink Studio 143: this is closer on Rhodia in terms of saturation and brightness but the purple still stands out';

• Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-peki: is clearly more saturated and more teal tinted; and

• Diamone Florida Blue: is a similar hue (though on Rhodia slightly more purple leaning) but flatter and more saturate and also a little darker.

The water resistance seems slightly better on Rhodia but it is still messy. Dry time is snappy and there is no smearing.

Tsukushi

Tsukushi is based on the Horsetail plant. This edible plant has what looks like buds that grow in the early spring and have a slightly reddish brown colour in some photos I’ve seen.

The ink is quite wet and lubricated which allows for the darker written lines you will see below.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

In the swatch Tsukushi looks quite pale but the written lines look noticeably darker. This ink is noticeably pinker or redder on Tomoe River than on Rhodia.

• Kobe Nagasaki #52: is more orange and darker

• Montblanc Toffee Brown: is more saturated, a little too orange but still with some red to it and too dark; and

• J. Herbin Caf´é des Îles: is a similar brightness but less sarutaed and more yellow leaning.

Shading is quite low on Tomoe River for Tsukushi. There is decent consistency but the the contrast is quite low and the gradient is mostly smooth.

On Tomoe River this ink has a decent amount of yellow-green sheen to it. This isn’t a strong sheen but it is seen on all the written liens to various degrees and gives the ink a warmness to it.

Water resistance removes the brown and you are left with a dull magenta behind. It is a little messy but not bad overall. Dry time for a wet ink like this is very good and there is no smearing which is good for an ink with this amount of sheen.

Chromatography starts with a cool grey that slowly picks up magenta before moving to a brown gradient.

Kobe #52’s sheen is very subtle but does have a hint of green to it. Toffee Brown is essentailyl sheenless and the silver sheen on the J. Herbin doesn’t translate much into the written line.

80gsm White Rhodia

The shading is different to Tomoe River but still subtle. The frequency is lower and the contrast is similar but the gradient is less smooth.

There is no sheen anywhere on Rhodia.

The saturation is not as strong on Rhodia, especially with that magenta hue. It is still leaning a little magenta but no where near as strong as on Tomoe River.

• Kobe Nagasaki #52: is much too yellow;

• Montblanc Toffee Brown: is more saturated and a little darker but closer this time; and

• J. Herbin Caf´é des Îles: is much closer with more red showing. It is a little darker and more saturated.

Again the water resistance is decent but quite messy. More of the grey fro the chromatography iis visible on Rhodia. Dry time is very snappy and there is no smearing.

Ina-ho

Ina-ho is named after the rice ears of rice that turn golden before they are harvested. The rice still has some green to it and this colour does an excellent job of recreating a golden colour with a hint of green.

Ina-ho is decently wet but the lubrication doesn’t feel quite as smooth as most Iroshizuku I have used.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

Ina-ho has some decent shading. The frequency is relatively high and while the contrast isn’t high it is still distinctive enough. The gradient is decently sudden as well. The ink looks quite nice because of this shading, I believe.

There is no sheen on Tomoe River for this ink.

Ina-ho on Tomoe River is a cool golden colour with a slight hint of green. It is a fairly pale ink. On Tomoe River the ink looks less flat than on Rhodia.

• Sailor Ink Studio 970: much more saturated and too yellow;

• Birmingham Pen Co. Sandstone: less green, paler, and slightly less saturated; and

• Diamone Tobacco Sunburst: darker, more saturated and more orange leaning.

Water resistance washes away all of the colour that this ink actually looks like. It leaves behind a faint blue line that serves to help keep what you wrote but still isn’t very strong water resistance. Dry time is decent and there is no smearing.

Chromatography starts with a light blue that doesn’t change much until it breaks into a pale pink and then finishes with a tan yellow-brown.

Sailor Ink Studio 970 does have a decent amount of silver sheen and is the only ink here that has sheen.

80gsm White Rhodia

As said, Ina-ho is flatter and so the shading doesn’t look as strong here either. The contrast is much lower and the frequency takes a hit too. Even the gradient is smoother.

There is no sheen anywhere on the page for any ink.

On Rhodia the ink is much flatter and there is less colour shift throughout the swatch. It’s just generally flatter. The ink is generally a little darker and a little greener.

• Sailor Ink Studio 970: much more saturated and too yellow;

• Birmingham Pen Co. Sandstone: less green, much paler, and much less saturated; and

• Diamone Tobacco Sunburst: darker, more saturated and more orange leaning.

As with Tomoe River the water resistance leaves behind a faint blue line and none of the tan colour o the ink. Dry time is very quick on Rhodia! Almost dry in five seconds! No smearing.

In with the New

While the discontinued inks where reserved and, by comparison, dull the new inks are bright, fresh and lolly/candy-like They aren’t vibrant and punchy but soft and colourful. Definitely very different to the inks going away!

Sui-gyoku

Sui-gyoku is named after an emerald or jade and definitely well represents the colour of jade. The ink is decently wet and lubricated. Apologies for the misspelling in the review of Sui-gyoku as “Sai-gyoku”. This is the colour family that is not represented well with sRGB colour space or most monitors or displays. Fortunately this ink isn’t so saturated or the wrong actual hue and so it can be displayed somewhat accurately.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

On Tomoe River and Rhodia the hue is fairly consistent but the ink is slightly bluer on here. Overall the ink sits pretty mid-way between blue and green. The saturation isn’t that high - fairly moderate - and the brightness is decently high.

• Diamine Aurora Borealis: is darker, slightly bluer and a little less saturated;

• Diamine Bloody Absinth: is a similar hue but darker and more saturated; and

• Robert Oster Marine: is a similar hue, brightness, and saturation. Slightly darker, bluer and more saturated.

The ink has some decent shading but it isn’t high shading. There is some sudden contrast changes but mostly, with some exceptions, the contrast isn’t very high and the frequency is fairly moderate.

There is some low saturation magenta sheen that is very subtle on the written line but it is there.

Water resistance leaves a very pale blue line behind, it might be enough to save you but you wouldn’t want to rely on it. Dry time is decent for Tomoe River and there is no smearing.

Chromatography has a pale blue that breaks into a slightly blue leaning green.

Diamine Aurora Borealis’s sheen is the closest to Sui-gyoku o nthe written line. Quite subtle but still more saturated. Bloody Absinth is a very high sheening ink which doesn’t resemble Sui-gyoku much at all. Robert Oster marine’s sheen is subtle but where it does shoe it is bright and saturated.

80gsm White Rhodia

There is still some shading but it doesn’t present that strongly. Contrast is lower than Tomoe River and the gradient is smoother. The frequency is still the same.

There is a tiny amount of sheen on the swatch but that is all.

Flatter and slightly greener but otherwise this ink presents quite similarly on Rhodia.

• Diamine Aurora Borealis: is darker, slightly bluer and a little less saturated;

• Diamine Bloody Absinth: is a similar hue but much darker and more saturated; and

• Robert Oster Marine: is darker, bluer and slightly more saturated.

The same blue line is left behind on Rhodia as well but it is even lighter here. Dry time is decent and there is no smearing.

Only Bloody Absinth presents with sheen on the written line. In contrast Aurora Borealis and Marine present similarly to Sui-gyoku in that they also show no sheen on the written line!

Hana-ikada

Hana-ikada means flower rafts or flowers floating in water and, I believe, represents sakura that fall onto the bodies of water. Quite beautiful from photos I have seen. This ink is quite a soft pink and so it represents this quite well I think.

For a pale ink the wetness and lubrication on this ink is quite decent.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

The ink is quite flat overall. There is some shading and the gradient is somewhat sudden but the contrast is so low that it is difficult to notice.

There is no sheen anywhere. 

Hana-ikada is a soft pink. It is fairly neutral in colour but if any direction it leans more warm than cool. On Tomoe River it is slightly cooler in colour than on Rhodia.

• Sailor Sakura more: a similar hue but greyer and warmer. As should be expected given it is more or less the same subject matter;

• Montblanc Ladies Edition Pearl: much cooler and possibly even paler and less saturated; and

• Birmingham Pen Co. Sweetheart: much warmer and slightly more saturated.

The water resistance is not something you would want to rely on. It becomes very pale. Dry time is very snappy and there is no smearing.

Chromatography is a pink gradient that slowly gets stronger before breaking into a yellow and, interestingly, finishes with pink again.

80gsm White Rhodia

Because of the generally slightly darker the contrast in the shading is a little stronger but the gradient is still smooth and the frequency is still average. Fairly flat still

There is, obviously, no sheen here as well.

On Rhodia the ink is still pale and soft but is warmer and ever so slightly more saturated. The comparison inks all have the exact same relationship with Hana-ikada as on Tomoe River.

• Sailor Sakura more: a similar hue but greyer and warmer. As should be expected given it is more or less the same subject matter;

• Montblanc Ladies Edition Pearl: much cooler and possibly even paler and less saturated; and

• Birmingham Pen Co. Sweetheart: much warmer and slightly more saturated.

The water resistance is a little stronger than on Tomoe River but still not great. Water resistance is almost five seconds. Very fast. No smearing.

Hotaru-bi

Hotaru-bi is based on the light of a firefly which is lovely! I’ve never seen a firefly but from what I have seen in videos and photos this seems to be pretty accurate!  Explains the bright yellow-green colour perfectly.

The ink, for a bright light colour, is decently wet and lubricated but not as much as others.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

Pretty much no shading at all. The contrast is extremely low and the gradient almost always smooth. The frequency isn’t bad but with the first two factors the last doesn’t matter.

There is technically some dull silver sheen on the swatch but none of the written line.

The hue of this ink is very consistent across Rhodia and Tomoe River. It is, however, a little brighter on Tomoe River. This is a fairly saturated ink but it isn’t very high. The combination of brightness and saturation gives it a highlighter quality, almost.

• Sailor Ink Studio #970: too yellow, dark and is slightly less saturated;

• Ferris wheel Press Honeydew: (yes there is an ink there). Way too pale and too green; and

• Rober Oster Sublime: fairly similar but slightly darker and greener.

There is no water resistance. The lines are all gone. Dry time is decent and there is no smearing.

Chromatography is a pale green that moves to a standard yellow and ends with a thin orange-yellow.

Sailor Ink Studio #970 has some strong silver sheen that the rest of the comparison inks don’t have.

80gsm White Rhodia

The darker writing doesn’t increase the contrast on Rhodia so the ink is equally as flat as on Tomoe River. Low contrast, smooth gradient with consistent but meaningless in context.

No sheen!

On Rhodia the ink is very slightly darker but otherwise the same hue. If anything it is slightly greener. The comparison inks all have the exact same relationship with Hana-ikada as on Tomoe River.

• Sailor Ink Studio #970: too yellow, dark and is slightly less saturated;

• Ferris wheel Press Honeydew: (yes there is an ink there). Way too pale and too green; and

• Rober Oster Sublime: fairly similar but slightly darker and greener.

Water resistance is barely better but still practically useless. Dry time is snappy and there is no smearing.

Final Remarks

I asked at the start which of the two sets you’d prefer. I think I’d keep the original three. Removing two browns from the lineup leaves a bit of a gab. That said the soft pink is a nice addition. The bright light green is definitely different but I’m unsure how useful the ink is. While still useable it is very bright. Chiku-Rin is quite another light green but it is still in the same realm as Hotaru-bi. While I don’t care too much, personally, about Tsukushi or Tsuyu-kusa I did like Ina-ho (a fairly unique ink). I think the light pink is a nice addition to the lineup as the other pinks or fuchsias are all very vibrant compared to Hana-ikada (even Kosumosu). Sui-gyoku is, however, another teal and there is already three of those with Ku-jaku, Shin-ryoku, and Syo-ro. They are different but they aren’t that different. What the lineup doesn’t have is a rich green-leaning green. If I were to pick and choose I’d definitely keep Ina-ho and Hana-ikada. I’m not entirely soon about the others!

As is common with Iroshizuku all the inks have good performance. The light inks re wet and well lubricated, there is good dry times, and good performance on Rhodia. As you should expect with Iroshizuku these are excellent inks.

I am still curious about which you’d keep? Which set, or which individual three inks would you keep?

Thank you again for Pen Classics for sending in the set of new inks for me to review!

✒︎ ✑ ✒︎ ✑

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I was sent these inks for the purpose of an honest review.

This Platinum Curidas, sent to me by Pen Classics, has been a little while in the making! Platinum released the Curidas in early 2020 and it has always been a curious fountain pen and one I always wanted to add to my collection and compare with other retractable nibbed fountain pens! Now is the time.

Thanks again to Pen Classics for sending me the Platinum Curidas which was given away (curtesy of Pen Classics) after the review to celebrate six years of Fountain Pens Australia!

The name ‘Curidas’ is portmanteau of Kuridasu, a Japanese word referring to the action of extending the nib and Curiosity. Much of Platinum’s copywriting is about the efficiency of not having to unscrew and place a lid down and so you won’t miss out on an important note as well as emphasising the Nib Pocket’s ability to prevent the nib from drying out.

The cartridge/converter Platinum Curidas comes in five different colours: Gran Red, Abyss Blue, Urban Green (featured in this review), Graphite Smoke, and Prism Crystal (also featured in this review). The colours seem fairly deep and rich, judging from the Urban Green which I have seen in person. There are only three nib options (Extra Fine, Fine and Medium) but for the purpose of this pen that Platinum is promoting (quick notes) these nib sizes work well.

The pen is curiously designed as well with a very easily (but not completely) disassembly of the pen not just possibly but necessary to refill the pen. There are some odd lumps on the pen and Platinum designed the pen to have the clip removable and even encourage you to do that!

Packaging

The packaging is fairly simple with a card slip case with a black and white graphic of the Curidas on the front. The main coffin-style plastic box that holds the pen has the expected false bottom and simple pen holding elastic.

The pen does come with a decent amount of instructions distinct from the instructions you would often find on fountain pens. It tells you how to disassemble the pen to refill, remove the clip (and reattach), and how to clean inside the grip. To accompany the instructions for removing the clip and cleaning the nib pocket/inside grip is the items that are required for you to do just that. It includes some silicon oil (as opposed to silicon grease, oil is more fluid) for cleaning the nib section as well as three cotton tip buds (that have paper rather than plastic sticks - unfortunately they are still encased in plastic bags). Lastly there is the tool that helps you remove and reattach the clip.

Details

I usually prefer demonstrator pens that show the ink sloshing around (so not as much with pens that use a cartridge converter system). However I think this pen really lives up to the original purpose of 'demonstrator’ pens. That is to demonstrate the internal mechanisms of the pen. And this pen has lots of internal mechanisms to show off! You can see all the springs, bits of plastic, hooks, guides covers lumps; very interesting!

The pen has CURIDAS and Platinum Made in Japan written onto it but is otherwise somewhat intricately moulded plastic. Some of the moulds are there as plastic rail guides to hold the button in place and not rotate and some seem to act as a brace to hold the nib section area in place. The clip is a simple folder metal clip but you can somewhat easily remove it (more on that below).

Because of the mechanism at the front of the pen that retracts and protects the nib the knock button at the back of the pen is quite large; indeed a whole 3.6cm long with the nib retracted! This required a large extension of the thumb to reach and a deep press of the button, in fact you need to press the button almost the entire 3.6cm.

The pen is a injection moulded plastic or resin. The plastic does feels softer than the plastic on a Lamy Safari, for example and definitely doesn’t feel premium at all but this also isn’t marketed as a premium pen.

The biggest ‘issue’ with the pen is probably the lump underneath of the section where you might hold the pen. The above photos show how this interacts with where you hold the pen. If you hold the pen shallow and near where the nib is or a bit further back closer to the clip then the lump mostly doesn’t get in the way but if you hold the pen in the middle with a standard tripod grip then the lump does protrude into middle finger at the bottom. Where I hold the nib, which is closer to the third image, I find the pen quite comfortable to hold and write with for extended period. However if the centre photo is more where you would default to when writing it might be uncomfortable after a while.

So why is the lump there? As far as I can tell the reason is to help with the air-tightness of the nib pocket and prevent it from drying out. The nib pocket door is designed to naturally rest open but the when the nib retracts this door is set onto a rail guide that pushed the nib closed tight against the soft-plastic housing. For the door carriage to ride this guide rail it needs a have a slide unit that slides through the guides and that means it needs to have a lump on the door. That slide unit bump then needs to go somewhere when it naturally falls open after the guide rail ends and so that is where the outside plastic lump comes into play; it provides a spot for the door’s slide unit bump to sit protected when open otherwise the slide unit would need a hole and would then rub on the middle finger directly. Because the door is likely much more easily damaged than the plastic body of the pen this bump in the section protects the door. For some reason as well, however, the bump is also actually open to the air which I can’t explain!

Top us the pen with all the removable components and so is completely disassembled (at least as much as Platinum intend you to disassemble). The nib pocket is still in tact inside the section part. The parts are:

• Clip

• Spring

• Section with nib pocket

• Rear body with button components

• Nib and feed

• Cartridge/Converter holder and hook system

Here is how the pen assembles. The first photo shows with a cartridge and the subsequent photos show it with a converter.

