Tag: Ink Snippet

I’ve Been a Miner for a Heart of Gold: J. Herbin 1670 Caroube de Chypre

Laura4 Comments

J. Herbin Caroube de Chypre writing sample

I’ve been searching long and hard for how to bring out the most gold in J. Herbin 1670 Caroube de Chypre, and I think I’ve found it. But there’s going to be a “but” in there.

Caroube de Chypre is on the quieter side for inks with gold ink particles.  It is a gorgeous dark copper ink, but it doesn’t pop like J. Herbin’s previous 1670 ink, Emerald of Chivor.

That’s actually fine with me. I love the color and how it looks on the page. But what if you want more gold? Can you get it?

Yes! And, no.

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J. Herbin 1670 Caroube de Chypre: Pretty Pictures and Sheen and Shimmer

Laura1 Comment

J. Herbin 1670 Caroube de Chypre writing sample

I have been enjoying the heck out of J. Herbin 1670 Caroube de Chypre, while I try to understand it.

I’m working this ink. I’ve found you need to coddle and coax any gold- or silver-infused ink, whether from J. Herbin or Diamine, for maximum shimmer.

Some steps are obvious: shake the bottle thoroughly before you fill a pen. Some are not so obvious: shake the pen before writing. And some steps go against my very nature: only use a wet pen, which means no Lamy Safari. Sob.

However, even with all that, Caroube de Chypre isn’t showing a huge amount of gold in my wet-writing Kaweco Sport. Not even with a 1.5 mm nib.

J. Herbin 1670 Caroube de Chypre writing sample

It’s a gorgeous color, though. And I’m happy with the lower-key shimmer: actually, it makes me think I’d use Caroube de Chypre more. But I still would like to figure out how much shimmer is possible from Caroube de Chypre.

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Ink Snippet: Montblanc William Shakespeare Velvet Red

Laura13 Comments

Montblanc William Shakesepare Velvet Red ink and bottle

My Montblanc William Shakespeare Velvet Red ink just arrived, which makes for a happy Thursday at Fountain Pen Follies.

I could be all laid back and cool, and pretend I haven’t been checking the front porch since Monday for my order from the lovely people at Pen Boutique. But that would be a lie. And anyway, no one would believe me.

Here are some first impressions and some quick photos.

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Ink Snippet: Pelikan Edelstein Topaz

Laura4 Comments

Pelikan Edelstein Topaz bottle

I am gingerly stepping back into the blue pool with Pelikan Edelstein Topaz. This ink is an old favorite of mine. It’s a nicely flowing, nicely lubricated ink, with great shading and a lovely color. And it cleans up easily.

I’m almost at the end of the bottle, which brings up the usual mixed feelings. It’s always nice to use up a bottle. But I’ll miss Topaz until I replace it, which won’t be until I’ve worked down my stock of blue inks some more.

Aurora Optima 360 Monviso

We’re going out on a high note, however. Pelikan Edelstein Topaz makes a very nice match for the Aurora Optima Monviso. The ink flows so smoothly that the Aurora stub nib writes like a dream. And in turn, the stub nib’s line variation makes the most of Topaz’s color and shading.

Pelikan Edelstein Topaz writing sample

This was my second bottle of Topaz. I have given friends samples, and recommended it, and used it in a Mystery Ink round. I still recommend it. And I’m enjoying it while it lasts. It is perfect for summer.

Pelikan Edelstein Topaz nearly empty bottle

 

Liking Jane: More About De Atramentis Jane Austen

Laura7 Comments

DeAtramentis Jane Austen ink writing sample

At the end of a dreadful week in the news, I want to take refuge by delving into something utterly insignificant, but at least diverting. That would be ink. I’d like to talk about Jane Austen ink by De Atramentis.

I’ve always maintained that the least interesting aspect of any ink I review is how the color strikes me personally. Instead, I try to be more neutral. Everyone’s taste is individual, but there are certain objective qualities to note about an ink. Is it dry or wet? Does it shade? What does it look like on different papers?

But I’m going to step away from that model here. Because I knew the minute I inked up De Atramentis Jane Austen that I liked it, but didn’t love it. Further, what I like most about De Atramentis Jane Austen is that it’s named after one of my favorite authors. That presents something of a mild conundrum for me.

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Ink Snippet: De Atramentis Jane Austen

Laura3 Comments

DeAtramentis Jane Austen ink writing sample

It’s been Blue Week here at Fountain Pen Follies for more than two weeks. Which surely has created a gap in the space-time continuum, because it seems that even the world’s biggest blue ink fan has grown weary of blue ink.

So I cleaned out three pens filled with blue ink, and searched for an ink that was appealing and not-blue. It took a while, but eventually I found a tiny amount of De Atramentis Jane Austen, left over from the Chicago Pen Show. And Jane Austen is one of my favorite writers.

I was very happy to put De Atramentis Jane Austen into a Pelikan 400 with OBB nib. It turns out to be a lighter forest green, with shading. Not perhaps my favorite color, though the shading is nice. And not the color that I would have chosen for Austen, who was acutely attuned to the comical and the absurd, whereas this ink seems very serious.

But maybe it has a Regency flavor. And it’s a nice color.

It’s an ink that seems to be on the dry side. That vintage Pelikan is a firehose, and the ink doesn’t look very dark, does it? So that could be nice for wetter pens.

Here’s a look at the ink from a different angle, because I think you can sometimes get a better feel for the color when you don’t think about what’s written. Also, shallow depth of field always makes a person feel artsy.  Even if the reason for it was just dusk.

De Atramentis Jane Austen ink writing sample

Jane Austen, incredibly, was born in 1775. Here’s what Anthony Trollope, another English novelist, said of her in 1870:

Miss Austen was surely a great novelist. What she did, she did perfectly…. She wrote of the times in which she lived, of the class of people with which she associated, and in the language which was usual to her as an educated lady. Of romance—what we generally mean when we speak of romance—she had no tinge: heroes and heroines with wonderful adventures there are none in her novels. Of great criminals and hidden crimes she tells us nothing.

But she places us in a circle of gentlemen and ladies, and charms us while she tells us with an unconscious accuracy how men should act to women, and women act to men. It is not that her people are all good; and, certainly, they are not all wise. The faults of some are the anvils on which the virtues of others are hammered till they are bright as steel. In the comedy of folly, I know no novelist who has beaten her. The letters of Mr. Collins, a clergyman in Pride and Prejudice, would move laughter in a low-church archbishop.

The Mark Twain Cure

Laura2 Comments

Montblanc BMW writing sample

I have been in something of a reading funk for the last four months, but I recently found a book I sped through with a smile: a collection of Mark Twain quotes.

Like the foregoing, which is certainly my motto: “Do not put off until tomorrow what can be put until day-after-tomorrow.”

And this one, which encapsulates my pen and ink problem, but makes me feel better about it:  “A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs.”

Caran d'Ache Divine Pink writing sample

And then there’s this comment that Twain had Satan make to a newcomer to Hell.

Parker Penman Sapphire writing sample

I guess even in the late 1800s and early 1900s, we Chicagoans must have been enthusiastic civic boosters, and a little hard to take.

Ah well, we love our city. At least we’re number one.

Rock, Scissors, Paper

Laura1 Comment

writing samples on Eaton's Eminence Onion Skin paper

I was helping my father look for some things when I came across an old box of typing paper. Marked 49 cents, it’s a 100-sheet box of typewriter paper. The box says onion skin, 9 pounds, and 25 percent cotton fiber content.

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