When you think about shimmer inks, which brands come to mind? Jacques Herbin makes two of my favorites, Emerald of Chivor and Shogun. Diamine has a few classic mixes, as does Robert Oster. More recently, Colorverse has stepped up their game of quality, usable shimmer inks.
What about Pelikan, especially in their premium Edelstein lineup? Shimmer was an afterthought for them until 2024’s Golden Lapis release (Note: Oops! Golden Beryl came out in 2021 and was erased from my memory. It seems they have a type!) It was a good release, but didn’t change much for the brand in the shimmer game. Did it need to? I’d argue no, as we are not spoiled for choice as it relates to the shiny stuff.
Pelikan was not content to see the shimmer game pass them by, so for their 2026 Edelstein release, they asked and important question to themselves: “Would you like some shimmer in your shimmer ink?”
The answer was yes, and Pelikan Edelstein Pyrite was born.
When I first saw Pelikan’s Instagram post announcing this ink, my jaw dropped. Not because the color was wild and/or interesting, but because it looked like liquid Gold, and possibly 100% shimmer. Ok, maybe 99% shimmer and 1% water to get it to flow. Turns out, I wasn’t far off.
Pyrite is an intense shimmer ink, so my head immediately went to thinking if this would actually be usable in a pen. In general, I don’t worry if that is the case with most shimmer inks. As long as I use a pen with good ink flow, and can be easily cleaned, I’ll load up shimmer in anything and not have many concerns. Most brands deliver an ink that is writeable, and remains writeable throughout a fill of your ink chamber of choice.
A few swatches on different papers, featuring three drops of ink spread by the Kakimori Glass Spoon. Left to Right: Col-o-ring, Sanzen TR 52gsm, Canopus, Iroful.
To test Pyrite, I grabbed a pen that has seen several shimmer inks in its lifetime, the Pen Addict x Benu Euphoria, fit with a Fine Schmidt nib. Most recently, this pen has been my Fire on Fire on Fire pen (shoutout twice to the Pen Addict Shop!) and it has never blinked no matter how long I had it inked, or how many days between uses. I’m not getting that kind of performance with Pyrite.
I inked it last week, wrote a bit, and enjoyed it. It sat for a couple of days, and then I picked it up to write the review on Saturday, and it started up immediately. I scribbled a bit on a scratch page to be sure, and got to writing. I only made it a few lines before the flow was noticeably lighter, and shortly thereafter, completely dry.
Not good enough to write with, at least in my setup. It stopped quickly during my first attempt, but you can see when I started my second attempt how wet it was after sitting for a day. Still, there was only so much writing it would do.
On appearances alone, I’m not surprised with this behavior from Pyrite. I sat the pen back down, came back about 20 hours later, and opened the cap and started writing, with no priming this time. The ink had fully repopulated the feed, and I was able to write twice as long before it stopped once again.
Visually speaking, I didn’t see any reason for the ink flow to get blocked.
What causes this? I could absolutely test with a wider nib, bigger feed, different filling system (piston or eyedropper,) and have a better experience. Maybe. For a converter pen like this, I thought the flow might be getting clogged where the converter attaches to feed, but when I inspected that area, it looked fine. I chose this pen because I had good shimmer experiences with it before, but Pyrite was too much for it to handle, it appears. In comparison, I used a Fine Jowo #6 with the heavy shimmer of Monarca Rey Jaguar, and ran into no flow issues.
No gunk, no funk. Just no flow.
Pelikan Edelstein Pyrite is going to be a superstar Instagram ink, but I’m not sure writing with it is going to why anyone would choose it. It’s gorgeous in swatches, with dip pens, and as a creative medium. For writing, I’d choose a different shimmer ink.
Pyrite sells for $35, and is this year’s Pelikan Edelstein Ink of the Year. That means it will be around for a while, but not forever. I’d recommended it for the uses I mentioned above, and maybe in a Pelikan M1000 fountain pen. That’s the content I want to see from Pelikan next!
(This product was purchased from Dromgoole’s at regular price.)
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