1. Cartridge/converter into feed

2. Cartridge/converter holder over cartridge/converter

3. Constructed feed and cartridge/converter unit goes into a spring

4. Whole unit with spring goes into the section

5. Rear body with button components screws over the protruding the cartridge/converter

If you remove the clip there is a protruding piece plastic that is used as a clip guide. Removing the clip involves a piece of half-cylinder plastic that wedges underneath where the clip clips on at the side of the pen which lifts it out from the plastic clippings that hold it in. Platinum recommends doing the procedure in reverse to reapply the clip

Nib

The steel nib on this Curidas is distinct from Platinum’s other low-cost fountain pens but it has the same look. It is a thinner profile to the Preppy, Procyon, or Plaisir pens but has the ‘p’ Platinum logo with the nib size underneath just the same.

Platinum has only a couple of things to say about the the nib and only this seems relevant to it’s design:

Slim and long-shaped nib gives easier control of pen tip when you write.

I’m not sure how true this really is but it is a slimmer nib.

I’ve tried the Fine and Medium and starting with the Fine nib it is smooth with some pleasant feedback with excellent flow and consistent flow. There have been no hard starts and no drying out of the nib in my experience with this nib. It also worked perfectly out of the box.

The fine nib is also decently fine. It is cleary thinner than the JoWo Fine on the second Esterbrook Etsie and even slightly thinner than the Pilot Vanishing Point Fine nib but only slightly thicker than the Nagahara Needlepoint on the Franklin-Christoph. This is a good fine nib size!

The Medium nib maintains a similar writing experience to the Fine. It is decently wet (though I’d say slightly less than the fine) as well as smooth but with some pleasant feedback. I also had no hard starts or drying out and it too worked perfectly straight out of the box.

The Medium nib is definitely more in line with western standards of what ‘medium’ is with it being much closer to the Lamy (Gold nib) Medium and the Bock TWSBI and Sheaffer Medium than it is to the Japanese Sailor Pro Gear Medium.

Deminsions

The Platinum Curidas is quite a decently sized pen at 15.3cm retracted. As mentioned already, a large part of that is the knock button on the pack which extend 3.6cm! The long button also gives the pen a somewhat unbalanced profile when the nib is retracted in my opinion. It isn’t ugly but it doesn’t feel balanced to me. The girth of the pen is also on the wider side but nothing extreme. With the nib extended a whole 1.4cm is shaved off the length of the pen - quite a lot! I find the visual balance of the pen with the nib extended quite pleasing to the eye!

The Curidas clearly stands out here in terms of length with the nib retracted as only the Esterbrook Etsie is as long. Interesting when moving between retracted and extended positions the Pilot Vanishing Point loses only 3mm in length and the Pilot Fermo grows by 7mm making its length, extended, almost the same as the Curidas’s length when retracted.

In terms of weight the Curidas isn’t light and in fact does start to get more words a heavier with it weighing a similar amount to a Pelikan M805. It is also more front heavy. Even though it is mostly plastic it is still only 1.6g lighter than a Pilot Vanishing Point. I found this pretty interesting! The pen doesn't feel heavy to me and the pen sits comfortably with its wight in my hand.

Finally I like to compare the pen with other pens in a similar colour family and as I took this photo after I sent the Urban Green pen to the winner it can only be compared with other colourless fountain pens! Obviously the Pilot and first TWSBI pictured above show the ink primarily and you don’t see the clear plastic as well (as would be the case with the last TWSBI were it inked). The Curdas most closely resembles the first Franklin-Christoph here and would be similar to any clear plastic cartridge converter pen in general.

Final Remarks

I think that the portmanteau name really does represent the pen well but I possibly don’t mean it the way Platinum does. For me I find the mechanical design of the Curidas to be very curious. Why did they choose a mechanism that seems to have so many curiosities such as the nib door plastic bump and the large button press? Both of these curiosities make sense within this design but why did they choose this design? Perhaps it was all because of the design to have a more airtight nib pocket? I don’t know! Regardless I find it curious. And I don’t mean that negatively - more neutral. Outside of these curiosities I’m really enjoying the pen and I have been keeping it with me at my day job all day recently and using it for quick notes - just how Platinum advertise the intended use of the pen. It is quick and easy to use, the nib is a delight to use and works perfectly straight away even after a while without use. It’s a great pen that I pack into my pocket, curiosities and all!

The Curidas Fountain Pen is NZ$129.99 from Pen Classics which converts at the time of this review to around AU$121 and US$87. This puts the pen above that of a Plaisir but yet at the price point of a gold nibbed Pilot Vanishing Point (there is a steel nib Pilot Vanishing Point that can be bought but that too is slightly higher but the difference is more narrow).

Thanks heaps to Pen Classics for sending the Curidas in for review and giveaway! Check them out and do consider them for you next purchase.

✒︎ ✑ ✒︎ ✑

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I was sent this item for the purpose of an honest review. Pen Classics does sponsor the blog (although during the pandemic I have suspended any payments).

Late 2021 Wearingeul, a somewhat new South Korean ink maker, reached out to me and others in the Fountain Pen community to introduce their line of inks. I posted swatches late last year of what I received. Wearingeul, itself is a brand within the Able Design family of design brands, has a mixture of shimmer, sheen and normal inks (as well as some dichromatic inks) in their lineup. I love burnt orange-like inks so I was eager to get this in a pen and review it first up!

Thanks to Wearingeul for sending me this ink for review.

Wearngeul is part of the Able Design Entertainment group which also includes Venho (which seems to make decal-like products) and Jacquere (which makes some paper products). The Wearingeul brand is divided into product families currently, all of which are related by their shared theme of ‘literature’. These inks come under “The Color of Literature” but there is also Fragrance, Taste and finally and etcetera defined as “Adding Literature on Daily Life”. The etcetera includes some paper, pencil and other general EDC products.

With regards to Wearingeul’s inks again they are literature themed with many of the inks relating to Korean writers. This ink is from Wearingeul’s Project No. 4 set of three inks relating to Korean Female Modern Writers. In the set is an ink representing Kang Kyeong-ae’s The Human Issue (n.b. Wikipedia translates the work as ‘The Human Problem’), Kim Myung-sun's 'Stonecutter's song' (which I can’t find anything about - only Simpsons!), Ji Ha-ryun’s ‘Path (Dojeong)’ (which I also can’t find much about) and finally this based on Na Hue-Seok’s Kyonghui which “concerns a woman's self-discovery and her subsequent search for meaning in life as a "new woman;" it is the first feminist short story in Korean literature”. The women in this set are all early 19th century authors and as far as I can tell all or most of them are part of early Korean feminist movements.

Kyonghui ranges in colour a little bit from an orange-yellow to a light brown-leaning orange. Different papers can lean more one way or the other as well. For a vibrant highly saturated orange it is quite earthy-toned. On average the ink is fairly average brightness leaning slightly lighter at times. The ink is quite wet and with good flow. In my experience feels quite high in dye content which makes the ink feel more viscous with higher lubricant and dye and less water. This can mean the ink is more susceptible to drying out in pens with poor sealing but I have not experienced any drying out with this ink! The ink performs quite well on all papers, even less fountain pen friendly paper. There is minimal feathering and bleeding on the worst papers and none on good paper. The only real difference is how much orange or yellow shows and whether there is any sheen. Examples of the ink on 15 different paper types is at the end of the review as well as showing sheen on six different paper types.

The bottle is what is becoming quite a common bottle shape; a simple cube. Sailor, PenBBS, 3•Oysters (though with a corner missing), Louis Vuitton, as well as others are all similar cubic shaped bottles. Nothing wrong with that and is presents nicely with a single sticker on the front with the colour of the ink. Unlike the large Sailor cubic bottles, however, this is 30ml rather than 50ml.

View fullsize

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The box is a simple white box with Wearingeul printed onto it and with a label of the inks colour and some details about the ink. Inside is a card with some text in Korean on it and a printed swatch of the ink with some RGB colour numbers which is a nice detail. The average colour I got from the swatch on Tomoe River (all three saturation levels) was 197, 107, 39 (so a little darker).

Nib and Pen details

I used a Lamy Studio in Imperial Blue for this review and seven different stainless steel Lamy nibs on that pen. The choice of pen (be that Safari, AL-Star, Vista, Joy or Studio) will have little impact in the writing performance. I will not use a Lamy Dialog because there is the rare chance of the nib drying out slightly which might affect the writing performance.

1. Lamy 1.9 Stub: this is a very wet nib

2. Lamy 1.5 Stub: this nib is moderately wet to write with (this is used for the brand and ink name title);

3. Lamy 1.1 Stub: this nib is on the drier side;

4. Lamy Broad: this is a wet;

5. Lamy Medium: this is a very wet nib;

6. Lamy Fine: this nib is moderately dry; and

7. Lamy Extra Fine: this nib is moderately wet.

I also use a fine JoWo nib attached to a James Finniss Serendipity (from Pensive Pens) for the comparison ink names. This nib’s wetness is moderate but the feed is primed which gives it a wetter character than would be a normal writing experience. This generally as the effect of reducing shading and luminosity, while increasing sheen and saturation. The possibility of feathering and bleeding is also slightly increased. This is still more accurate than a dip pen or a glass pen in my experience.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

On Tomoe River Kyonghui Presents slightly on the yellower side of this ink’s spectrum and quite saturated. With the high saturation all comes with slightly less earthy tones.

• Colorverse Golden Record: too dark, brown and a little less saturated;

• Noodler’s Apache Sunset: too yellow, light but a similar saturation and with similar earthy tones;

• Robert Oster Burned Orange: redder, darker and flatter;

• Robert Oster Orange Rumble: also too red and dark but slightly more saturated;

• Bungubox Fresh Orange Mandarin: way too yellow and saturated;

• (Sailor) Sankodo Tougokusan Fruits: too dark

Of these inks, on Tomoe River, none seem to have the shading of yellow to orange as strongly as Kyonghui. Orange Rumble and Tougokusan Fruits is similar to a mid-range orange of Kyonghui, Apache Sunset is similar to the lighter areas.

Shading is quite decent and noticeable. The frequency is quite high and the gradient is often fairly sudden the only thing keeping it back is the contrast which, while decent, isn’t very high as the orange is still moderately dark. There is no haloing.

There is some low-gloss - so somewhat matte - silvery sheen. It is present on most of the written lines but it isn’t strong or overly noticeable. On the swatch it really onely really shows on the wettest swatch.

In terms of inks’ sheen similar to Kyonghui’s sheen only really Burned Orange comes that close with a matte silvery sheen. Golden Record has a curious copper sheen, Orange Rumble comes with a red-brown colour, the Bungubox is a glossy silver as is the Sankodo (which also has a green tint to it).

The Chromatography doesn’t really much to what we already know. Apart from a grey line left behind, it is a gradient of yellow to burnt orange. Water resistance is non-existent but the dry time is quite decent for Tomoe River! 30s and almost dry. There is some smearing but it isn’t strong.

80gsm White Rhodia

Rhodia is slightly less saturated, darker and so less yellow. It is also more earthy. On the top wetter part of the swatch there is almost some green peaking through somehow. There is no haloing.

• Colorverse Golden Record: is darker but otherwise similar;

• Noodler’s Apache Sunset: much lighter and yellower;

• Robert Oster Burned Orange: slightly redder but very close;

• Robert Oster Orange Rumble: slightly more saturated and more orange';

• Bungubox Fresh Orange Mandarin: much more saturated and orange; and

• (Sailor) Sankodo Tougokusan Fruits: is slightly less saturated but otherwise similar.

Apart from the lack of shading, Tougokusan Fruits is easily the closest here with Golden Record and Burned Orange not too far off.

The contrast to the shading is a little stronger on Rhodia and gradient a little shorter as well as a slight increase in frequency. All of that means that shading is noticeably stronger on Rhodia.

There is no sheen to see at all on Rhodia.

Similarly no sheen on any written line on Rhodia. Only Golden Record, and the Robert Oster show any hints of sheen on the swatch.

Water Resistance is again essentially non-existent and the dry time is still great; close the dry at 15s and fully dry at 30! There is a hint of smearing but it is much less on Rhodia.

Final Remarks

⭐️ = One Star

★ = Half a Star

☆ = No Star

🚫 = None/Not Applicable

(Star ratings are a rough and glanceable indication and are more quantitative than qualitative. They are not saying that something is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but rather that, of the particular characteristic, the ink has a ‘high’ or ‘low’ amount)

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

• Shading: ⭐️⭐️⭐️★☆

• Sheen: ⭐️☆☆☆☆

• Shimmer: 🚫

• Halo: 🚫

• Saturation: ⭐️⭐️⭐️★☆

• Luminosity: ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Feathering: 🚫

• Bleeding: 🚫

• Flow: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Dry time: ⭐️⭐️⭐️★☆

• Smear: ⭐️⭐️★☆☆

• Water Resistance: 🚫

80gsm White Rhodia

• Shading: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Sheen: 🚫

• Shimmer: 🚫

• Halo: 🚫

• Saturation: ⭐️⭐️⭐️★☆

• Luminosity: ⭐️⭐️★☆☆

• Feathering: 🚫

• Bleeding: 🚫

• Flow: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Dry time: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Smear: ⭐️☆☆☆☆

• Water Resistance: 🚫

I am a big fan of burned orange colours and especially in an ink and I was very excited to try this ink. For me Kyonghui has lived up to my hopes. Lovely strong shading, a nice range of colours from yellow to orange, subtle sheening, all on top of excellent nib and paper performance. I am quite pleased with this ink!

Wearingeul also have some interesting other inks that are trying to do something a little different. Another Wearingeul ink I was sent that I’m looking forward to trying is the Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde ink set. The set has two identical bottles of Dr Jekyll ink with one slightly unfilled. A third smaller bottle is also in the set and you are meant to use an included blunt syringe to empty the smaller bottle into the unfilled Dr Jekyll ink. Finally you peal off the Dr Jekyll label on this new ink to reveal Mr Hyde (and a newly mixed ink colour)! Certainly completely unnecessary and not practical but fun and relevant to the theme! Sometimes fun is important.

The ink sells for US$20 on Amazon as well as Wearingeul’s store. It does, unfortunately, have pricy shipping costs which is certainly influenced by current international events.

Thanks heaps to Wearingeul for sending this in for review, more to come!

✒︎ ✑ ✒︎ ✑

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I was sent these inks for the purpose of an honest review.

I’ve organised two group buys from Birmingham for my local fountain pen group (to maximise shipping efficiency) and in those two buys I managed to pick up 14 inks from the two batches. In the first batch was this Projector Film. I have to admit, I was initially more drawn to it because of the name (I’ve been getting into film photography lately and the loose connection to that interested me). But the ink colour seemed interesting as well and once I got it in a pen I realised it was quite interesting!

The small two-brother run Birmingham Pen Co. have quite a few inks (which certainly made it difficult to pick which I wanted) and they add new inks to the lineup all the time and I believe they retire inks as well. If you see something you really want, it is probably best to jump on it early. As a very general theme, Birmingham inks tend to be lower in saturation and dusty, dirty, or muddy coloured. This ties them all together and also makes them stand out which is a difficult thing to do with the amount of inks we have available to us now. Birmingham Pen Co. divide their inks into different categories and sub-categories:

Traditional Ink

• Crisp Formula: “Formulated to perform well with a variety of premium, mid range, and discount papers.”

• Swift Formula: “Designed to start quickly, write wet, and operate easily within a wide variety of fountain pens.”

• Rich Formula: “Built with a unique vehicle and dye combination to produce vibrant color and intermittent sheen.”

• Wishy-Washy Formula: “Washable from most fabrics and cleans easily from most surfaces.”

Specialty Ink

• Everlasting Formula: “Permanent and highly water resistant.”

• Twinkle Formula: “A unique blend of proprietary fountain pen ink formulas and iridescent pigment carefully calibrated for optimal luster and performance.”

Birmingham also list the generalised ink ingredients in the bottle (which are different for each category). Projector Film is a Crisp Formula ink and has the following ink ingredients:"

Diluent - Highly purified laboratory grade water to ensure consistency
Thickener - Tempers feathering
Humectants - Influences dry-time
Lubricants - Regulates flow & performance
Surfactants - Regulates flow & performance
Preservative - Adds shelf life for safe long-term use & storage
Colorants - Powder dyes to bring colors alive in the solution

As you can see, in the bottle the fluid of Projector Film is a fairly yellow colour and leans towards the green. On the paper (usually) much pinker in colour. On most papers the ink is a warm, pink huffed taupe of beige. The ink is fairly light and the saturation is low and it has that dustiness that I often associate with Birmingham inks. The ink is a little on the drier side of performance. I definitely would prefer this in a wetter pen. The flow is good but the ink feels a little drier.

That said, it is difficult to describe the inks actual colour because it changes quite a bit depending on the paper it is on. On cream Tomoe River paper the yellow comes out a lot more (and even leans a hair green). On Graphilo it looks much more like a light brown. On Decent Copy Paper and 68gsm Tomoe River it is noticeably pink. As a swatch, performance of this ink isn’t amazing on poor quality paper but in the written line (which is the important part) the performance is decent on most papers. There is even some shading on decent copy paper. Examples of the ink on 15 different paper types is at the end of the review.

Birmingham inks, with the exception of the Twinkly Formula (shimmering inks) which is only in 60ml bottles, are available in 30ml, 60ml, and 120ml. I’ve come to enjoy 30ml as a size and so all of my inks (bar two because I wanted to have one of each bottle) are 30ml. The 120ml bottle comes with a built in eye dropper just like the larger Noodler’s bottles (in fact this 120ml Birmingham bottle looks very similar to the Noodler’s (but it is different). The bottles are all glass and all of them (especially the smaller ones) have a simple vintage look about them as if they are from the the industrial era. They remind me of Noodler’s in this regard and I love the look.

