A little bit of history Once upon a time in the west, or the western hemisphere at least, there were fine upstanding fountain pen makers like Parker, whose Penmanship Blue had a nice, subtle, red sheen on it, which made handwriting shimmer gently in the right light and, thirty years later, made otherwise sensible shoppers absolutely do a nut-job and blow staggering piles of cash on half-empty bottles just to dip their nibs in this apparently magical writing elixir. It got a bit silly, frankly. Then ink specialists here in this century started making their own, and things became calm and sensible once more. Well, mostly. Here are three of the new contenders, from Amurrka, Oz and Blighty, slugging it out head-to-head – as if civilised ink would stoop to anything of the sort! Tsk.
How it looks Our three selected inks all look like high-quality, but ordinary, blue inks as they go on to the page. Robert Oster’s Fire & Ice is a light blue verging on turquoise, Diamine’s Germany-only Skull & Roses is a richer ‘royal’ blue, and Organics Studio’s Nitrogen Blue is somewhere in between. Then, once dried, they exhibit a red sheen when you twist them in oblique light. It’s a neat trick.
How it behaves on the paper Perfectly well; these all come from serious ink manufacturers with reputations to protect, so there are no major problems. Drying times can occasionally be longer than expected, however, particularity for Nitrogen.
How it behaves in the pen Again, pretty much as standard fountain pen ink does, although sheen inks can lead to a build-up of sediment eventually – and several of us have found ebonite feeds turning a fetching shade of red! Fortunately, it’s nothing that a good rinse won’t fix.
Ink! What is it good for? The art of correspondence may be dying fast, but if anything’s going to bring it back it must surely be the excuse to use inks as alluring as these. It makes boring blue interesting again, after all.
VFM Good quality sheening ink is generally a ‘premium’ product at present so you may have to pay a little more – but if you enjoy the effect, you’re unlikely to find the modest uplift a major penalty.
If this isn’t quite your cup of tea, but almost… There are more ink makers jumping on this band-wagon all the time – for instance, we’re hearing good things about Krishna Moonview. Or you could mortgage your home, sell a couple of major organs and buy some Parker Penmanship, of course…
Our overall recommendation Give it a go. The effect is very pleasing and the ink is easy to live with, even in fussy thoroughbred pens. Skull & Roses is the trickiest to get hold of despite being made here in the UK, but that’s just the result of an exclusive deal – and Diamine could undoubtedly come up with something even better for full global distribution in due course. In the meantime, Fire &Ice if you like Turquoise, or Nitrogen if you like full-on royal blue with all the trimmings, are well worth a try.
Where to get hold of some For Skull & Roses, you have to buy from Germany – but there are numerous tintenshoppingspecialisten (Nein, das ist kein Neologismus!) on the web, or even Amazon if you really get stuck. Executive Pens Direct stocks Fire & Ice, while The Writing Desk carries Nitrogen amongst a a fairly wide range of Organics inks. A bit of internet research will produce the goods without too much heavy trawling.
This shoot-out meta-review references:
- Scribble Monboddo’s hand-written review
- Alison’s review of all three
- Nick Stewart’s tests of Fire & Ice and the other two
- the Clumsy Penman’s review of Nitrogen
Thanks to Diamine for the rare sample of Skull & Roses, Executive Pens Direct for the sample of Robert Oster’s Fire & Ice, and The Writing Desk for shipping some Nitrogen this side of the pond.
