With a heavy lean into violet, Diamine Imperial Blue is far from a standard blue ink. Excluding special editions as well as shimmering and sheening inks, and drawing an arbitrary line between blue, turquoise, teal and mint, Diamine has about twenty shades of blue available, some of which can be Read More …
Whilst the Eco and Diamond 580 lines are both piston fillers, this demonstrator uses a vacuum-based filling system. Its body is longer and, in places, thicker than its cousins’, and while the section is clear, it feels rubberised and provides a more secure grip than both the Eco and those Read More …
Of the several pink options Diamine provides, Hope Pink might just be the most vibrant and hot. Especially in wetter and broader nibs, this ink is highly saturated and flows perfectly. A tiny bit of shading—depending on the nib and paper used—gives it a playful air that doesn’t jump out Read More …
Unlike the 4001 line, Pelikan’s Edelstein inks are premium products. This specific ink retails for about € 12.- for 50 ml of ink, a per-millilitre price of € 0.24. Its qualities in both colour and shading are comparable to Diamine’s more affordable Blaze Orange, but Mandarin is on the drier Read More …
Not only is Pineider an Italian company; it also managed to snatch designer Dante Del Vecchio from Visconti, their fellow Italian competitor, in 2016. Dante’s design is very much apparent in the Pineider Avatar UR, which looks quite similar—albeit longer and thinner—to Visconti’s Rembrandt, most notably the shiny, textured centre-band Read More …
One step up from the TWSBI Eco, the Diamond 580 series features metal parts where the Eco uses plastic but still remains a set of demonstrator pens with transparent bodies and a clear view of the ink inside. Standard versions of the 580 with clear caps and single-coloured sections and Read More …
Perfectly in line with the subdued, pastel nature of the pen I use it in, Robert Oster’s Cherry Blossom presents itself in a subdued, unassuming, muted manner. Larger areas of swabs and writing with wetter nibs can certainly produce a more saturated result, whereas my fine Eco nib preserves the Read More …
Based in Taiwan, TWSBI offers entry-level demonstrator pens for a slightly higher price than other manufacturers’ entry-level segments. Its Eco and Eco T lines, excluding special editions with rose gold adornments, cost between € 30.- and € 40.- and are available in a range of colours, both opaque and transparent. Read More …
The pens, inks and notebooks of Faber-Castell’s “Graf von Faber-Castell” line are premium products. This Olive Green ink is the most expensive in my collection, setting me back € 29.- for 75 ml of ink, a per-millilitre price of € 0.39. In exchange, I received a gorgeous desaturated ink with Read More …
Known for its entry-level Safari and Al-Star models, German-based Lamy is often mainly seen as a manufacturer of school supplies by its fellow Germans. Elsewhere, Lamy is loved by fountain pen users who value the unique shapes of their pens’ caps and clips and the handy ink window. To the Read More …