Nib and Pen details

I used Lamy Safaris in Blue Powder Rose for this review and seven different stainless steel Lamy nibs on that pen. The choice of pen (be that Safari, AL-Star, Vista, Joy or Studio) will have little impact in the writing performance. I will not use a Lamy Dialog because there is the rare chance of the nib drying out slightly which might affect the writing performance.

1. Lamy 1.9 Stub: this is a very wet nib

2. Lamy 1.5 Stub: this nib is moderately wet to write with (this is used for the brand and ink name title);

3. Lamy 1.1 Stub: this nib is on the drier side;

4. Lamy Broad: this is a wet;

5. Lamy Medium: this is a very wet nib;

6. Lamy Fine: this nib is moderately dry; and

7. Lamy Extra Fine: this nib is moderately wet.

I also use a fine JoWo nib attached to a James Finniss Serendipity (from Pensive Pens) for the comparison ink names. This nib’s wetness is moderate but the feed is primed which gives it a wetter character than would be a normal writing experience. This generally as the effect of reducing shading and luminosity, while increasing sheen and saturation. The possibility of feathering and bleeding is also slightly increased. This is still more accurate than a dip pen or a glass pen in my experience.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

On Tomoe River the inks has a noticeably pink hue to it. It is still quite warm. The darker the swatch the pinker it gets. I actually struggled quite a lot to find a similarly coloured ink in my collection (which is a decent indication that this is a fairly unique colour).

• Diamine Gingerbread: much too orange and saturated (though it does still have a subtle pinkness to it);

• Sailor Ink Studio 273: much too light and too pink but a comparable hue;

• Louis Vuitton Or Audacieux: too yellow and green';

• Kyo-Iso Stone Road of Gion: too brown (with no pink) and less saturated;

• Hakase Sepia Dark: Lighter, browner (with no pink) and less saturated;

• L’Artisan Pastalier Callifilio Inca Sol: too red and orange and too saturated;

• Montblanc Swan Illusion Plume: much too light and the pink hue is much too subtle.

Strongly I think Sailor Ink Studio 273 is the closest here (and it really isn’t that close).

The shading of this ink is where it shines. Look at the blocky hight contrast in the title! The shading is frequent, with mostly sudden gradients and high contrast between the shades. Very nice. It shines in wet pens as well which is a surprise! There is also a subtle halo to it on Tomoe River.

There is no sheen here. Technically there is the faintest hint of a desaturated green sheen on the swatch but nothing close to sheen on the written line.

Similarly most of these do not have sheen even on Tomoe River and those that do only have it on the swatch.

You can see on some of the poorer papers that some green starts to feather into the paper from the heavily swatches areas. You can see this same green in the chromatography. The colour starts with a faint washed blue that becomes a warm pink that slowly gets darker and loses some warmth before breaking into a green.

This ink has no water resistance. The dry time is fairly normal (leaning towards slightly slow) on Tomoe River, and there is no smearing.

80gsm White Rhodia

On Rhodia the ink is more saturated and decidedly warmer. The pink is still there (especially in the more heavier parts of the swatch or shading) but it definitely doesn’t show as much here. This is more of a light orange brown colour.

• Diamine Gingerbread: much closer on Rhodia but still too yellow and saturated;

• Sailor Ink Studio 273: not similar at as it is way too pink, desaturated and light;

• Louis Vuitton Or Audacieux: too yellow, green and saturated (and a little darker);

• Kyo-Iso Stone Road of Gion: Too dark, brown and desaturated;

• Hakase Sepia Dark: Also too brown and desaturated;

• L’Artisan Pastalier Callifilio Inca Sol: too red and saturated;

• Montblanc Swan Illusion Plume: too light, brown and desaturated.

On Rhodia I think Diamine Gingerbread comes the closest.

Shading isn’t quite as strong on Rhodia. The contrast isn’t as strong but the gradient and frequency are still the same as on Tomoe River. On Rhodia there is no haloing.

As should be expected from an ink that doesn’t sheen on Tomoe River, it doesn’t sheen on Rhodia at all. There is some feathering in the swatch here but not on the writing, thankfully.

None of these inks show sheen, especially on the written line.

There is no water resistance on Rhodia and the dry time is quite speedy! No smearing either.

Final Remarks

⭐️ = One Star

★ = Half a Star

☆ = No Star

🚫 = None/Not Applicable

(Star ratings are a rough and glanceable indication and are more quantitative than qualitative. They are not saying that something is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but rather that, of the particular characteristic, the ink has a ‘high’ or ‘low’ amount)

80gsm White Rhodia

• Shading: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Sheen: 🚫

• Shimmer: 🚫

• Halo: 🚫

• Saturation: ⭐️⭐️★☆☆

• Luminosity: ⭐️⭐️★☆☆

• Feathering: 🚫

• Bleeding: 🚫

• Flow: ⭐️⭐️☆☆☆

• Dry time:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Smear: 🚫

• Water Resistance: 🚫

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

• Shading: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️★

• Sheen: 🚫

• Shimmer: 🚫

• Halo: ⭐️⭐️★☆☆

• Saturation: ⭐️⭐️☆☆☆

• Luminosity: ⭐️⭐️☆☆☆

• Feathering: 🚫

• Bleeding: 🚫

• Flow: ⭐️⭐️☆☆☆

• Dry time: ⭐️⭐️☆☆☆

• Smear: 🚫

• Water Resistance: 🚫

I’ve been really happy with the Birmingham Pen Co. inks I have put in my pens. I’ve got four reviews prepared (including this) and I’ve inks six inks so far (I think). In general the feel of the inks is slightly drier than I prefer but the colour and and look of this ink makes it easy for me to look past that. They have such unique colours and some subtle dichromaticism as well. I’d definitely recommend looking at their range (they also make some pens periodically)!

I’d also like to commend on the professionalism of this small run ink studio! The second group buy (which was close to AU$1000 - a little of US$700) came in two packages. Because of the pandemic shipping was very slow (this is definitely not Birmingham Ink Co.’s fault!) It actually reached almost 60 days with no tracking and the way Nick and Josh handled this was amazing so I can definitely confirm that you will be treated very well!

The ink is quite decently priced for my mind. The 30ml bottle is US$13, the 60ml is US$16, and the 120ml is US$19. Shipping internationally isn’t very affordable (but you can’t blame them for that - I recommend a group buy!). US shipping is free over US$40 (which should be say to get to) and I should also note that they often have sales that knock a couple of dollars off the ink. I should note that the Twinkly (shimmer) inks are US$29, and the Everlasting inks are US$19, US$29, and US39 for the respective sizes

What are your favourites from their current lineup? If I’m ever part of another group order I need a list!

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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I purchased this ink myself .

Today is a review of a set of items from Midori that work quite nicely together. These aren’t an official set but I think they could easily be and would be great to buy together. They are the Midori MD Fountain Pen, the Midori MD Lined A5 Notebook with the Paper Notebook Cover. These are affordable products from an established Japanese brand that have a certain minimalist-like aesthetic about them.

A big thanks to Ink’d Pens for sending these in for review!

I had lots of fun photographing these items. For some reason the items remind me a bit of 60s interior design colours. Lots of earthy, autumnal and natural colours from tans, browns, oranges, warm greens, and dusty blues. I think the paper cover with it’s tan colour and the off-white plastic in the fountain pen are colours that could be found a lot in 60s appliances. I think elements from this 60s colour theme work well with Japanese design that is often associated with minimalism. Some of the condensed Japanese design themes also employ a lot of natural colours simply through the use of so many natural materials. The paper cover fits nicely in this style, to me. This review set is essentially a two-in-one review so it is quite long and quite image heavy!

Midori MD Fountain Pen

Midori I remember as the original company that brought us Traveler’s Notebooks (I still have a Midori branded Traveler’s Notebook) but in 2015 Midori spun out their Traveler’s Company brand. Indeed, Midori was the original name with the company starting in 1950 as Midori Shokai Co., Ltd. where it made courier, letter and notebook products (so it hasn't strayed too far from its origin). Today the Midori Brand and the Traveler’s Company brand are subsidiaries of the parent company. The parent company went through many name changes before arriving at Designphil Inc. today and the name is portmanteau of “design” and “philharmony”. Designphil’s other brands are Knox, Plotter, Touch and Flow, Custom Made Letter, Innovator, and Watashi Dayori which all come under it’s “Lifestyle Design Business” (they also have a commercial side to the business where the products are created and branded for specific external companies). Nearly all of these subsidiaries deal with paper stationery products or the leather cases that surround them. In general Designphil’s philosophy seems to be around using traditional techniques and modern techniques of manufacture.

Throughout all these brands, Designphil (which I will just call Midori from now on) make two fountain pens. The first was through Traveler’s Company and is their pocketable brass fountain pen. Traveler’s Company products are design around a theme of “traveling that takes place in one’s daily life”. By comparison, I feel like Midori products are suited for a nice simple desk (indeed they make desktop only calendars). While the brass fountain pen of Traveler’s Company is small and robust, this MD Fountain Pen is more stayed and restrained (and obviously not as hardy as brass). These products, while certainly something you can place into a bag and take with you, work nicely sitting on the desktop waiting to be used.

This recently released Midori MD Fountain Pen is definitely designed as a pen for people new to fountain pens. It is affordable, designed to be light ‘like a pencil’, has a "happy medium” nib, and nib design that absorbs pressure if you are used to pressing hard (as if they are anticipating those coming from ballpoints). Indeed, Midori’s own literature starts by assuming they are talking to someone new to fountain pens:

Have you ever wanted to try writing with a fountain pen but assumed it would be difficult to use? Worry no more!

Packaging

The pen’s packaging, in Japanese fashion, makes very efficient use of the limited space it has. Under a simple cardboard sleeve is a plastic case. Inside that is folded card that provides space and structure for the pen, it’s cap and a cartridge. Flexible string provides straps to hold the body of the pen, cutouts provides a space for the cap to clip on and a lone cartridge is glued out of view.

The folded card provides some legal and practical warnings and instructions as well as tips and explanations for new fountain pen users. This is in both English and Japanese. It is also on the packaging that we learn that the pen is made in Slovenia and the ink cartridge in Austria.

Details

The pen body is made almost completely out of plastic. There is a little metal ring on section near the threads for the barrel. The section has two sets of ridges at the top half and there is a lip near the nib that interrupts the smooth narrowing of the section. The body is a simple tapered piece of plastic with a plug at the end all made in the same off-white colour. The body has “MD PAPER PRODUCTS” etched into it that shows in a brown colour. The threads on the barrel and the section are both plastic.

The finial of the barrel has O sharpe moulded into it and the finial of the cap is a simple smooth rounded piece of metal. The whole of the cap is made of metal apart from a plastic insert inside. The clip has some nice tension and spring to it. The whole cap is quite simple and reminds me a lot of the Parker 51 cap (though without a jewel finial).

The section of the pen is a milky clear plastic but once you add the cartridge (or a converter) the ink starts making its way through the clear feed to the nib the whole section starts to become the colour of the ink fluid. Often that would be dark (this ink is black) but with inks that show their colour like Noodler’s Rachmaninov the section would be bright pink (in that case).

Taking standard international I don’t see why a converter wouldn’t fit. There is certainly space for it however none is provided.

Nib

The nib is, obviously, a stainless steel and has “MD” and then “PAPER” underneath that etched onto it. The pen only comes with a medium nib that Midori describe on their website as “…a happy medium, so that your lines will be neither too narrow nor too bold.” The packaging describes it as “Medium thickness - ideal for everyday writing such as diaries, letters and sketching your ideas”.

The packaging and the website provide different explanations for the design of the nib with it bending downwards. The packaging describes it by saying “[t]he curved tip allows smooth writing with minimal smudging at any angle, suiting all writing styles”. This, to me, feels like interpretive copywriting to me. A non-curved nib doesn’t increase smudging. On the website Midori says:

The nib is specially designed with a shape like a bird’s beak.

If you tend to press hard, this nib absorbs the pressure.If you write fast, this pen can keep up.

No matter what angle you write from, this pen writes smoothly without blurring.

There’s some copywriting going on here too but for me the ‘bird’s beak’ curved nib style being designed to allow the user to press harder makes sense to me. The nib is very hard and would take considerable force to bend it. Again you can tell Midori is aiming this pen at those unfamiliar with fountain pens and possibly those coming from ballpoints where you do need to press harder.

The nib is genuinely a delight to use. It has a tiny amount of feedback that keeps you connected with the paper but is otherwise well lubricated and quite smooth. It worked perfectly out of the box with no hard starts or drying out. Very nice to use. The nib does do fine writing with reverse writing but it is rather scratchy. The pen overall is quite light and comfortable to write with and would be easy to use over extended writing sessions.

The medium is not a normal Japanese Medium. As you can see the medium from the Sailor Pro Gear is noticeably thinner. This feels fairly normal for a western medium nib (ignore the very fat Pelikan M400 nib down the bottom).

Deminsions

This is a fairly normal length pen at 13.3 capped and 12.25 uncapped. If anything, though, it is on the shorter side of average. Uncapped the pen is ever so slightly on the shorter side being quite similar to the Pelikan M200. Capped it is pretty normal around a Sailor Profit Slim. The girth is fairly thin at the thinnest but nothing crazy and there is a long section that tapers up to 1cm in diameter. This thinness, however, is why the grip texture is important. I generally don’t like large or thin sections but I don’t find this too narrow.

The weight of the pen capped compared with uncapped is a big difference. 56% of the pen’s weight comes from the cap alone! That said, even with the cap the pen is on the lighter side around what a Pelikan M200 weighs. Uncapped it’s in a pocket Kaweco territory. 6.4g uncapped is a very light pen, especially for standard size. A very easy to use weight for me however for people who prefer heavier pens this might be worth noting.

Lastly, in terms of colour, you can see that the colouring on the barrel is definitely more of an off white than a yellow. It is closest to the base colour of the Goldspot Retro 51 Hot Coffee Tornado. The Pelikan M200 Café Créme is much more of a yellow. The rest aren’t really that comparable but are the closest coloured pens I have!

MD A5 Notebook and MD Paper Notebook Cover

I’m a big fan of Midori paper. My experience with it is that it is a very well balanced paper for fountain pen ink. It has some texture, but not a lot; it has decent sheen, but nothing extreme; it has good shading and isn’t flat; dry time isn’t super quick, but it isn’t slow. These notebooks, like the fountain pen, have a simplicity and minimalism about them with a natural homely feel to them. Some of the photos below are shown with a Midori MD Diary that I already had in my possession. This Midori MD Diary is is essentially the same except for a different colour ribbon, and different inside printing.

Both the cover and the notebook come in a plastic sleeve. Inside that is a paper sleeve that contains details of the products. The cover is almost entirely in Japanese but the notebook also has English. Both are made in Japan. The Notebook talks about its ‘original paper that prevents smearing and bleed-through’. It mentions the “scratch of a pen or pencil against the rough-textured pages makes writing a pleasure’.

The notebook also has some glassine paper wrapped around it before you get to the notebook. Glassine paper is water and grease resistant (not proof) and it is included as an optional very barebones cover. The notebook fits snuggly into the cover with little overlap around the edges.

The Paper Notebook Cover itself is made from a smooth cardstock called Cordoba. Midori discuss its design here. It isn’t leather, it isn’t fabric. It is thick paper. This does mean that it will stain easily and it will likely not resist water as well and probably won’t last as well as Leather or Vinyl but Midori does emphasise its strength, hardness, and robustness. Midori actually consider being rough with it and scrunching the paper to give it an aged look. I didn’t attempt this. That said I expect this would have a very pleasing patina.

The cover is one piece of card stock bent in the middle and folded at the ends with a single stitch on the top and bottom to lock the fold down. Inside is a piece of glossy paper. This can (and probably should) be removed even though I didn’t removed it when I used it here.

The stitching is tight and there is very subtle logos debossed into the front and inner front bottom fold. MD PAPER made in Japan is on the front and Midori on the fold. These are not easy to see! The cover with a notebook inside is a very slim fit with the cover adding very little bulk and also very little weight (it is only 32g)! It is worth noting that Midori also offer a Goat Leather cover and a clear vinyl cover.

The Midori MD Lined A5 Notebook comes with a green ribbon bookmark (unlike the orange for the diary) and is a seven millimetre lined book defied into four sections in two-page spread. This is achieved through a bolder centre line. There is room for a header on each page as well as a slimmer footer. Each section has fourteen spaces (including a header or a footer). The notebook is made in A6, B6, A5 (which is the one reviewed here) and A4. While this one is Lined, Blank, and Gridded are also available. It should be noted as well that there is also a 200-page cotton paper notebook also made but in French-standard sizing ranging from slightly larger than A5 to almost exactly A4 (and with one size in between).

There is minimal distractions in the book with the front end paper showing a square to give a title to the book and maybe a name or date with item and branding details below that. The back is mostly in Japanese and has various details.

The front of the book, like the Cover has a difficult to notice (though more prominent than the Cover) debossed mark saying “MD PAPER made in Japan”.

Included with the Notebook is three index tabs (“Idea”, “Diary” and a bank one) as well as larger sticker offering more details about the book, especially if it is but on notebook of many and when you start and finish it.

