On this twelfth and last day of Holiday Ink, it’s time for silver and gold together, and a little grown-up shimmer
Diamine Shimmertastic Night Sky is a black with silver particles that looks sleek and sophisticated.
Sparkling Shadows is softer and warmer, a gray with gold particles.
Together, they’ll round out the holiday season and bring us into what I hope is a sparkling New Year for everyone.
On the eleventh day of Holiday Ink, it’s time for some sun and shimmer, I think. So today’s ink is Diamine Shimmertastic Golden Sands. Warm and wonderful, it’s like liquid gold. I should have asked for a bottle from Santa.
On the tenth day of Holiday Ink comes Diamine Tropical Green. One of the 150th Anniversary Inks Diamine released last year, Tropical Green is a medium green that leans blue and has great shading. A lovely winter green.
On the ninth day of Holiday Ink, Diamine Red Dragon comes to the fore. Red Dragon is such an attractive and special dark red. It manages to be striking and agreeable at the same time, which is quite a neat trick. I like Red Dragon best with a very fine nib, and I like it very, very much.
On the eighth day of Holiday Ink, we have Cultpens Deep Dark Blue. If you have a hankering for ultra-saturated, ultra-dark inks, Diamine makes a series of Deep Dark inks for Cultpens in the UK. Deep Dark Blue is a velvety, deep indigo, and is especially nice in extra-fine nibs.
Parker Vacumatic Maxima with fine nib. This week has turned out to be “fancy pen week” for me, because this is my most blingy pen. It’s a Vacumatic Maxima in Emerald Pearl, and it just shines.
The Maxima is the second-largest Vacumatic, and it’s the perfect size for me. This one was a birthday present from my parents, and so it is both my first and last Maxima. There wouldn’t be another I could like any better or would choose to use instead of this one.
The ink is Diamine Tropical Green, a green with just the right amount of blue for me.
On the seventh day of Holiday Ink, I am going to pivot a little, and offer a non-standard green. Diamine Green/Black is not your typical Christmas green. It’s more of a subdued evergreen, a tertiary shade that brings to mind winter woods at dusk. Excellent in a fine or extra-fine nib, Green-Black may be my most-used green.
Custom Edison with medium nib. Brian Gray made me this Edison in tortoise lucite in a clipless cigar style. It features one of Edison’s excellent gold nibs in medium, which is positively cushy.
I love the material.
It’s inked with a sample from a friend of Diamine Racing Green. Made by Diamine exclusively for Missing Pen, a German eBay dealer, Diamine Racing Green is based on the discontinued Montblanc Racing Green ink.
I’ve never used the original Racing Green, but I’ve seen it in letters. This Diamine version looks lighter and greener, but it’s still a nice color, with a lot of shading, and I feel very lucky I’ve gotten to try it. I might mix some with a bit of black, to see how that looks.
Just to follow up, I recently fell for a lovely ink from Conway Stewart called Kingsand. But Conway Stewart is unfortunately out of business, so Kingsand won’t be available much longer. Because Conway Stewart commissioned its inks from Diamine, I had hoped Kingsand would turn out to also be a regular Diamine ink, so I could still buy it. And there’s good news: Conway Stewart Kingsand is Diamine Ochre.
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Fountain Pen Follies 