The Hobonichi Weeks 2-Dot Timeline.
Planner talk! After the feedback I received from our short segment a few weeks ago, I decided to dig into all of the responses and see what might work the best for me. I’m anxious to see what all of the 2020 planner releases in September will look like!
This episode of The Pen Addict is sponsored by:
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Kanilea Pen Co: Check out the new release: Aolani.
(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)
The Lamy Crystal Ink line is named after various gemstones and includes eight colors: Agate, Azurite, Beryl, Obsidian, Peridot, Rhodonite, Ruby, and Topaz.
Lamy Crystal inks come in beautiful triangular-shaped bottles with silver caps. The bottles are deep enough that you can get a good fill even with large nibs.
I tested Lamy Crystal Agate on Rhodia Dot paper using Lamy Vistas in various nib sizes. Agate is a gray color that leans toward the green side of gray (unfortunately, I couldn’t capture the green cast to the ink in my photos). It’s fairly light when using fine, medium, and even broad nibs though in swabs it ranges from medium to dark. It’s a dry ink, and it is not waterproof.
On a Col-o-dex card with a dip pen, the ink is much darker, though it does not have much, if any, shading and has absolutely no sheen.
Chromatography reveals a good amount of gray, some lavender, and a tiny hint of blue and yellow. However, despite these other colors, Lamy Agate is a rather flat gray.
In a super wide nib (Handwritmic Ruling Pen), the ink has some shading, especially where it pooled, but, again, no sheen.
I am unimpressed with Lamy Crystal Agate. It’s a bland gray with a hint of green. It lacks any characteristics that might set it apart, such as excellent shading, sheen, or color variations. I reviewed several gray inks here, and I recommend Papier Plume Oyster with its beautiful blue-grey tones and nice shading and Kobe #10 Mikage Grey with its deep purple-grey hue, excellent shading, and sheen.
If you want a basic gray ink and don’t mind the green cast, Lamy Crystal Agate is available for purchase from Vanness Pens $16.00 for a 30ml bottle (and, if you hurry, it’s currently on sale for $14.00).
(Vanness Pens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her first novel, The Bone Weaver’s Orchard, now available where books are sold!)
I am really digging the lineup of 3 Oysters inks, and the lovely golden yellow of Hwangtowas high on my list to try. Their colors are inspired by the cityscape of Seoul and the bottles and boxes show beautiful Korean designs.
Hwangto means yellow soil, and it refers to the rich clay earth that is believed to purify sacred places and keep bad fortune away. It's a beautiful, saturated color. It's not too pale to read and it shows some gorgeous shading. Chromatography shows it's a pretty pure goldenrod color, with some darker orange added in. It pools in a lovely tangerine color.
The ink is water and dye based and is specially formulated to be pH neutral. It is very safe for pens. I didn't see any sign of sheen on either Clairefontaine paper or the swatch card. The ink does feel a bit dry, but actually has a longer dry time of around 25 seconds. I saw no bleeding or feathering on any fountain pen friendly paper I used. The ink is not water resistant, but my drip test didn't completely wash away the lines, even when the water was wiped away.
The 38 ml bottles are interesting. They're rectangular blown glass, but one back corner of the bottle is flat, so it can be balanced on that edge. This is supposedly to make it easier to get the last drops of ink out of the bottle, even when you need both hands to hold the pen. It makes me a little nervous, though. It isn't super stable balancing on one corner.
This color fits into a noble family of golden-apricot-tangerines. It shares some similarity with Diamine Autumn Oak and Noodler's Apache Sunset, but it's different enough from all the others that you can easily justify adding it to the collection.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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