The binding of this book is similar to an unfinished book and that gives it a very efficient aesthetic to it. In this binding the mull (the string thatched fabric - Midori uses the alternative term “super”) is glued over the top of the case rather than underneath and over the book signatures (Midori uses the alternative term “quire”). On top of that is the bookmark that is very well glued on the outside of the mull. Everything feels strong so this ‘incomplete’ binding doesn’t seem to offer any negatives physically. The reason given for this, which makes perfect practical sense, is so that the book opens easier and lays flatter.

The binding has eleven book signatures with eight leaves in each which gives us the 176 pages this book contains. The binding is tight and the each signature has a twelve-hole threaded binding.

The book, pictured at the bottom above with a Hobonichi Cousin in the middle and a Nanami Seven Seas Crossfield at the top. While the other two are thicker, with the 52gsm Tomoe River paper they have more total pages (480 with the Seven Seas). The paper in this Midori MD Notebook is a thicker 80gsm.

The book does a really excellent job of laying flat. When opened near the centre it is dead flat; when opened with a bias to one side it is still very flat. These are some of the best notebooks I’ve used for this. Midori credits the simple bookbinding design.

Paper

As mentioned the paper is a moderately textured paper (even though Midori describes it as “rough-textured” - I think this is wrong as there are much more highly textures papers out there). This does give it a very pleasant texture to it, enough to feel the paper without being distracting (or catching on an Extra Fine nib!). The paper is a yellow coloured paper. It’s not the yellowest out there but it isn’t just ‘off white’ like Tomoe River is and is far from the almost pure white of Clairefontaine paper. It is warm enough in colour to potentially warm up the colours of some inks (particularly the low saturation inks). For me this means that the paper isn’t a neutral paper colour as it does effect inks a little. If this is potentially an issue for you then Midori also offer a more expensive alternative (though with an extra 24 pages as well) with a cotton-paper notebook (mentioned above). This cotton paper (which I will probably review soon in its notepad version) is much more white (though still slightly off white).

As we move into the paper section showing off how the ink performs with fountain pen ink I’d like to draw attention to the following previous paper or notebook reviews I’ve done to compare with this Midori MD Paper Notebook:

Nib, Pen and Ink details

I used either Lamy Safaris. Lamy Vistas, Lamy AL-Stars, a Lamy Joy or a Lamy Studio for these reviews (I can’t remember which exactly) and seven different stainless steel Lamy nibs on that pen. The choice of pen (be that Safari, AL-Star, Vista, Joy or Studio) will have little impact in the writing performance. I will not use a Lamy Dialog because there is the rare chance of the nib drying out slightly which might affect the writing performance.

1. Lamy 1.9 Stub: this is a very wet nib

2. Lamy 1.5 Stub: this nib is moderately wet to write with (this is used for the brand and ink name title);

3. Lamy 1.1 Stub: this nib is on the drier side;

4. Lamy Broad: this is a wet;

5. Lamy Medium: this is a very wet nib;

6. Lamy Fine: this nib is moderately dry; and

7. Lamy Extra Fine: this nib is moderately wet.

The inks used in this comparison and the general characteristics are:

• Lamy Crystal Ink: This ink is high saturation wet ink that presents with a moderate amount of sheen;

• Robert Oster Bondi Blue: This ink is a moderate saturation and moderately wet ink with good lubrication that presents with a low moderate amount of sheen that occurs at the edge of where the ink pools and can show with various degrees of saturation. It can present with decent shading in the right conditions;

• Montblanc Irish Green: This is a drier ink with low moderate saturation that can show with good shading and generally no sheen (apart from on the swatch);

• Bungubox Omotesando Blue: Is a moderate sheen Sailor ink with little shading that is quite dark and moderately saturated that is very wet and can show dual sheen;

• Noodler’s Pushkin: is a poor performing ink. It nearly always feathers and bleeds and displays as quite faded and splotchy; and

• Diamine Skull & Roses: Is a super sheening wet ink with limited shading and high saturation.
  

These inks were chosen because they offer a variety of different characteristics from dryer inks to wet inks, from flat inks to shading inks, from sheen to no sheen and from high performance quality to low. These inks also come from a variety of manufacturers as well as different regions.

Lamy Crystal Azurite presents with a rich dark colour that leans a more blue than purple. It shows a strong golden-green sheen (almost bicolour) on the swatch but more limited and subtle sheen on the writing. The shading is smooth, frequent and very low contrast and there is no halo.

No feathering, spread, or bleeding.

Robert Oster Bondi Blue is more saturated than can be shown here to limitations on colour spaces in the cyan colour spectrum. It has some red edge-sheen on the swatch which is very subtle on the written line and only really in the more saturated parts. Shading has some high contrast and frequency with a sudden gradient but the dark shaded areas dominate. There is some limited haloing.

No feathering, spread, or bleeding.

Montblanc Irish Green is a little washed on in the base colour but gets very dark in the saturated part of the swatch and the wetter nibs. This translates to a decent contrast in the shading with a fairly sudden gradient but it is still rather infrequent. There is a subtle halo. The sheen is a subtle dull pink sheen but it doesn’t really show on the written line much (apart from a couple of very wet letters).

No feathering, spread, or bleeding.

Bungubox Omotesando Blue is a fairly rich blue on Midori MD paper but not very rich. It leans a little more purple than it does teal. The ink is fairly flat and doesn’t produce much shading. What shading is there is an OK contrast but is a smooth gradient and low frequency. The sheen is mostly a slightly full red but there is some silvery gold-green sheen (with low saturation) in parts of the swatch. The sheen on the swatch is quite low and only shows the full red.

No feathering, spread, or bleeding.

Noodler’s Pushkin often performs quite poorly with a patchy look to it and with feathering, bleeding and spread being common. It isn’t the worst ink I have ever used but it is probably one of the poorer performing inks that a user might reasonably run into.

Noodler’s presents fairly washed out teal leaning blue. It is low saturation and not very dark. It dries quite sickly and soaks into the paper. However this paper does resist this ink quite well but not perfectly. There is no sheen and shading is very limited.

There is bleeding, feathering and spread. More on the bleeding later but the feathering only really shows where one line crosses another (for example at the bottom right part of the capital N in ‘Noodler’s’. This isn’t terrible and it actually does a decent job but it is still there.

Diamine Skull & Roses is a practical super sheening ink. It isn’t quite as extreme as Organics Studio Nitrogen Royal Blue but it is a little more practical because of that. The ink presents as a very rich blue that leans a little more to the teal side of the blue spectrum. The shading is decent with moderate frequency but sudden gradients and high contrast (the high contrast exaggerated by the sheen). The sheen is a very strong bright red that shows wrongly on most of the written line from each nib. The sheen sometimes makes it look like there is a halo but the ink (as distinct from the sheen) doesn’t create a halo.

No feathering, spread, or bleeding.

There is some ghosting in the swatch from all the inks apart from Bungubox Omotesando Blue. Montblanc Irish Green has very limited ghosting on the swatch. Diamine Skull and Roses is pretty low as well with Lamy Crystal Azurite and Robert Oster Bondi Blue showing similar Ghosting in the swatch. Noodler’s Pushkin moves past ghosting in the swatch with some true bleed-through. The writing in the wet Broad and Medium nibs bleeds through to the page on the other side of the leaf fairly strongly with weaker bleeding still happening in parts of the rest of the nibs. The swatch was the only part that bled through and contaminated the next leaf. This means that the paper doesn’t quite handle Pushkin as well as Tomoe River (52gsm ro 68gsm) but still isn’t bad. You should no judge this paper off this ink, however! Most papers fail with this ink. This is the ink’s fault, not the paper!

I think this is a great little kit of items and they all work really nicely together. The Fountain Pen is light and easy to use with a great nib. It might not feel like a premium fountain pen but it does its just very well and has a very appreciable aesthetic. I am genuinely impressed with this simple pen. It would work excellently as a beginner pen but its still something I like to cary with me at times. I’m a big fan of Midori paper so this notebook is easily something I would recommend. It has a very pleasant feel to it and presents inks well and handled poor performing inks decently. The cover is fun, simple, affordable and protects the Notepad. It isn’t mandatory but it is a nice addendum and rounds out the kit nicely.

The Midori MD Fountain Pen is AU$58 (US$42.70) which puts it nicely in the beginner fountain pen area with the set of cartridges being AU$9.95). The Lined A5 Midori MD Notebook is excellently priced at AU$18.95 (US$13.95). Of the three main items, the Paper Notebook Cover stands out as the least affordable at AU$19.95 (US$14.69) which is above the Notebook itself, but this is an item that is intended to be used across multiple notebooks so this item is not a single use item. As a set this gives you a great pen, notebook and cover combo for less that AU$100 (which would include free shipping within Australia from Ink’d Pens).

Thanks heaps to Ink’d Pens for sending this Midori MD Fountain Pen (and set of cartridges), Paper Notebook Cover, and Lined A5 Midori MD Notebook in for review!

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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I was sent these items for the purpose of an honest review. Ink’d Pens does sponsor the blog (although during the pandemic I have suspended any payments).

Recently, Esterbrook released their initial set of inks. This set of nine inks I have split into two overview posts. The first post had a rather traditional set of inks; they have a vintage feel and wouldn't be out of place in a vintage Esterbrook lineup. That first part had Cobalt Blue, Ebony, Evergreen, and Scarlet. This second part has some more modern feeling inks with Aqua, Simmer Aqua, Shimmer Lilac, Tangerine and Shimmer Tangerine. This is a long part 2!

Thanks to Desk Bandit and Esterbrook for sending in these inks for review. I received samples and a bottle of Cobalt Blue.

The bottle is fairly standard; it is similar to standard-line Pelikan bottles, Kaweco bottles. or Berlin Notebook bottles and others. This bottle should be familiar to many. The label is a very vintage style simplicity with red on white. the box has a similar design with off-white and red. You will want to keep the box for these bottles (as you should anyway) as the bottle doesn’t have any indication as to which ink it is. There is a coloured sticker on the box and a sticker with a barcode and the ink name but none of this is on the bottle itself.

Nota bene

With shimmer inks is that I was given samples of these inks and the ratio of shimmer to ink fluid may vary in a sample compared with a bottle. If it was shaken and immediately transferred then it would be pretty close, if it was allowed to settle however you could get too little particles or too many (depending on how deep the syringe was submerged).

Nib and Pen details

I used Lamy Safaris in Blue Macaron, Petrol, and Terracotta as well as a Lamy Vista, and an Orange Lamy Al-Star for these reviews and seven different stainless steel Lamy nibs on that pen. The choice of pen (be that Safari, AL-Star, Vista, Joy or Studio) will have little impact in the writing performance. I will not use a Lamy Dialog because there is the rare chance of the nib drying out slightly which might affect the writing performance.

1. Lamy 1.9 Stub: this is a very wet nib

2. Lamy 1.5 Stub: this nib is moderately wet to write with (this is used for the brand and ink name title);

3. Lamy 1.1 Stub: this nib is on the drier side;

4. Lamy Broad: this is a wet;

5. Lamy Medium: this is a very wet nib;

6. Lamy Fine: this nib is moderately dry; and

7. Lamy Extra Fine: this nib is moderately wet.

I also use a fine Glass nib pen for the comparison ink names. The nib can be either very wet or slightly dry and I try to find the middle area. This generally as the effect of reducing shading and luminosity, while increasing sheen and saturation. The possibility of feathering and bleeding is also slightly increased..

Aqua

Aqua is a moderately saturated, moderately dark neutral cerulean blue that leans slightly more teal than it does purple. The ink is decently wet and well lubricated.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

Most of these Esterbrook Inks look fairly similar on both Tomoe River and Rhodia paper and this is mostly true with Aqua as well. However, as is not uncommon on Tomoe River, some inks when a condensed amount of ink is applied to the paper lose a lot of saturation and can have a bit of a tint to it. This effect also happens with Aqua with the condensed triangle-like part of the swatch (and not the written line!) loses some saturation and does lean a little more purple than the rest of the ink does.

• Pilot Blue: is more purple leaning (outside the sheen) and a little darker;

• Diamine Royal Blue: is more saturated and less teal leaning; and

• Robert Oster Blue Water Ice: is more saturated than can be shown here (due to the way colours are displayed) but is much more saturated and much too teal leaning.

The shading isn’t too strong here with low frequency, low contrast and a smooth gradient. The driest nibs offer the best shading. There is a little bit of a halo which is nice. There is the tiniest amount of dull almost-red sheen that can be just barely seen on some parts of the wettest written lines but I’d argue that this shouldn’t qualify as a practical sheen. There is a little more visible on the swatch and logo but still very little.

Absolutely no water resistance, but a decent dry time and no smearing.

The chomatography is surprisingly plain with a slight very light pink=grey leaning to a blue that becomes more turquoise.

Diamine Royal Blue has the closest sheen in that it doesn’t really have any whereas both Pilot Blue and Robert Oster Blue Water Ice have some strong red sheens.

80gsm White Rhodia

The general colour is very similar on Rhodia but we don’t get that peculiar characteristic that Tomoe River sometimes get with the triangular condensed part of the swatch being just a darker variation of the same colour as the rest of the swatch! It is also a touch more saturated on Rhodia.

Pilot Blue: is slightly more purple leaning and a slightly darker;

• Diamine Royal Blue: is a touch more saturated and less teal leaning; and

• Robert Oster Blue Water Ice: is more saturated (even if it might not show on the screen) and much more teal.

The shading seems even less on Rhodia with the frequency and smooth gradient being mostly the same but the contrast being even less! There is no halo on Rhodia.

Sheen is also completely non-existent on the written line and the swatch!

Water resistance is slightly improved but still practically poor. There are very slight lines left though which might help you out if you are lucky after a mistake happens! Dry time is decent and there is no smearing.

Rhodia shows very little sheen and that’s no exception here with only Pilot Blue showing sheen and only on the swatch!

Shimmer Aqua

Esterbrook Shimmer Aqua (like Shimmer Tangerine below) is an identical variant of Aqua above but with, you guessed its, shimmer. There is little I have to say about this ink outside the shimmer for that reason; apart from comments about the shimmer itself, all my comments from above apply here.

Rewritten from above: one thing of note with shimmer inks is that I was given samples of these inks and the ratio of shimmer to ink fluid may vary in a sample compared with a bottle. If it was shaken and immediately transferred then it would be pretty close, if it was allowed to settle however you could get too little particles or too many (depending on how deep the syringe was submerged).

With regards to Shimmer Aqua I feel that this is probably a decent representation of how it would look from the bottle.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

The shimmer does obscure some of the Tomoe River characteristics from above that apply to the condensed application of the ink forming the darker triangle. You don’t notice the colour shift or the lower saturation quite as much.

I have chosen different comparison inks for this, instead comparing with some shimmering inks.

• Diamine Blue Flame: is darker, more purple leaning but slightly less saturated;

• Diamine Blue Pearl: much darker, less teal leaning but a similar saturation level; and

• J. Herbin Bleu Ocean: is darker, less teal leaning and more saturated.

I feel like the shading is slightly stronger here somehow with some sharper contrast and an increased frequency. I think this possibly could be because the shimmer makes the ink slightly dryer (even if more lubricated to carry the shimmer).

The sheen is showing slightly stronger! Again this is probably due to the lubricant that carries the shimmer.

Speaking of shimmer! The shimmer is low saturation gold coloured particles that leans more towards Electrum or pale greenish gold rather than a vibrant yellow gold.

These characteristics are identical to aqua above apart from the line of shimmer on the chromatography paper.

Both the diamines have a strong sheen (Blue Pearl being the more saturated) and of course with Blue Pearl being a white silver shimmer rather than gold. Bleu Ocean has a low saturated gold sheen (though quite weak) and both Blue Flame and Ocean Blue have a gold shimmer. The gold shimmer being a little more saturated and more yellow than the shimmer from Shimmer Aqua.

80gsm White Rhodia

I feel like there is a little less contrast on Rhodia with Aqua Shimmer mainly with the darker parts of the swatch and shading being a little less dark.

• Diamine Blue Flame: is darker (but the lightest of the three), more purple leaning and on Rhodia, slightly more saturated;

• Diamine Blue Pearl: darker (the darkest of the three), less teal leaning and more saturated; and

• J. Herbin Bleu Ocean: is also darker, less teal leaning and more saturated.

Because there is less contrast overall it means the shading has taken a hit. The contrast of the shading isn’t that strong and the frequency and smooth gradient remains the same. There is a very subtle halo but you have to look closely!

There is no sheen at all and of course red shimmer is the same as on Tomoe River mentioned above.

Water resistance is quite messy but you can still barely see the lines below - it’s a weak water resistance but it might still be useful in a pinch. Dry time is excellent and there is no smearing.

There’s no sheen on these and the shimmer is the same as on Tomoe River.

Shimmer Lilac

Shimmer Lilac only has a shimmering version, interestingly. I’d very much like a non-shimmer version! Shimmer Lilac is a great name for the ink as it is a good lilac or wisteria colour. Possibly grape? It is a light neutral purple that doesn’t lean too much red or blue that is also somewhat lower saturation and with a bit of dustiness to it. The shimmer is the same shimmer, I believe, that it is all the shimmer inks here. The ink is fairly wet and well lubricated, especially with the wetter nibs.

