Diamine Ancient Copper, A Champion Of Red-Browns

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

Diamine Ancient Copper is one of the inks that I heard of or discovered fairly quickly after joining the fountain pen community. This is for good reason. Like Iroshizuku Kon-peki, it has a loyal, vocal following. After trying the ink out for a while, I'm one of them.

This isn't my first Diamine ink, but it is the first that I've reviewed. For me, reviewing the ink was a piece of cake because it behaves so well. When looking at inks, you're looking for any characteristics that might make it undesirable in certain pen or paper combinations. With Ancient Copper, if you like the color, the rest is history.

First off, like most Diamine inks, you can buy it in three sizes. There's a large 80ml bottle that will last you a long time, a smaller 30ml bottle if you want to try it out, and standard international short cartridges.

I like that Diamine offers a nice range of sizes with their inks. Sometimes you don't want to dive in with a full-sized bottle of something you may not like.

Now, how does this ink perform? Remarkably well, but let's get more detailed than that.

The ink shades fairly easily and looks beautiful on the page. Anything from a German fine nib and up will allow the ink to show its true shading capabilities, and that's something you don't want to miss out on. In my opinion, it's one of the best attributes of the ink.

It's well-lubricated and easy flowing — I'd say it's right in the middle of the scale. Even in my "dry" pens, it never has any issues with flow.

It's extremely easy to clean out of the pen. It washes out in just a few quick flushes. This is on par with other Diamine inks I've tried, so that's no surprise here.

Dry time actually surprised me. Within 2 or 3 seconds, smudging was almost undetectable. Sure, your mileage will vary based on what pen and paper you're using, but that's still really impressive.

There isn't a noticeable sheen once the ink dries, and it dries to a matte color. If sheen is your thing, this ink won't impress you.

But, I'd wager that most of us are here because of the color of this ink. Ancient Copper is such an apt name — I don't think they could've done any better with this one.

It's a reddish-brown that resembles a lighter oxblood color. It's dark enough to still be quasi-professional, yet extremely interesting on the page. When I swatched the ink with a swab, you can see that red is a dominant color, but the brown that pools in the darker areas is what gives it life. Overall, I'm completely in love with the color, and I can't see myself taking this ink out of my regular rotation for a very long time.

If you're remotely interested in red-brown inks, Ancient Copper should be your first stop. It's a fantastic ink, and definitely worth checking out. And, you can even choose between an 80ml or 30ml bottle, or cartridges depending on what pen you want to use it in. Very impressive ink, and I highly recommend it.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Sailor Pen and Message Cigar Ink Review

(This is a guest post by Felix Jen. Felix is a fountain pen and ink enthusiast. You can find him at his blog, Inks and Pens, or at his Instagram.)

Sailor, the Japanese pen and ink manufacturer, has gotten themselves quite a reputation with their hard-to-find store-exclusive inks such as Bungbox Sapphire and Pen-and-Message inks. Sailor's Pen and Message Cigar is a brown ink with a great depth of color and a very subtle color change.

When I was first sent a sample of this ink, I didn't really know what to think about it. It seemed like a murky green in the vial that looked a bit unappealing, but once I filled a pen up with it, my opinion totally changed. The ink lays does lay down as a shade of dark green and quickly changes to a brown color as it dries. I was completely shocked as there aren't many inks that change colors so quickly.

The ink is a deep brown with some definite green undertones as well as a light blue tint. This is actually one of the nicer browns with a great deal of depth to it, unlike some inks in the color range.

A paper chromatography test of this ink confirms the presence of green and blue. The chromatography is actually all over the place, with yellow, orange, blue, green, and brown!

This review was written in a Pilot Parallel 1.5mm on HP 32lb Premium Choice Laser.

On paper, the ink behaves wonderfully. There is not a bit of feathering or bleed-through, even on the extremely wet parts of the page. There is a little bit of show-through but nothing too major. With thinner papers like Tomoe River, you can clearly see what is written on the reverse side. The ink cleans out easily from converters and does not stain, unlike some Noodler's inks.

