(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)
I’ve been hunting for a beautiful grey ink to put in my new (to me) Montblanc Alexandre Dumas fountain pen. I originally filled the pen with Iroshizuku Fuyu-Syogun, but I find that ink too watery, especially with an italic nib. As I was going through my list of things to review, up popped Kaweco Smokey Grey ink.
I don’t own many Kaweco inks, so I was interested to see how this one performed in my Dumas. I did my usual ink tests, and found that the ink is light grey with a little bit of shading. Like Fuyu-Syogun, it’s quite wet. Although it’s not waterproof, it held up better than many of the inks I’ve reviewed in my water test.
Chromatography reveals a rather uninteresting spectrum of colors: grey, some dark blue, and a little lavender.
Kaweco Smokey Grey is a flat color. Although it offers some shading, it has no sheen whatsoever.
Shading with the Handwritmic Pen
Compared to Fuyu-Syogun, Kaweco Smokey Grey is what I would call a true grey, whereas Fuyu-Syogun is more of a lavender-grey.
Unfortunately, Kaweco Smokey Grey is not the solution to my grey ink dilemma. I find it boring and much too light for everyday writing. It might work as a nice wash for painting or a background color for other inks.
Next up on my search for the perfect grey ink for my Alexandre Dumas: Kyo-no-oto 05 Aonibi-iro, a blue-grey ink that looks very intriguing.
You can purchase a 30ml bottle of Kaweco Smokey Grey from JetPens for $13.50.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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