Rewritten from above: one thing of note with shimmer inks is that I was given samples of these inks and the ratio of shimmer to ink fluid may vary in a sample compared with a bottle. If it was shaken and immediately transferred then it would be pretty close, if it was allowed to settle however you could get too little particles or too many (depending on how deep the syringe was submerged).

With regards to Shimmer Lilac I feel that this is fairly decent representation of how it would look from the bottle if not a little too strong at times.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

The hue of Shimmer Lilac is pretty similar regardless of whether it is Tomoe River of Rhodia however on Tomoe River the ink is both darker and more saturated. The hue also remains fairly consistent throughout the different levels of saturation.

• Diamine Purple Pazzazz: is a similar hue but darker and more saturated;

• Jacque Herbin Amethyste de l’Oural: is a little bluer and cooler as well as being darker and more saturated; and

• Papier Plume Mardi Gras Indians Purple: obviously is shimmer less but is a similar hue (though a little cooler) and darker and a touch less saturated.

I should start by saying when I change nibs I have to prep the nib a bit. This usually involves tapping it lightly and shaking it a bit nib down but with shimmer inks I also rub the pen a little (like it was the piece of wood to start a fire with a hand drill). With the wetter nibs (especially the 1.9 in the title) I feel like this has produced a excess amount of the sheen early on in each writing sample.

The shading is very low with Shimmer Lilac with very little contrast, a smooth gradient and low frequency. There is a visible halo but it is a low contrast halo.

There is a very slight matte low-saturation green-gold sheen that is slightly visible in the swatch and the logo ring but it doesn’t really translate into the written line. The sheen appears to be the same Electrum or pale greenish gold (rather than a vibrant yellow gold) that is in Shimmer Aqua and Shimmer Tangerine below. I think it appears a little more gold here (than on Aqua) because of a higher content (possibly) and a warmer base ink colour..

The water resistance isn’t strong at all but it isn’t too messy. It leaves very light pink line behind. Dry time is decent for Tomoe River and there is no smearing.

The chromatography is fairly expected for this general colour with a pink that gradients to a purple before breaking out into a bright vibrant turquoise.

Only Diamine Purple Pazzazz has some gold shimmer and it is a little more yellow and saturated than Shimmer Lilac’s Shimmer. Purple Pazzazz also has a lot of sheen (though it is a similar coloured sheen)! Améthyste l’aural obviously has silver shimmer and there sheen is a sontrger yellow-green. The Papier Plume has essentially no sheen but what is visible is someone gold - it also has no shimmer.

80gsm White Rhodia

On Rhodia the ink is a lot lighter and a little less saturated but the hue is still pretty similar. There is very little contrast on Rhodia paper.

• Diamine Purple Pazzazz: is a similar hue but much darker and more saturated;

• Jacque Herbin Améthyste de l’Oural: is very similar hue but is darker and more saturated; and

• Papier Plume Mardi Gras Indians Purple: is a similar hue but a touch darker, flatter, and a little more saturated.

The shading is a little stronger on Rhodia but it is still rather low frequency, contrast and mostly a smooth gradient. There is a nice but subtle halo.

There is no sheen whatsoever on Rhodia!

The water resistance is pretty similar to on Tomoe River, leaving behind a light pink line (most of the time) but it is a little messier on Rhodia. The dry time is quite decent and there is no smearing.

Only Purple Pazzazz shows any sheen (and that is limited).

Tangerine

Tangerine is a saffron or peach like orange leaning yellow ink. It has a bit of pink to it and has some strong colour shift depending on how saturated the line or swatch is ranging from a reddish orange to a pale yellow. A lot going on! The ink is fairly saturated but not particularly dark. The ink is decently wet and lubricated for this colour but is probably the driest from this set of ink in Part 2. I’d say it is moderately wet and lubricated.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

Tangerine is pretty much the same colour range and look on both Tomoe River and Rhodia.

• Diamine Marigold: Is more orange (and less red) and much more saturated;

• Caran d’Ache Saffron: is browner, lighter and less saturated; and

• Bungubox Sweet Potato Yellow: is similar to marigold but a little more red and much more saturated.

Esterbrook Tangerine is easily the strongest shading ink of the bunch and the shading really looks great! There is strong contrast (colour and tone), high frequency and a sudden gradient. Very nice. The contrast has a nice range of colours from pale yellow to a pinky red-orange. There is no halo and there is no sheen.

Water resistance leaves behind an extremely light pink line behind but I’d essentially say this has no water resistance. Dry time is pretty average for Tomoe River and there is no smearing.

Chromatography has a light pink that gets slightly darker and then abruptly turns into a yellow that also gets slightly darker.

Only Sweet Potato Yellow has any sheen which is a decently strong silvery-pink sheen.

80gsm White Rhodia

There is a slight decrease in the amount of the highly saturated and more red colours but they haven’t disappeared altogether on Rhodia. The range of colours is there but overall the average is a little more yellow.

• Diamine Marigold: is much too saturated, orange and is darker;

• Caran d’Ache Saffron: is too green leaning and flat; and

• Bungubox Sweet Potato Yellow: is too saturated and too orange.

The shading takes a little bit of a hit on Rhodia. The gradient is often smoother and the contrast not as high. The frequency is pretty good still, however. There is no halo definitely no sheen.

Water resistance is very weak but slightly stronger than on Tomoe River. Dry time is very good and there is no smearing.

None of these inks show any sheen on Rhodia.

Shimmer Tangerine

Esterbrook Shimmer Tangerine (like Shimmer Aqua above) is an identical variant of Tangerine above but with… shimmer. There is little I have to say about this ink outside the shimmer for that reason; apart from comments about the shimmer itself, all my comments from above apply here.

Rewritten from above: one thing of note with shimmer inks is that I was given samples of these inks and the ratio of shimmer to ink fluid may vary in a sample compared with a bottle. If it was shaken and immediately transferred then it would be pretty close, if it was allowed to settle however you could get too little particles or too many (depending on how deep the syringe was submerged).

With regards to Shimmer Tangerine I feel that this is probably exaggerates how much shimmer would come from the bottle. When I filled this ink I tried to let the shimmer settle a little as I could tell it was likely too much but I may not have done that enough.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

Because of the golden shimmer the overall appearance of this ink (especially the writing) is much more yellow and gold with less red and orange. The red-orange still sparkles through on the written liens though!

• Diamine Inferno Orange: is a little more orange (and less yellow) more saturated and a little darker;

• Van Dieman’s Bonfire Night: is redder, flatter and more saturated; and

• Jacques Herbin Cornaline d’Egypte: is much more brown and darker (and silver shimmer).

The gold shimmer in front of the pink-is red parts of the shading gives the ink a bit of a dirtier look which I quite like. As mentioned it also lightens it a bit. There shading isn’t as prominent as well, partly because the darker parts are lighted by the shimmer and also because I think the darker parts aren’t quite as dark! So there is decent frequency, but the contrast isn’t as intense. I believe the gradient is also a bit smoother at times. There is no convention halo even if the shimmer sometimes makes it look like there is (the shimmer moves to the centre leaving the outer edge looking more like the darker orange base ink in the shaded parts).

There is no sheen!

Water resistance is equal as poor as the non-shimmer version and dry time is a little better somehow. There is no smearing and the chromatography is the same.

Diamine Inferno Orange seems to have a similar shimmer colour being not quite as intensely yellow like Bonfire Night is. And of course Cornaline d’Egypte is a silver sheen. None have any practical sheen.

80gsm White Rhodia

As with the non-shimmery Tangerine on Rhodia the red parts of the orange are tempered a little and the shimmer makes the red even less noticeable on the written line. Over all the ink looks a lot more yellow here.

• Diamine Inferno Orange: is much too orange, saturated and is a little flat;

• Van Dieman’s Bonfire Night: is too orange and a little too saturated'; and

• Jacques Herbin Cornaline d’Egypte: which isn’t quite as dark but is still too brown.

You can especially see how yellow this ink looks at an angle where the shimmer catches the light!

Again, like with the non-shimmer, the shading is not as strong on Rhodia here either. The contrast is much less and the gradient is more often smooth. I feel the frequency has also taken a bit of a hit here this time. Again no halo (apart from the apparent but not-real halo mentioned above on Tomoe River) and definitely no sheen.

Water resistance is very weak (the shimmer remains in some parts, however)! Dry time is very quick and there is no smearing.

No sheen here and the shimmer remains the same on Rhodia, obviously!

Final Remarks

The first part of inks had some old school colours in it which suites the brand which has so much history they are clearly playing on this history with a lot of the aesthetic of the company and its logos and designs. This second part of the release is much more modern. Aqua is a solid blue and the shimmering version is a nice subtle shimmery blue that doesn’t over complicate things. Shimmer Lilac is a lovely colour and I’d love to see a non-shimmer version (I’ve never loved shimmer, personally). Tangerines has some delightful shading that really stands out for me and the shimmer interacts with it nicely, especially on Tomoe River!

These inks are on the pricier side but unfortunately I feel like this is just now fountain pen prices are going lately. We're seeing a lot of pricing increases. Personally I’d like to see a slightly lower price. These inks are AU$49.65 at Desk Bandit in Australia (AU$45 for non-shimmering inks) and US$35 (US$30 for non-shimmering inks) from Esterbrook in the US. These aren’t the lowest of prices but value and cost are not the same thing!

Thanks again to Desk Bandit and Esterbrook for sending these samples in for review!

✒︎ ✑ ✒︎ ✑

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I was sent these inks for the purpose of an honest review.

In September 2019 La Couronne du Comte, a stationery store based in Tilburg, Netherlands (and sponsor of this blog) released Comte d’Or (“Count of Gold”), a gold ink made by Diamine exclusively for their store and the first from what will become their Les Couleurs du Comte (“The Colors of the Count“) ink series. La Couronne du Comte describe the series as “a range that focuses on special colours, rich in colour intensity, with a wonderful shading and/or sheen”. A year later they released three more inks, Bleu Cuivré (“Copper Blue”), a blue ink; Pain d’Épices (“Gingerbread”), a red ink; and Vert Sapin (“Pine Green”), a green ink . I’ll be reviewing all the ink in the series alphabetically.

I received Comte d’Or as part of a general promotion from La Couronne du Comte and I purchased Bleu Cuivré, Pain d’Epices, and Vert Sapin myself. You can find the inks here and use code “MACCHIATOMAN10” for 10% off!

Diamine/La Couronne du Comte Pan d’Épices means Gingerbread in English. The colour of gingerbread I am familiar with is more a brown colour than a vibrant magenta red but maybe dutch gingerbread is different!

The colour of this ink can change a little depending on much of the ink is put on the page. The colour when the ink is thin is more magenta looking, something like a ruby or raspberry colour and still quite saturated. With a thicker line or swatch it looks much more burgundy wine or a very vibrant red-bean/azuki-iro colour. The written colour is this second colour. Even with the fairly dry Lamy 1.1 Stub and the Lamy Fine nib, which are fairly dry) it is still more wine than ruby. Maybe with a very dry broad nib you could get the more magenta colour.

The ink is a strongly wet ink with very good low and lubrication. The ink performs decently on all types of paper and there isn’t that much difference in colour between papers with some exceptions (such as Graphilo). Most of the changes relate to saturation rather than hue. Examples of the ink on 16 different paper types is at the end of the review.

The ink only comes in 30ml and not the glass 80ml bottles that Diamine inks usually also come in. 30ml is still a decent amount of ink these days and it is priced as a 30ml Diamine ink usually would be priced. The plastic is fairly soft on the sides and otherwise unremarkable. It does come with a unique sticker that features a swatch of the colour, the La Couronne du Comte crown logo and the name of the ink.

Nib and Pen details

I used a Lamy Safari Terracotta pen for this review and six different stainless steel Lamy nibs on that pen. The choice of pen (be that Safari, AL-Star, Vista or Studio) will have little impact in the writing performance. I will not use a Lamy Dialog because there is the rare chance of the nib drying out slightly which might affect the writing performance.

1. Lamy 1.5 Stub: this nib is moderately wet to write with (this is used for the brand and ink name title);

2. Lamy 1.1 Stub: this nib is on the drier side;

3. Lamy Broad: this is a wet;

4. Lamy Medium: this is a very wet nib;

5. Lamy Fine: this nib is moderately dry; and

6. Lamy Extra Fine: this nib is moderately wet.

I also use a fine JoWo nib attached to a James Finniss Serendipity (from Pensive Pens) for the comparison ink names. This nib’s wetness is moderate but the feed is primed which gives it a wetter character than would be a normal writing experience. This generally as the effect of reducing shading and luminosity, while increasing sheen and saturation. The possibility of feathering and bleeding is also slightly increased. This is still more accurate than a dip pen or a glass pen in my experience.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

The ink is high in sheen on Tomoe River 52gsm paper and is a little lighter than on Rhodia 80gsm paper below but the colour and saturation are still fairly similar.

• Diamine Robert: is a little lighter but more blue;

• Diamine Velvet Rose: is darker, a littler bluer and a touch less saturated;

• Diamine Communication Breakdown: more more orange, a little lighter and a hair less saturated;

• Colorverse Andromeda: much too purple and a little darker;

• Sailor Ink Studio 931: is lighter, less saturated and more blue';

• Pilot Iroshizuku Momiji: is lighter, redder and slightly less saturated;

• Pilot Iroshizuku Yama Budo: is bluer, lighter and less saturated; and

• Diamine #12 Noel: which is very similar but a little darker and a little less saturated.

On Tomoe River I see Diamine #12 Noel, from the 2019 Christmas set, as the closest. Lots of lovely colours here though!

Shading isn’t very strong on Tomoe River with high frequency but low contrast and a smooth gradient. It’s pretty consistent on every stroke, however. There is no haloing.

Pain d’Épices sheen is very strong on Tomoe River. While it is weaker on the dryer fine nib and 1.1 Stub it is still present on those and almost the dominant colour on the wetter Medium nib (with printing rather than the cursive). The Sheen is a strong green-gold that is common on reddish inks.

Many of the comparison inks have a similar sheen.Diamine Robert would be the closest in colour and intensity with Diamine Velvet Rose, and Sailor Ink Studio 931 being quite similar as well. Diamine #12 Noel is duller and weaker but a similar colour. Diamine Communication Breakdown is more green and less gold. Iroshizuku Yama Budo is a gold with a slight green tint. Iroshizuku Momiji has a very strong yellow gold sheen and Colorverse Andromeda has a rich copper-gold sheen.

The Chromatography is fairly simple with a red gradient but it does finally break into dark blue-ash magenta. The ink isn’t very water resistant but it does leave behind a light pink line. Dry time is on the slower side for Tomoe River but isn’t too bad. There is a tiny bit of colour smearing but I would normally expect more from a high sheening ink.

80gsm White Rhodia

On Rhodia Pain d’Épices is a little darker but is pretty much the same hue as on Tomoe River.

• Diamine Robert: is much too purple (though still a red-purple);

• Diamine Velvet Rose: also too purple and also darker;

• Diamine Communication Breakdown: too red and orange;

• Colorverse Andromeda: again too purple';

• Sailor Ink Studio 931: is a hair less saturated and a little brighter and too blue;

• Pilot Iroshizuku Momiji: Redder and flatter with less contrast and darkness';

• Pilot Iroshizuku Yama Budo: Too purple, lighter and less saturated; and

• Diamine #12 Noel: Darker, slightly less saturated and slightly redder.

Again I think Noel is the closest of these inks even if the darker redder colour is more distinct on Rhodia than on Tomoe River.

Shading is pretty similar to Tomoe River with low contrast, smooth gradient and high frequency. The contrast is a little higher than on Tomoe River, however, which makes the shading slightly stronger. There is no haloing here on Rhodia either.

Sheen takes a huge hit on Rhodia, which isn’t surprising. If you look very closely you can barely see some green sheen in the writing and there is some on the edge of the wettest swatch but practically there is no sheen on Rhodia.

Essentially all of the comparison inks are in the same position with a huge hit to sheen and only showing sheen on the wet part of the swatch.

Water resistance is slightly improved over Tomoe River but it is still only a light (but not quite as light) pink line that is left behind. Dry time is, like Tomoe River, on the slower time for Rhodia but not extremely so. I can’t see any smearing on Rhodia which is nice.

Final Remarks

⭐️ = One Star

★ = Half a Star

☆ = No Star

🚫 = None/Not Applicable

(Star ratings are a rough and glanceable indication and are more quantitative than qualitative. They are not saying that something is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but rather that, of the particular characteristic, the ink has a ‘high’ or ‘low’ amount)

80gsm White Rhodia

• Shading: ⭐️★☆☆☆

• Sheen: 🚫

• Shimmer: 🚫

• Halo: 🚫

• Saturation: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Luminosity: ⭐️⭐️★☆☆

• Feathering: 🚫

• Bleeding: 🚫

• Flow: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Dry time:⭐️⭐️☆☆☆

• Smear: 🚫

• Water Resistance: ⭐️★☆☆☆

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

• Shading: ⭐️☆☆☆☆

• Sheen: ⭐️⭐️⭐️★☆

• Shimmer: 🚫

• Halo: 🚫

• Saturation: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Luminosity: ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆

• Feathering: 🚫

• Bleeding: 🚫

• Flow: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

• Dry time: ⭐️⭐️☆☆☆

• Smear: ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆

• Water Resistance: ⭐️★☆☆☆

This is a rich red ink that leans a little magenta. I have lots of inks in this general colour range as I really like it but I was surprised that I didn’t really actually have something that similar! The shading isn’t bad and the sheen is strong on the right paper with fairly consistent colour and performance on many paper types. Even on poor quality paper it works nicely. A lovely red ink!