Shading is not this ink's strong point. The ink barely has any shading, from a light brown to a darker blackish color. The dry time is a bit long, averaging at around 20 seconds on this paper and 19 seconds on Rhodia. When using finer nibs, the dry time is significantly reduced, to around 13 seconds with an Medium.

This ink's water test is also an enigma. The test was done with drops of water placed on the page for about 20 seconds then wiped away with a tissue. Strangely, much of the brown in the ink washes away but leaves a water-resistant blue-gray portion. The lines can still clearly be seen and there is barely any smearing of the brown.

Sailor Pen and Message Cigar is truly a one-of-a-kind ink with a beautiful color and outstanding behavior. You can find this ink directly from Pen and Message for 2160¥ in a 50mL bottle. They are out of stock at the time of this writing, but will be accepting "preorders" in August 2015.

Callifolio Bosphore Ink Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

The more inks I try, the more I like the ones that don't necessarily commit to a single color. Blue inks with shades of green, purple, or gray. Purple inks with hints of gold, teal inks with red sheen, etc. These are the truly interesting inks because they exhibit depth. Sure, I do love some Kon-peki because the blue just pops off the page, but other times I want something that keeps me guessing.

Callifolio Bosphore is a perfect example of that description. I'm still not sure what color this ink really is, but it's a very interesting ink regardless. When I first look at the ink, I think it's purple. But as I keep looking, I change my mind to blue with some purple undertones. And then, wait — was that a patch of green I saw? I don't know anymore. Oh, now it's blue again! I don't mean this in a bad way at all — it's absolutely positive characteristic of the ink.

Let's back up a bit. L'Artisan Pastellier's Callifolio inks are all made by a single individual in Southern France. Brad wrote about one of them recently, and made the same remark: you won't find a lot of bright, poppy colors in the line-up.

These inks are apparently very easy to mix together, so keep that in mind if that's something you're interested in. The ink is also extremely well-behaved, but I'll get into that in a bit.

BYOG (bring your own glass)

Let's start with the container. This is unlike any ink container you've ever seen. It's a flexible pouch with a screw top. Really, it feels and acts like a sturdy Capri-Sun. This is very interesting because the opening on top isn't big enough to fit a pen into, and I'm pretty sure that's intentional. This ink container is meant to be emptied into a more proper container, like a spare glass bottle you may have. In my case, I didn't have a spare container, so I just used a syringe to get out a bit of ink for testing. I'm still amazed by how small the container looks next to a 50 ml glass bottle of ink.

The 50 ml pouch of ink runs around $8, while a 40 ml glass bottle is $11. You get a nice savings from opting out of the glass bottle, but that just keep in mind that you'll want something to transfer this ink to if you get the larger pouch option.

Ink characteristics

This is an extremely well-behaved ink. Even though it feels dry in the Monteverde, which usually feels a bit more wet with most inks, it never skips a beat or has flow issues. I wish the ink was a tad more lubricated, but it's not a major complaint. Once I'm writing, I don't notice it, but it is fair to note since this pen is typically a wet writer. Strangely enough, writing with a Japanese F nib didn't yield bad results either. Really, the ink is lubricated just enough to provide a nice level of feedback between the page and the nib tip.

Again, the color of this ink is interesting. I'm going to stick with calling it a dusty purple, but it's so much more. Purple, blue, gray, and even a hint of green sometimes are some of the colors you can expect to see regularly. It's these types of color mixes that keep me very interested in an ink.

The ink dries fairly quickly on thick paper — just under 10 seconds before most smudging isn't a problem. Probably not quick enough for some lefties, but not bad either.

This ink shades pretty easily, but it maintains the main color profile throughout. This isn't an ink that is blue through the main strikes and green through the light strokes. You just get darker and lighter shades of the mysterious dusty purple. Don't get me wrong, this is nice — just trying to accurately describe the behavior with words.

Wrap up

For the price, you should definitely check it out if this type of color is in your area of interest. This is a solid ink that will work well in any pen, and it's unlike anything you can buy from any of the large manufacturers.

((Vanness Pens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)