The ink is really affordable too, like most Diamine inks. It is €3.50 (including VAT) and €2.89 outside Europe. Before any importation fees or taxes this is roughly AU$4.50, US$3.5, or £2.5. For 30ml of ink that is excellent value for money in my opinion! If you are ordering anything from La Couronne du Comte (which so often has great prices) just throw one of these in the cart (or all of them)!

Use code “MACCHIATOMAN10” for 10% off your order from La Couronne du Comte! Check out their website, sales and new releases as well as their socials: Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

✒︎ ✑ ✒︎ ✑

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I purchased this ink myself .

The Brush Fountain Pen, a pen I have been interested in for a while, was Canadian company Ferris Wheel Press’s first product release way back in late 2017 and since then the company has become a very well known brand with dozens of unique inks and, recently, an expansion of the fountain pen line up with the very affordable Carousel Fountain Pen. The Brush Fountain Pen Comes, firstly, with a silver trim nib or a gold plated nib, and then each of those of their own colours to choose from. The design of the pen, clear from the name, is based on a paint brush.

Thanks to Ferris Wheel Pens and Ink’d Pens for sending this ink in for review.

Ferris Wheel Press started out in 2010 as Palettera Custom Correspondences which made bespoke stationery products (and still do). They launched Ferris Wheel Press in 2017 and took over Palettera's Instagram account at the same time. The whimsical company with lots of happy colours in their products associate the brand with imagery of a carnival or town shows and the romance of a bygone era brought back to life.

Modelled after a paintbrush with the bristles as the nib, the ferrule as the section (you could also say the threads are crimp), and with the handle being the body (and with a similar taper) its lovely design starting point for the pen. The softly silhouetted pen is broken up by an almost quirky 'signature' brass nut giving the pen a little hint of an industrial feel. This brass nut is also present on their inks and ties a lot of their products together. The pen is made from more premium components being a copper body and cap with brass trim and a brass section.

Packaging

The packaging is a long thin cardboard box with a colour that matches the pen. This pen, Sandcastle Clay, has a slightly pink hue to it and so the box is also a light pink. The thin box is covered in line artwork and a gold Ferris Wheel Press logo. The French name for this colour is Château d'Argile (which Google Translate says is 'Clay Castle' so it would seem, unlike some of the inks, that this is a straight translation rather than a unique French name). It is here we find that the pen is designed and assembled in Toronto, Canada. This box slides off to reveal a cardboard tray that holds the pen along with "Write History" on a chin below the pen and a gold coloured paper behind the pen. On the reverse is a thanks for supporting Canadian design and craftsmanship, a encouraging quip, patent information and care instructions which read:

1. Prior to refilling ink, rinse converter and nib with cold water until water runs clean

2. Do no post cap onto pen when writing to avoid scratching the finish

3. Store pen vertically when not in use to avoid clogging

4. Detailed care instructions on shop.ferriswheelpress.com

Point one is obvious to the seasoned fountain pen user and we all probably have our own ways of cleaning a pen anyway. Point three shouldn't be needed with modern ink (I have never stored this pen or others vertically and I have never had issues) but point two is interesting as you rarely have companies state it. With the brass threads connecting the cap to the barrel I can definitely see the scratching the enamel (or enamel-like) material on the body of the pen when posted. That said, you can still post this fairly securely. I don't post my pens so I only tested this to see if it would work and it seemed fairly steady on the back there. At one end of this black tray that holds the pen  is a gold sticker indicating that this pen has a gold plated nib.

The Brush Fountain Pen itself is kept in a simple felt (or faux-felt) sleeve with the brand name, the "Fall in Love With Writing Again" motto and on the reverse a maple leaf.

Details

As mentioned the pen is made from more premium components with a copper body and cap and with a brass trim and section. This model also comes with a gold plated nib which will be discussed later. The section of the pen is where Ferris Wheel Press have put all the embellishments into the pen with a CNC-cut pattern etched into the section which has the added benefit of giving the metal tapered section a very good grip to it. Ferris wheel describe the pattern on the brass section with: 

Drawing parallels to the ferrule, traditionally a metal section that holds the bristles of a brush, the grip section of the Brush fountain pen plays the important role of securing the nib. The spirited etchings on the grip are inspired by the mechanical components of our vintage printmaking studio equipment; including the flywheel of a 1912 Pearl letterpress, and a fully functional Underwood typewriter – the 'original' modern method of typesetting. The fanning geometric lines are analogous to the type hammers of a typewriter, each carrying it's own miniature metal type block, waiting to be activated. And like how the carriages of a ferris wheel support its riders, the cylindrical carriage of a typewriter transports its paper in a horizontal and circular fashion.

Very interestingly, the nib is not where the nib grind indicator is shown but instead is shown on the section. The only other pen I know that does this is the Pilot Mju (and probably compareable pens) but with that pen the section is the nib. The section also lets us know that the nib is 14k gold plated. Its an interesting hoice to have these on the section meaning a different section for each nib. I believe the nib on the silver trim nib says Assembled in Canada.

The finials of the Brush Fountain Pen are simply just round although each taper differently with the body tapering slower and more so than the cap. In fact the entire pen is very minimal and simple on the outside with not even a brandname or logo anywhere to be seen! The obvious exception being the brass nut near the middle. This six-sided brass nut houses the threads that keep the cap screwed onto the body and allows for the cap to be a similar size to the body. Absent from the pen is any form of a clip but the nut itself acts as a roll-stop of sorts (or at least a roll-hinderer). The pen is a catridge converter pen (which is my personal preference for a pen - even if it is the less interesting mechanism I find it very practical for my needs and usecases). The converter has "rat•tat•tat", a reference to the sound of a print shop, lasered onto the metal ring. The converter that is very remeniscent of Lamy converter designs and I have seen similar converters that appear to be Lamy inspired on low-price Jinhao pens but this feels like a noticeable step up in quality from those.

Nib

I feel like the nib on this particular pen would be the most controvisial thing about the pen. The nib is 14k Gold-plated not 14k gold and this has a few factors to consider. This gold plating also comes at a cost of a +US$22 (+AU$31) increase. The gold-plated nib also comes in only six colours, of which two are unique to it (Printmakers Teal and Lord Evergreen). The silver trim nib, however, comes with six unique colours to choose from as well as the four it shares with the gold-plated variant.

Proper gold nibs have two main possible benefits. The first being a possible softer feeling nib but this is also relates to the type of alloy the gold is as different metal mixtures in the 14 part gold to 10 part other metal (of a 14k solid gold nib) will effect how hard it is. Also the shape, design and thickness of the nib itself factor into this. This benefit of a solid gold nib will not translate into a gold-plated nib (though the other factors I mentioned mean that a softer feel could still be achieved). The other benefit is a nib that will not rust or degrade like a steel nib could (especially with corrosive inks such as some iron gall inks with high ferro-gallic content). This does translate but only if the nib is undamaged. This brings us to the main downside of a gold-plated nib: it can chip and where over time. I've had this pen a ltitle while now and I don't exactly baby it but I also don't damage my nibs generally! This hasn't chipped in the month or so that I've had it (nor should it)! But over a lifetime or less or if it receives a bump at some point this nib could theoretically chip. This might depend on how thick the plating is as well. Gold plating should generally be between 0.5 microns and 2.5 microns (less or higher than this and it should go by a different name) and it might also depend on the process by which the gold is plated onto the base material. So a gold-plated nib will offer the benefit of resisting corusion but it might not forever and you should definitely try to avoid knocking and chipping the nib (though generaly you should avoid doing that on any nib)!

As for value with the nib, not too long ago I paid close to AU$70-90 extra to get a bi-colour nib on my Nakaya decapod. This was completely cosmetic. The nib was always going to be 14k solid gold on that pen. I did it because I liked the colour. That was a decently up-market pen so and the price increase represented a little under 10% of the cost of the pen without it. Here the cost represents a 16% increase. Of course the nib will have a higher production cost for Ferris Wheel Press so an increase makes sense but ultimately it depends on whether you really want the gold colour with the pen or whether you are happy with a silver trim (and the extra colour options). As I said, I did go this route with my Nakaya.

That's enough about nib material! The nib has the lovely stylised "Ferris Wheel Press" on the body of the nib and a maple leaf where a breather hole would otherwise normally be. Below that on either side of the slit is V on the left tine and VI on the right. I'm not sure what these represent. The nib comes in medium and fine only with the nib on my unit being a medium.

The nib is very buttery and smooth. So smooth that it makes me instincitvely assume it would have a baby's bottom but it doesn't! There are no hard starts here and it has good flow even with this drier sailor ink (dryer for Sailor at least). Just a good smooth nib. The nib is very hard. A complete nail. Not pictured but the nib does reverse write nice and smoothly and produces fine line with enough flow.

The nib, in my experience, is a little on the thinner side of your average western medium nib which I don't think is a negative. It's a little thinner than the Esterbrook with a JoWo nib, the Aurora Optima, and the Lamy Safari; and is much thinner than the fat Pelikan M400 nib. It is sill, however, noticeably thicker than the Japanese Medium on the Sailor Pro Gear. It isn't far off your average Western Medium but it is still a little thinner.

This is a normal full length pen at 14.3mm. It is the same length as a Montblanc 146 and practically the same as a Platinum Century #3776, Lamy Safari, Lamy 2000 and TWSBI ECO. It is, however, much thinner and dainter. The girth of the Brush Fountain Pen is thinner than all the compared pens, even the Pelikan M205. The thinnest part of the section and the thickest; the barrel and the cap; all are thinner than the other pens. I find it relatively comfortable to write with but if you are accustomed to girthy pens the thinness of this pen is something you should take note of. This thinness is also why the texture on the section adding grip is important I think. Thicker pens are, for me, easier to keep hold of and thinner sections tend to slip but not with this because of that CNC cut design.

The pen really doesn't stand out in terms of hight. It looks normal. Uncapped it is even on the longer side being noticebly longer than the Sailor Pro Gear, Platinum Century #3776 and Pelikan M205 (which also looks quite short capped). You can see how thin the pen is with a narrow silhouette compared with even the Lamy 2000 next to it.

At 23.5g with some ink in it it isn't a light pen (which, for a copper and brass bodied pen, you wouldn't expect) but is fairly middle of the road. It is still lighter than even the Platinum Century #3776, Lamy 2000 and Sailor Pro Gear though and noticeably lighter than the Montblanc 146. It doesn't feel heavy in my hand. Balance also plays a part with the pen being more front heavy reducing a lot of strain that might come from a back-weighted pen. Even posted (though not reccomended by Ferris Wheel Press!) it is still fairly evenly balanced between front and back.

Last but not least is regarding the colour! Sandcastle Clay is a very light very desaturated pink-leaning taupe-like colour. It is quite grey but you can still see the pink undertones, especailly in some lights. I don't have many pens that are similar to this! The closest would be my Kaweco Skyline Macchiato but that is more yellow and more of a tan colour. The Lamy Safari Powder Rose is a little lighter and more saturated and definitely more a pink than a taupe. The Sailor Pro Gear Hydrangia from Nagasawa is a straight pink-mauve (though it is still a little tamed and so isn't too vibrant). Do you have a similar coloured pen? I'd love to hear about it.

Conclusion

The Ferris Wheel Pen Brush Fountain Pen is a dainty and whimsical pen with a smoothly curved minimalist design interruped with an out-of-place brass nut that still somehow works. As for gold-plated or not, I quite like the silver-trim look with the brass section so I’d probably lean towards that (with thought put towards the colour of the body as well!). There are curious design choices which add to it's capriciousness. Why is the nib details on the section? Why not! You can't buy spare nibs for these pens so why not design it differently? There's also a lot of attention to detail and easter eggs all over the place from the onomatopoeia of a print workshop sound laser etched onto the converter to the detailed and thoughtout design on the section. There's a lot going on for a pen that is ostensibly fairly low-key. A lot of thought has been put towards keeping all the products from Ferris Wheel Press in one family. The nostalgic, family-oriented simple-life and bigone era themes with happy colours and happy line artwork tie the family of products from pens, to ink bottles to notebooks together. The industrial-esque nuts are present throughout as well. You can tell Ferris Wheel Press started as a design company!

The Ferris Wheel Press Brush Fountain Pen with a gold-plated nib is US$160 from Ferris Wheel Press in Canada and US$138 for the steel silver-trimmed version. In Australia the pen is AU$229.95 for the gold-plated variant and AU$198.95 for the silver trimmed variant. This is in line with most smaller companies making pens these days, especially those with in-house designers and with the pen being assempled locally all adding to the R&D cost and production cost. This pen has some more upmarket materials with brass and copper rather than turned acrylic as well.

Thanks heaps again to Ferris Wheel Pens  in Canada and Ink'd Pens here in Australia for sending this pen in for review. Check out Ferris Wheel Press's Instagram, and Ink'd Pens's (there might be a giveaway coming soon to antipodean residents)!

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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I was sent this ink for the purpose of an honest review. Ink’d Pens does sponsor the blog (although during the pandemic I have suspended any payments).

Recently, Esterbrook released their initial set of inks. This set of nine inks I have split into two overview posts this first post has a rather traditional set of inks; they have a vintage feel and wouldn't be out of place in a vintage Esterbrook lineup. This first part has Cobalt Blue, Ebony, Evergreen, and Scarlet. The next part will have some more modern feeling inks with Aqua, Simmer Aqua, Shimmer Lilac, Tangerine and Shimmer Tangerine.

Thanks to Desk Bandit and Esterbrook for sending in these inks for review. I received samples and a bottle of Cobalt Blue.

These three inks, as I mentioned have a very vintage feel. The only thing missing from the classic set of inks that you might find in the 1950s is a blue-black! The blue leans a little teal, the blue a little purple and the red isn’t neutral. Classical ink colours (or close to it)!

The bottle is fairly standard, similar to standard Pelikan bottles, Kaweco bottles. or Berlin Notebook bottles and others. This bottle should be familiar to many. The label again is a very vintage style simplicity with red on white. the box has a similar design with off-white and red. You will want to keep the box for these bottles (as you should anyway) as the bottle doesn’t have any indication as to which ink it is. There is a coloured sticker on the box and a sticker with a barcode and the ink name but none of this is on the bottle itself.

Nib and Pen details

I used Lamy Safaris in Blue Macaron, Rose Powder and Candy Aquamarine as well as a Lamy Joy for these reviews and seven different stainless steel Lamy nibs on that pen. The choice of pen (be that Safari, AL-Star, Vista, Joy or Studio) will have little impact in the writing performance. I will not use a Lamy Dialog because there is the rare chance of the nib drying out slightly which might affect the writing performance.

1. Lamy 1.9 Stub: this is a very wet nib

2. Lamy 1.5 Stub: this nib is moderately wet to write with (this is used for the brand and ink name title);

3. Lamy 1.1 Stub: this nib is on the drier side;

4. Lamy Broad: this is a wet;

5. Lamy Medium: this is a very wet nib;

6. Lamy Fine: this nib is moderately dry; and

7. Lamy Extra Fine: this nib is moderately wet.

I also use a fine Glass nib pen for the comparison ink names. The nib can be either very wet or slightly dry and I try to find the middle area. This generally as the effect of reducing shading and luminosity, while increasing sheen and saturation. The possibility of feathering and bleeding is also slightly increased..

Cobalt Blue

Cobalt Blue is a traditional royal-blue like colour. It is slightly lower saturation and on the darker side but not quite a blue-black colour (and a classic blue-black would be iron gall). This ink is quite wet (most of these Esterbrook inks are). Indeed it is very wet. This gives it a good lubricated flow.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

Cobalt Blue remains fairly similar in colour on both Tomoe River and Rhodia paper being only a little darker and more saturated on Tomoe River.

• Diamine Kensington Blue: is similarly saturation but a little lighter and less purple leaning;

• Parker Quick Blue: is lighter and much more saturated and not quite as purple leaning; and

• Diamine Tudor Blue: is darker, more purple leaning and slightly less saturated.

There is some shading on Cobalt Blue but it isn't strong. The contrast is low, try gradient is smooth and the frequency is fairly moderate. All the nibs fair pretty similarly with more shading, slightly, on the finer nibs. There is a tiny amount of halo visible on the wetter inks but it is quite subtle. There is no sheen visible on the written line on this ink.

There is no water resistance and the dry time is fairly normal on Tomoe River. There's no smear!

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There is, technically, some sheen on the swatch but this is barely visible and is the very matte grey type sheen that barely qualifies!

The chromatography has a pink colour moving to a darker neutral blue before ending with a bright turquoise.

As Cobalt Blue has no sheen the closest is Kensington Blue which is also sheenless. Parker Quick Blue has a fairly strong sheen and Tudor Blue has almost no sheen but what is there is a dull matte gold.

80gsm White Rhodia

On Rhodia the ink looks flatter and is a little lighter. If anything the hue is slightly less purple leaning but is still quite similar to on Tomoe River. Rhodia doesn't handle concentrated amounts of ink that well these days so on the wet swatch and the 'coffee stain' there is some feathering but there is no feathering on the writing.

• Diamine Kensington Blue: is a hair more saturated and lighter and is still less purple leaning;

• Parker Quick Blue: is a much closer colour here, still less purple (but only a little) and a little more saturated; and

• Diamine Tudor Blue: is a similar darkness and saturation but is much more purple.

Shading is fairly similar to Tomoe River as it isn't strong on Rhodia either. It is a little strong in frequency but not much and the contrast is lower while the gradient is still smooth.

Obviously, given no sheen on Tomoe River, there's no sheen here either.

Water Resistance does leave some of the line behind but it is mess and there isn't much visible. I wouldn't call this water resistant but it is better than on Tomoe River. Dry time is super quick! Close to 10 seconds only. There is no smearing.

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No sheen even on the swatch.

Parker Quick Blue has a halo that technically shows some sheen but none of these have any practical sheen.

Ebony

Ebony is what I would call a dark grey. It isn't quite dark enough for my liking to be a proper black. It isn't far off and there are certainly inks out there similarly 'grey' that do call them selves 'black'; this ink doesn't though! It is quite neutral but does approach this dark grey from warmer colours. Ebony is very wet. A lot of ink gets put onto the page.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

The ink is quite flat on both paper types here but it is a little darker on Tomoe River and a little less neutral though with a similar brightness.

• Aurora Black: is darker and a little bluer;

• Noodler's Black: darker still here and with bits of brown in it;

• Lamy Black: is quite blue and only a hair darker.

There is some shading (which is not what I personally look for in a black but in a grey or dark grey I don't mind). The shading is very faint with very low contrast low frequency and a smooth gradient.

There is no sheen on the written line.

Water Resistance is decent. It leaves behind a noticeable grey line and isn't too messy. Dry time is on the slower side but not by an extreme amount. There is no smearing.

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Technically there is a tiny amount of matte grey sheen on the swatch but this is pretty much meaningless.

Chromatography shows where the warmth comes from with a tan-grey leading to a dark grey that breaks into a dark purple before ending with a low saturated reddish brown-purple.

Aurora Black has a strong copper sheen and Lamy Black has a decent brass-like sheen. Noodler's Black has a strange silver like sheen but is the least of the batch. The Noodler's also seems less dark from the side and similarly warmness to Ebony can be seen as well.

80gsm White Rhodia

On Rhodia Ebony is a bit flatter with a little less contrast and a brighter grey overall. It also isn't quite as warm on Rhodia. This ink, on Rhodia, does spread a little. That is the written line becomes thicker than it would on some other papers (such as Tomoe River). This is similar to feathering but not as ugly.

• Aurora Black: is flatter on Rhodia, like Esterbrook Ebony, but also still darker. Aurora Black is also showing some of that ‘spreading’ that Ebony also has;

• Noodler's Black: is still darker but retains a lot of brown colour in it; and

• Lamy Black: is cooler and darker but quite flat.

Because Ebony is flatter on Rhodia there is practically no sheen on Rhodia. There wasn't much on Tomoe River but there is almost none here. As should be expected there is no sheen on the written line either.

Water resistance is a little messier on Rhodia but again fairly decent resistance and the dry time is impressive! You write a word down and it is practically dry by the time you finish! No smearing as should be expected with such a quick dry time.

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No sheen on the swatch.

There is no sheen in any of the comparison inks on Rhodia.

Evergreen

Evergreen isn't quite as as wet as the Cobalt Blue but is still decent lubrications and wetness. The colour is fairly neutral but leans towards a cooler green more than it does towards a warmer green. It is, again, a fairly classic fountain pen ink colour. It is a lighter green and is around moderate saturation.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

On Tomoe River Evergreen is brighter, less saturated and with lower contrast than on Rhodia. It is also a hair more teal leaning. You do see on the wettest part of the swatch where the ink suddenly loses a lot of its saturation. You see that with some inks on Tomoe River and sometimes it is such a strong effect that you can notice it in the writing but fortunately not here.

• Diamine Tropical Green: is a similar hue but darker and a little more saturated;

• Robert Oster Emerald: is a little warmer and more saturated but only a little darker; and

• Robert Oster Evergreen: quite a bit warmer and a touch darker but it does share a name!

Shading isn't strong but it has sharper gradients than what we have seen thus far. The contrast is still fairly low on that though and the frequency isn't high. There is a little bit of halo that shows but it isn’t strong. Every now and then you see a hint of a dark, low saturation matte red sheen on the writing but it is very subtle and doesn't really come up in the photos.

Water resistance is non existent and dry time on Tomoe River for Evergreen is fairly normal (if not on the slower side). There is no smearing.

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You can almost see some of the dark matte red sheen on the swatch and the ink stain but again very little.

Chromatography starts with a light purple-is grey that moves to a bright warm apple green before ending with a saturated azure.

Robert Oster Evergreen has the closest sheen in that it has the least and it is a low saturation matte sheen; but there is still too much! Diamine Tropical Green and Robert Oster Emerald also have more sheen.

80gsm White Rhodia

There is a lot more contrast and the ink is darker and more saturated on Tomoe River with some warmth creeping into the green.

• Diamine Tropical Green: is a similar hue but darker and a little less saturated this time;

• Robert Oster Emerald: is a hair warmer but a lot closer on Rhodia in terms of hue and only slightly more saturated but it is more noticeably darker; and

• Robert Oster Evergreen: is a bit warmer and a touch darker and also flatter.

Esterbrook Evergreen has some decent shading on Rhodia! There is some decent contrast, there is a higher frequency and the gradient is sharper. There's no sheen on Rhodia.

Water resistance is better on Rhodia but still quite low leaving only a faint green line behind. Dry time is decent and there is no smearing.

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No sheening here.

Nor any sheening here.

Scarlet

Scarlet is a warm red that isn't too far away from being an orange but you'd still call it a red. It is fairly light and I'm glad it has that warmth because otherwise it would feel more pink. The saturations is rather moderate as well. Esterbrook Scarlet has is on the upper side of moderate wetness and lubrications.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

On Tomoe River Scarlet is slightly less saturated and a bit lighter but has more complexity of colour with some parts appearing more orange and some more red.

• Kingdom Note Cynops Pyrrhogaster (Sailor): is a similar orange-red hue but is much more saturated and much darker;

• Camel Scarlet Red: has a similar vintage red-like feel to it like Esterbrook Scarlet (and shares a bit of the name) but is much more pink than Esterbrook Scarlet; and

• J. Herbin Corail des Tropiques: is more a low saturation orange leaning pink than an orange-red and is quite flat.

The shading is again fairly low here. There is some more sudden gradients but most are smooth and the contrast and frequency are fairly low. There is a little haloing but not much.

The water resistance leaves a very subtle pink line behind but you wouldn't want to have to rely on this I don't think. Dry time is pretty average for Tomoe River and there is no smearing.

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There is practically no sheen on the swatch or the ink 'stain'.

Chromatography has a pink colour leading to a brown-leaning orange ending with a brilliant pure yellow.

Camel Scarlet has some matte-gold sheen in the swatch but not really any on the written line and J.Herbin Corail des Tropiques has none so they are similar to Esterbrook Scarlet but Kingdom Note Cynops Pyrrhogaster has way too much how saturation green-gold sheen.

80gsm White Rhodia

You can see that on Rhodia Scarlet is a lot warmer and more saturated but also are more homogenous colour. I'd say as well that it feels more orange than when on Tomoe River.

• Kingdom Note Cynops Pyrrhogaster (Sailor): is more red and more darker and more saturated;

• Camel Scarlet Red: looks quite vibrant and pink here! Certainly higher saturation and less orange; and

• J. Herbin Corail des Tropiques: is still a low saturation orange leaning pink and is quite flat.

You do see some feathering creeping in on Rhodia which I more attribute to Rhodia these days but it is worth pointing out. It is very subtle feathering though. The shading is even lower on Rhodia with less frequency and contrast and a completely smooth gradient.

I think I left the water droplets a little too long on the page because it is very messy but there is still some lines left behind that you can see. Dry times very fast and there is no smearing.

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No sheen here.

Note sheen here (apart from a tiny amount one the Kingdom Note)

Conclusion

This first part of inks has some old school colours in it which suites the brand which has so much history they are clearly playing on this history with a lot of the aesthetic of the company and its logos and designs. If this was the full set of inks released it would be a little bland but the rest of the release is much more modern. The reason I chose to batch these four together in the review is precisely because they feel vintage to me and because the other set are either shimmer or have shimmering versions (such as Aqua and Shimmer Aqua). Cobalt Blue is a nice classical darker Royal Blue and Evergreen is a good strong green that is cool but without moving into a teal colour. Scarlet has some complexity on it in Tomoe River and I like that it doesn't just look like a pink like a few older reds do resemble. It is difficult to get excited about a black, to be honest, but thinking of Ebony as a grey makes it more interesting (to me anyway)! I look forward to sharing Aqua, Shimmer Aqua, Shimmer Lilac, Tangerine and Shimmer Tangerine sometime soon!

These inks are on the pricier side but unfortunately I feel like this is just now fountain pen prices are going lately. We're seeing a lot of pricing increases. Personally I’d like to see a slightly lower price. These inks are AU$45 at Desk Bandit in Australia (+AU$4.65 for shimmering inks) and US$30 (+US$5 for shimmering inks) from Esterbrook in the US. These aren’t low prices.

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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I was sent these inks for the purpose of an honest review.

Last month Ferris Wheel Press released a trio of inks, Dusk in Bloom, the shimmery Edward's Gardens, and Main St. Marmalade. These three inks make up Their ‘Twilight Garden’ Ink Collection. Ferris Wheel Press introduce the inks with the following: “bask in the Twilight Garden ink collection this summer with three gorgeous new tones that capture the bright sunny days of the season turned into radiant nights. This collection features a soothing creamy orange, a soft dusted blue, and a scintillating teal with gold sparkling flakes and a mystical light red sheen.”

Thanks to Ferris Wheel Press and Ink’d Pens for arranging these inks be sent in for a review and to be given away!

Ferris Wheel Press, being a Canadian, and more specifically a Toronto based company, often have local-inspired themes for their inks and that the case with two of these inks, Main St. Marmalade and Edward’s Gardens.

The names of their inks are also in French and English but, a surprise to me, is that the French name doesn’t always match the English (according to Google Translate)! I have reviewed Lady Rose in the past and the French name is Thé à la Rose (or Rose Tea) but I also have Beaver Dam Brown which is Barage de Castor (Beaver Dam) and Sweet Honeydew which is Melon Miel Doux (Sweet Honeydew Melon). All three of the inks in the Twilight Garden Ink Collection have alternative names in French which I love!

These bottles are available individually in 38ml bottles (which is what I have for these), individually in the quite large round 85ml bottles and also as a set of three 5ml bottles of each.

Nib and Pen details

I used Lamy Safaris in Blue Macaron, Petrol and Terracotta for these reviews and seven different stainless steel Lamy nibs on that pen. The choice of pen (be that Safari, AL-Star, Vista or Studio) will have little impact in the writing performance. I will not use a Lamy Dialog because there is the rare chance of the nib drying out slightly which might affect the writing performance.

1. Lamy 1.9 Stub: this is a very wet nib

2. Lamy 1.5 Stub: this nib is moderately wet to write with (this is used for the brand and ink name title);

3. Lamy 1.1 Stub: this nib is on the drier side;

4. Lamy Broad: this is a wet;

5. Lamy Medium: this is a very wet nib;

6. Lamy Fine: this nib is moderately dry; and

7. Lamy Extra Fine: this nib is moderately wet.

I also use a fine Glass nib pen for the comparison ink names. The nib can be either very wet or slightly dry and I try to find the middle area. This generally as the effect of reducing shading and luminosity, while increasing sheen and saturation. The possibility of feathering and bleeding is also slightly increased..

Dusk In Bloom

Fleur-de-nuit

Dusk in Bloom is also called Fleur-de-nuit (Night Flower) and is described by Ferris Wheel Press as “a balanced slate blue that is evenly toned and beautifully layered for artful applications; yet deep and legible for penning your next correspondence”. The ink is a fairly pale and desaturated blue. Such pale colours seem to be very fairly unique to Ferris Wheel Press’s lineup and not many other brands are doing similar colours! This blue leans very slightly to the teal (more so than it does purple, anyway). It reminds me of a light Dove Blue or pale Cornflower or a Pastel Blue.

For a pale ink Dusk in Bloom Dusk In Bloom is decently wet and well lubricated! Often, in my experience, such pale inks are somewhat dry (or actually dry) but not here. These must have a decent among of lubricant in them. This ink isn’t as strong a shader as I expected but it does have some nice shading depending on the nib characteristic.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

The ink remains fairly similar on both Tomoe River and Rhodia. It is slightly lighter, slightly less saturated and a hair more teal leaning.

• Montblanc Jazz Blue: this ink is quite light but much more saturated and less teal leaning;

• Robert Oster Summer Storm: this was the first ink I reviewed! This ink leans a little purple and is on the darker side but has a similar grey-is complexion; and

• Robert Oster Grey Seas: is fairly neutral and more saturated but still somewhat grey

This ink has some shading depending on the nib. On the Lamy 1.9 nib there is some higher contrast shading with sharp gradients. The rest of the nibs show mostly low contrast shading and a smooth gradient. The frequency of the shading is pretty middle of the road. There is some decently noticeable haloing at times.

There is no sheen whatsoever on this ink!

The water resistance is surprisingly good! There isn’t much colour to wash away and a lot of it stays! Dry time is on the slower side (which in my experience suggests more lubricant) and there is no smearing.

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There’s not even any practically noticeable sheen on the swatch! The chromatography is fairly simple with a more grey line where the line was drawn and then a pale blue after that.

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I’d argue that like Dusk In Bloom, none of these inks have any practical sheen as well.

80gsm White Rhodia

The ink is just a little bit darker and more saturated on Rhodia and the colour is more neutral. It does still generally lean more teal than purple though!

• Montblanc Jazz Blue: this ink is quite light but much more saturated and less teal leaning. It also has some pink that breaks through in the more saturated parts;

• Robert Oster Summer Storm: this ink leans a little purple and is noticeably darker; and

• Robert Oster Grey Seas: is fairly neutral and more saturated but still somewhat grey.

The shading follows similarly on from Tomoe River but the gradient is even smoother and the contrast slightly less. I would also say the frequency is lower on the on Rhodia. The haloing is mostly not noticeable on Rhodia.

There is still no sheen (not that any should be expected for such a low saturation ink, especially on Rhodia).

Water resistance is the same as on Tomoe River. That is, pretty decent! Water resistance is pretty normal but slower than I would expect for the saturation normally. There is no smearing.

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There is no sheening on the swatch of Dusk In Bloom nor on any of the comparison inks when on Rhodia paper. Again not unexpected.

Edward’s Gardens

Jardin Turquoise

Edwards Gardens, also called Jardin Turquoise (Turquoise Garden), is described by Ferris Wheel Press as “a scintillating teal with gold sparkling flakes and a mystical red sheen”. Edward’s Garden is inspired by the Edward’s Garden park in Toronto that also include the Toronto Botanical Gardens. This ink is definitely the richest ink of the set with the shimmer sheen and colour playing well together.

Edward’s Gardens is a slightly blue-leaning teal (that is it leans more towards the blue spectrum than the green). This teal is decently saturated but it isn’t quite what I would call highly saturated. The ink is very wet and has some shading but not a whole heap.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

Edward’s Gardens is bluer on Tomoe River compared with Rhodia and a hair less saturated.

• J. Herbin Emerald of Chivor: is the obvious comparison! This ink is slightly darker, greener, and more sheeny;

• Diamine Enchanted Ocean: noticeably is darker, much less saturated, has silver shimmer and a duller sheen; and

• Diamine Aurora Borealis: is obviously not shimmery but has a similar hue albeit a littler darker. The sheen is duller and less strong.

Shading isn’t that strong with low frequency. IT is stronger on the Lamy 1.9mm Stub in the brand title, the 1.5mm Stub in the ink title and the drier fine nib. The rest are fairly flat. The contrast is fairly moderate on the nibs that are showing shading (otherwise quite low) and it is a similar story with the gradient; the nibs that show shading have a more sudden gradient and the nibs that don’t show much are quite smooth. There is some nice haloing that is often accompanied by sheen.

The sheen is quite decent! There is sheen on all the nibs and the shimmer gets quite strong on the water nibs (with the exception of the stubs for some reason). It is a nice combination of sheen, colour and shimmer!

Edward’s Gardens has low to no water resistance a decent dry time for Tomoe River and no smearing.

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Some shimmering inks handle the shimmer better than others with the sheen rubbing off (or smearing off). This doesn’t happen much for this ink but if you rub the gold with you hand some will be left on your finger! With some shimmer inks it completely rubs off though.

The chromatography starts with a pale neutral blue that gets darker and more saturated before breaking into a yellow-green and finally ending with a rich azure. It also leaves behind the shimmer where the line was written down.

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The sheen of Emerald of Chivor is stronger but a similar colour and richness but the shimmer colour is a little yellower and less orange. Enchanted Ocean is much duller and Aurora Borealis is just a bit duller.

80gsm White Rhodia

On Rhodia the ink is a little more green leaning (not much) and a little more saturated.

• J. Herbin Emerald of Chivor: Is slightly darker, more saturated and greener;

• Diamine Enchanted Ocean: noticeably is darker, much less saturated;

• Diamine Aurora Borealis: is obviously not shimmery but has a similar hue albeit a littler darker and greener.

The shading is definitely stronger on Rhodia! The frequency is decent but the contrast is on the low side and the gradient still smooth.

If you look very closely you can see some very dull almost halo-like sheen but practically there is none on Rhodia. I think the shimmer looks a lot nicer in the presence of the sheen but that is just my personal opinion.

Water resistance is improved on Rhodia but is a little messy. Dry time is quite fast and there is no smearing (the shimmer is as on Tomoe River).

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Again the slightest hint of a dull sheen in some spots here but nothing practical.

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None of the comparison inks show any noticeable sheen on Rhodia either.

Main St. Marmalade

Cremé À L’Orange

Main St. Marmalade, or Cremé à L’Orange (Orange Cream), is described by Ferris Wheel Press as “a soothing creamy orange that is beautifully shaded and perfect for summer highlights”. I think ‘creamy orange’ is an apt description of the colour! It is a pale amber or light pale apricot like colour. It is a light, low saturation yellow-orange with a little bit of brown to the orange. The ‘Main St.’ in the name is related to Main St. Unionville on he outskirts the Greater Toronto Area. You managed to find this building on Main Street that is represented on the box cover art!

This ink, like Dusk in Bloom is quite wet for such a pale ink which makes it quite pleasant to write with. It has limited shading again.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

On Tomoe River this ink is noticeably more unsaturated and lighter than on Rhodia. Overall it has less contrast as well.

• Birmingham Pen Co. Luna Park Marmalade: has a similar amber-redness to it but is more saturated and darker;

• Stipula Saffron: is more yellow and more saturated; and

• Robert Oster Peach: is dirtier, more saturated and more orange.

This is probably the best of the three for shading. It still isn’t strong because the contrast is low but the frequency is higher and the gradient is often sudden rather than smooth. Even the broad and medium nibs show some shading! There is a nice halo as well but it isn’t that strong.

There is no sheen, unsurprisingly. Water resistance is non-existent with the ink completely washed away. Dry time is decent for Tomoe River paper and there is no smearing.

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No sheen even on the swatch and the chromatography is simply a coral orange gradient that breaks into a neutral orange before ending with a golden yellow.

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There is no sheen on any of these inks although the shading on the Stipula is interesting and there is some haloing on the swatch of the Robert Oster.

80gsm White Rhodia

As mentioned the contrast is higher on Rhodia with almost some red coming out in the swatch. The orange is more saturated and it is a little darker as well.

• Birmingham Pen Co. Luna Park Marmalade: is much closer but flatter and a little more saturated;

• Stipula Saffron: is richer and more yellow'; and

• Robert Oster Peach: is darker, richer and has more brown in it.

The shading is fairly similar to on Tomoe River but with a slight increase in frequency. The contrast is still low and the gradient is still often (but not always) more sudden. No sheen!

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Still no sheen (surprise)!

Still no water resistance and no smearing but the dry time is excellent with this one.

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There’s no sheening with these inks but there is some chromatic changes around where the haloing would be (including some strong haloing on the Robert Oster Swatch).

Unfortunately for me these inks will not be staying in my collection with the inks being sent off in a giveaway for Australian audiences very soon! I mentioned at the start that Ferris Wheel Press is one of the few companies releasing such pale inks (and certainly the only one that does it consistently). That doesn’t mean that they don’t make vibrant inks (as pale inks aren’t for everyone), of course (just look at Edward’s Gardens) but I like that they doing this. It is very difficult these days to have a visibly recognisable ink catalogue but I think Ferris Wheel Press is one of the few that has one. Not only that but they have approached it thoughtfully with one of the main problems with pale inks being how dry they often are but these inks are not dry (especially for a pale ink). They are decently wet and lubricated so these pale inks are lovely to write with. That these have less shading is also not necessarily a down side because either the ink would need to be less pale or would become too pale in parts. These inks aren’t flat but they keep their pale look. Creamy orange Main St. Marmalade is easily visible on paper, a little less so with Dusk In Bloom but it still a nice ink to use (albeit maybe not on professional documents)! Edward’s Gardens is my favourite type of shimmer ink; one that interplays with sheen and base ink colour. While very similar to J. Herbin Emerald Of Chivor it is still different (in shimmer colour and base colour) which differentiates it somewhat.

These inks (and other Ferris Wheel Press inks) are is AU$29.95 for the 38ml, AU$54.95 for the 85ml, and AU$24.95 for a 5ml(ea) set of all three inks at Ink’d Pens. From Ferris Wheel Press they are US$20, US$36, and US$15 respectively. Slightly on the upper echelon of the price scale but not too extreme and for me worth the money. I feel quite content with my 38ml bottles as well, a nice balance for me.

Thanks to Ferris Wheel Press and Ink’d Pens for sending these inks for review, go check them out and see what you like and also follow Ferris Wheel Press on and Ink’d Pens on Instagram! Use code I LOVE MACCHIATO MAN for 10% off on Ink’d Pens!

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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. I was sent this ink for the purpose of an honest review.

The Esterbrook JR Pocket Pen is part of the modern Esterbrook’s revival of the brand with the pen being a call back to one of vintage Esterbrook’s most popular pens, the Esterbrook J. The modern Esterbrook JR has come in a few colours, Red (‘Carmine’), Black, (‘Tuxedo’), and Blue (‘Capri’) but Esterbrook recently released the Paradise Set of three brightly coloured pens. These new colours have some slight design changes and come in Yellow (‘Lemon Twist’), Blue (‘Blue Breeze’) and Orange (‘Orange Sunset’). This review features the full Paradise Set, and the standard Tuxedo wit comparisons with two vintage Esterbrook J pens.

Thanks to Esterbrook for sending in the Paradise Set and to Desk Bandit for sending in the Tuxedo for review!

The now-vintage Esterbrook J was a very popular pen and because of how many were made it can still be easily found for affordable prices. These vintage J pens were small pocketable pens and one of the major selling point was the interchangeable nibs available to them. With at last 32 different nibs of various size and character and four different degrees of flexibility of those nibs. The nibs would easily unscrew and you could walk into any Esterbrook pen counter and buy a replacement nib. The tag line was some variation of having a nib for every writer or way of writing:

Put Personality in Your Handwriting with the Right Point for the Way You Write

Esterbrook Pens … with a choice of points for every writer - The gift for comfortable writing

Give the pen with the right point for every writer - The gift for more comfortable writing

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Times have changed since then! You can’t casually walk into a department store or a mall or CBD, find the Esterbrook booth and buy a different nib right then and there. We are currently in a golden revival of fountain pens but we don’t quite have the universal appeal as they did in the 1930s. We have so much variety and opportunities with new pen makers and pen designs but the we never quite made it to the same complexity of nib choices of the fountain pen’s heyday. I do feel pretty confident in saying that we have more variety with inks than ever before, however!

At the start I called the modern Esterbrook JR a call back to the vintage J. You could also call it homage or ‘inspired by’. The JR has similar dimensions and profile to the J and you can see the reference point but it is certainly a modern pen and a distinct pen rather than a new version or a revival.

The Paradise set pens are very vibrant and eye catching. They remind me a lot of what we in Australia would call lollies (sweets or candy elswhere). I went to my local lolly shop and found some hard lollies with a similar colour (and the flavours pretty much matches as well). These colours are light, partially translucent and highly saturated, just like the lollies! They aren’t a flat colour but have some depth and colour-texture to them with a swirl-like pattern.

The Paradise set has gold finishings and a newly designed finial, compared with the ‘standard’ JR pen models.

The packaging is the nice standard flexible coffin-style case made with fabric inside the red and off-white cardboard sleeve.

The Tuxedo is from the stand line and is one of the two JR pens that has a silver trim (the other being the red ‘Carmine’ model). The Tuxedo is a mostly black pen but with some noticeable silver swirls and even some maroon deep in the martial. It has some nice character for a ‘simple’ black pen.

Both the Paradise set and the standard models obviously all have interchangeable sections with each other which works quite well with the Lemon Twist and Blue given with they share alternate colours on the plastic ring around the finials

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The materials of all of these JRs (and also the Carmine and Capri which I don’t have) have a swirly texture to them. The swirls are mostly silvery but there is also elements to the swirl that is more transparent. The Tuxedo has some red-brown in it.

These pens are also cartridge converter pens (as distinct from the vintage J which is are Lever fillers with a sac) and come with a converter.

I believe that one of the characteristics of pocket pens like the vintage Esterbrook J was that it had a very low profile when clipped into a shirt pocket. I can’t find information on this so I might be wrong. Either way the vintage Esterbrook J does have a slim profile and the modern Esterbrook JR has a very slightly more prominent hump as well as a longer clip but is slightly better than the Pelikan M200.

Modern Esterbrook JR compared with vintage Esterbrook J

The Esterbrook JR and the vintage J have a very similar profile. They are almost exactly the same length, the cap is the same length and girth, both have (mostly) flat ends, they have the cap band in the same spot (and it is a similar thickness) and the clip on both is square with vertical lines down its front. The main differences are in the section, finals, back-body band, the length of the clip and the filling mechanism.

It’s worth noting that there are different vintage models of this pen. The full-sized ‘J’, which I have here, but there is also a slender ‘LJ’ model which is thinner, a demi ‘SJ’ model which is thinner and shorter and finally a ‘Purse Pen’ (‘CH’ or ‘H’) model that is smaller still. There are also different generations with some mostly visual differenced. The two I have here for comparison are the very common Double Jewel versions that started being made in 1948 in the colours Dubonnet Red and Cobalt Blue.

With the section the vintage J there is a very short black material before a very large thread. The same is also a simple straight taper rather than a curve on the modern JR. The modern JR also had a band on the body; this band is set a fair bit away from the end which in my experience gives the impression of the the end being either a blend cap or a turning nob. That you can see the threads that attach the two sections of the body to the band in the translucent Paradise Set of JR pens doesn’t help this possible misinterpretation! The band itself, I can confirm, is just aesthetic and I think it does look nice but we are also trained to see such lowly set bands as meaning something else.

The finials on the vintage J have a black plastic jewel with a embossed circle on top. This somewhat rounded jewel was used to distinguish between the pencil and the ball point (which had a concave and pointy jewel, respectively) when in your pocket. The Jewel of the standard modern JR models is a almost completely flat silver plate on the body finial and the same on the cap finial but this time Esterbrook Logo (called an ‘Eternity’ symbol) stamped onto it. The cap finial is different on the Paradise set with what I believe to be a plastic moulded and textured finial with a some roundness to it.

The cap band on the modern JR is where the company name is places in cursive writing but the band on the vintage however the J has the Esterbrook name on the clip. While both clips are generally square and flat (with both having vertical lines running down the front) the J is noticeably shorter.

The way the clip is fastened to the cap is slightly different. With the J the clip also has a metal ring that attaches underneath and around the jewel and forms part of the finial. On the modern JR the clip slips underneath the jewel and the ring of plastic that forms the finial.

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My vintage Esterbrook J also has ‘Esterbrook®’ in cursive over ‘MADE IN U.S.A.’ stamped onto the barrel. This is same Esterbrook cursive logo that is used today and is etched onto the band of the modern Esterbrook JR.

While the modern JR is a cartridge converter pen the vintage J pens are lever-filler pens with sacs. This means that some will likely now need sac replacements. I tend to treat pens like this quite carefully. I avoid Japanese inks (which are often alkaline) and I avoid Noodler’s inks. I generally stick to old European brands as those inks often work with vintage European brand pens with require a similar cautious approach. I probably need to clean the lever a bit!

Nib

The nib on the modern Esterbrook JR Pocket fountain pen comes with a JoWo No.5 nib in in EF, F, M, B, 1.1 Stub, Journaler & Scribe. The JR No.5 nibs have the Esterbrook Eternity symbol etched onto the front/top. These are pretty standard and common nibs that are available in many pens these days. JoWo, along with Bock are major third-party nib makers. In general I find JoWo nibs to ve quite consistent, especially with Medium and thinner nibs. There is some common Western-nib inconsistencies with the finer nibs (being that an Extra Fine is often not that fine). They are mostly smooth and wet. The Stubs I find have some variety in their wetness and if the tines aren’t perfect you can really feel it. The broad nib in JoWo and Bock nibs, in my experience, tends to be the one that is most likely to cause an issue with baby’s bottoms. Because of the polishing required for a smooth nib sometimes they get over-polished which can result in a baby’s bottom and hard starts at times. I did not find that with the broad nib on this Orange Sunset JR! All of these were wet and good writers out of the box. I only mention my personal experience with these nibs as it might be helpful when choosing a nib.

I reviewed the Journaler nib on an Estie here and the Scribe on another Estie here. I really like the Journaler and the Scribe is an excellent nib (although the type of nib doesn’t suite my handwriting as much).

The vintage nibs I received (as an aside) were very nice and wet with the Broad (no number) being a little stubby. Both seemed to have tipping material (which isn’t on all vintage Esterbrook nibs) and the Medium 2668 nib is surprisingly wide but it seems this nib was bent and re-shaped which might contribute to that. Regardless both write very nice.

Like the vintage J pens having nib units that you can easily unscrew, the modern JRs do as well. I have some Franklin-Chiristoph No.5 nibs in my collection and the nib units are easily removed from both pens and placed in each other. Franklin-Chirstoph only have silver-trim nibs so this one doesn’t really match the gold-trim Orange Sunset JR!

The Tuexedo’s Medium nib is surprisingly fine! It’s a delight to write with as well with good flow and smoothness. The Lemon Twist’s Medium is a little broader and also nicely wet (overview of Esterbrook’s newly released inks coming soon). The Orange Sunset’s broad is not quite as wet as the mediums but has a very smooth writing experience. The 1.1 Stub on the Blue Breeze is a little dry but with a wet ink writes very nicely. Both the vintage J nibs are very wet and quite smooth with the Broad being stubby and the Medium being a little fatter than I expected. More writing samples below.

Dimensions and Comparison

The pen is moderately small and decently pocketable, as should be expected. The pen is also fairly thin, especially the section which is less than 1cm at its thinnest and just 1cm at its thickest. It is still comfortable to write with but worth noting for people with bigger hands or who prefer larger sections. The section is also fairly straight across from where the threads finish to before the nib starts but there is a concave dip just before the nib (a dip of 1mm).

The body is fairly straight and only slightly tapers once you get past the body’s metal band. The p[en does post which extents the pen by 3.7cm.

Capped the pen is similarly sized to a TWSBI Vac Mini, a Pelikan M205, and even a Sailor Pro Gear isn’t that much taller. The Platinum #3776, Lamy 2000, and TWSBI ECO are still much taller.

Uncapped most pens become fairly similar except the TWSBI ECO. The Lamy 2000 is just a little taller and the Platinum #3776 is fairly close. Uncapped this isn’t that short of a pen.

Where it gets a lot of its pocket ability from is its somewhat short status when capped, its thin girth, and its low profile when clipped somewhere. The size is almost indistinguishable from the vintage Esterbrook J.

The pen is moderately weighted. It isn’t as light as the vintage J nor the Pelikan M205, but is surprisingly similar in weight to a TWSBI ECO.

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The Orange Crush, when compared to my other orange pens is a yellower orange. There are some darker orange bits in the material but overall, compared to the other pens, this seems almost yellow!

The Lemon Twist is very much a lemony colour with almost some green in there. It is closest to the Narwal fountain pen’s yellow.

The Blue Breeze is pretty close to a perfect standard fountain pen turquoise ink colour (like these here)!

The texture and depth in the material of the Tuxedo set it apart from pure black pens and make it seem almost a dark grey.

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Compared in size to other ‘pocket’ pens the JR is on the taller side, just a little shorter than the Franklin-Christoph Mode. 45L and noticeably larger than the Kawecos and the Franklin-Chirstoph Model 45. It is also larger than the Pilot Elite! This is definitely still pocketable but it’s on the larger end of that category. Depending on your purpose and use case that could be a benefit or a downside.

Conclusion

These are a good sized pen for me (and this review made me also realise I like the vintage Esterbrook J pens). I find them comfortable to write with and they have some lovely colours. The nibs write well and I like that I can put some other nibs that I have (some with custom grinds on them) into the pen easily (though this isn’t unique to these pens, I should note). Surprisingly to me I think I like the Tuxedo the most! The material gives a subtle pen some good character and the nib on that really suites how I write. This is a nice pen to carry around with me in a pocket or just have all three of them sharing a shirt pocket!

These pens are possibly on the pricier side depending on where you are coming from. I feel this price for new-wave fountain pen makers is fairly normal, however. From Esterbrook the JR is US$175 (Paradise set or standard) with extra for the custom nib grinds. At Desk Bandit the JR is AU$230. Personally I find these prices to be fine. I was about to buy one of these before they were sent to me for review (don’t tell them!) so for me I think I’m getting value.

Thanks to Esterbrook and Desk Bandit for sending this pen all the way from New Jersey to Fremantle for review!

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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please let me know in a via the comments, Instagram, or contact me directly.

You can find my ink collection here and my pen collection here. Is there something you’d like reviewed? Let me know!

For blog updated you can follow @macchiato_man on Twitter, subscribe via email, or like my Facebook page. Check out the sponsors of this blog as well!

I was not compensated for this review and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links in this review. Esterbrook and Desk Bandit do sponsor the blog (although during the pandemic I have suspended any payments). I purchased the vintage Esterbrook J pens myself.