Colorverse Johannes Kepler Mini 3 Bottled Ink Set: A Review

(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 Colorverse Johannes Kepler Mini 3 Bottled Ink Set contains three 5ml bottles of dye-based fountain pen ink honoring Kepler, the famous astronomer and mathematician. The three inks in the set are called "Conjecture," (for Kepler's mathematical theorem on sphere packing) "Planetary Motion" (for Kepler's three laws) and "Somnium" (for Kepler's novel about a dream involving daemons and the moon).

The 5ml bottles are tear-drop shaped and adorable.

That said, the bottles aren't very practical. The opening is only .7mm, so you cannot insert nibs into it. A mini-pipette comes with each bottle. You can fill converters and eye-droppers with the pipette but not piston-filled pens.

Conjecture

Conjecture is a wine colored ink with fair saturation. It exhibits little shading and no sheen on Rhodia paper, and it is not waterproof. Although my dry times test shows the ink smearing after 30 seconds, I think that's because a bit of ink had pooled. The ink is actually quite dry.

The Col-o-dex card also shows some shading but no sheen. I had to soak up the ink splats with a paper towel because sunlight was fading (and I needed to take my photos), so it's possible that ruined any sheen effect.

Most interesting is the chromatography. This ink has a surprising bit of yellow-green in it along with pink and magenta. The yellow-green actually shows up in my water test (see above), but it wasn't evident in any of my writing, swatches, or splats.

Because the bottle is so small, I wasn't able to test the ink with my ruling pen. I opted instead for my widest Pilot Parallel pen (2.4mm). In this wider nib (which I dipped) the ink seems much lighter--more of a cherry blossom color than wine. Shading is much more evident in a wider nib.

Planetary Motion

Planetary Motion is a denim blue color. It has a bit of shading but no sheen and dries quickly. It is not waterproof, but when water is mixed with it, you can see the purple and teal undertones of the ink.

The Col-o-dex card shows off the shading of the ink. Again, it does not have any sheen (maybe due to my paper-towel blotting) but a bit of teal is visible in the splats.

The various dyes in Planetary Motion come out clearly in the chromatography: teal, turquoise, light blue, lavender, and purple.

Testing on Midori Paper with the Pilot Parallel 2.4mm demonstrates decent saturation and shading.

Somnium

Somnium is a jade green color with a tiny bit of shading. It has low saturation except in swabs. It dries fairly quickly and is not waterproof.

On the Col-o-dex card, the ink looks rather flat, with just a tiny bit of shading with the fine nib. Again, because I had to blot the splats, I don't know if there's any sheen with this ink. If there is, it's quite small.

Chromatography reveals different shades of green in this ink: olive green, light green, and blue green.

The Pilot Parallel pen brought out some good shading in Somnium.

I found all three Colorverse inks in this set to be quite dry, especially in the fine nib I used to do longer writing samples. The colors are understated, and I'm not enthusiastic about any of them. They are much more interesting in the Pilot Parallel nib, so I suggest using wide nibs for these inks.

You can buy the Colorverse Johannes Kepler Mini 3 Bottled Ink Set from Goldspot Pens for $19.50. Keep in mind that you'll need to use these inks in pens that are either eye-droppers or cartridge/converters. You could also transfer the ink to a sample bottle in order to fill a piston-based pen.

(Goldspot Pens provided this Colorverse Ink Set to Pen Addict free of charge for review purposes.)

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Roterfaden A5 Notebook Review

My last review was for the Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter, a super great notebook cover system that utilizes clips instead of elastic bands or pockets to keep notebooks in place. Naturally, Roterfaden has their own line of notebooks that are made to be used with this cover.

The Roterfaden notebooks are very minimalist. The cover is thin kraft cardstock. The brand is stamped onto the front, as well as an abbreviated infographic of notebook specs. The binding is sewn with red thread (in keeping with the brand name). There is no spine to cover the stitching--it's an open edge that facilitates in the notebooks' main feature: it lays perfectly flat on every page, with no training necessary. It does this very well. With no thick cover and no spine, it feels more like writing on a pad of paper than in a notebook. Frankly, it takes some getting used to.

While there are a lot of benefits to this notebook's structure, it does feel a little flimsy. The kraft cover is not much thicker than printer paper, and the loose binding feels like it's going to fall apart (it hasn't). It doesn't feel like a substantial book. Of course, it's not meant to be used alone. It's supposed to be inserted into the Taschenbegleiter with several of its siblings--and that becomes its actual cover. It does work well when used with the Taschenbegleiter, and I think it would work okay in an elastic system, too, but it would likely not work in a notebook cover where the insert cover needs to be slid into a pocket. It isn't quite sturdy enough to hang on by one cover.

Between the covers are 84 pages of very decent paper. It is a cream color, and this one has a dot grid pattern. Lined and blank are also sometimes available. The paper handles all inks very well with minimal showthrough, and no feathering or bleeding. My Sharpie has run dry, so it didn't bleed through as much as it would have--you can see in the picture that even the dry ink did get through a bit. A fully-loaded Sharpie would do what it normally does to paper: annihilation.

This is a good notebook that serves its purpose well. It works for what it was designed to do, though it doesn't work for me outside of its intended purpose. That is, I wouldn't use this notebook without a sturdy cover system like the Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter. My biggest issue with this product is the price. $14.50 for an insert is...well, it's too much. It's good paper, and nicely bound, but it's also possible to find A5 notebooks that fit these specs for a third of that price. Buying these, especially in triplicate, as refills is not very cost effective. It's not a bad notebook, and if you like matching brands, it might be worth it, but it hasn't won me over.

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

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Sailor Pro Gear Slim Blue Dwarf Fountain Pen Review

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

After all these years of being involved with the pen community, I finally got around to picking up a premium Sailor fountain pen for myself. I've used plenty of them before, but just haven't purchased one for myself. I knew I didn't want one of the standard black models, so when the new Blue Dwarf limited edition crossed my feeds one day, I knew that was the one that would push me into this category.

I have several different models of Sailor's sub-$120 fountain pens, and they've all been "meh" in my mind. They're good pens, but there's nothing special about them. No matter how much more expensive they are from the High Ace Neo, they just couldn't justify the price for me. I just couldn't resist the sparkly blue color, and the limited edition aspect just expedited my decision-making process.

When deciding which nib to pick for this particular pen, I only had my own memories to compare against since I don't own any other gold-nibbed Sailors. I remember the nibs running incredibly smaller and harder than other brands, and knew I didn't want a needle-like tip for my first purchase. Since I've had really good experiences with the medium fine nibs on my Pilot pens, I decided to give that a shot for the Blue Dwarf as well. I like the "small-but-not-too-small" size that offers a nice feel and allows the ink to express it's characteristics a bit as well.

At $200, this pen wasn't quite an impulse purchase. If I wasn't already actively looking for a Sailor to add for my collection, I probably would have passed on it. I had been leaning toward the regular Pro Gear size instead of the slim, but the sparkly blue body just pulled me in. For $200, I feel like this pen is accurately priced based on the quality of materials and overall fit-and-finish. My only gripe is that they didn't include a cartridge converter automatically. I added the $8 converter to my order without hesitation, but it does seem like an oversight on Sailor's part when you're past the $100 mark for a pen that definitely needs some type of filling mechanism. To offer a comparison, the Pilot Custom 78 and Custom Heritage pens include a converter or use a piston-filling system, and they're often below the $200 mark. Sure, the Blue Dwarf is much more pleasant to look at, but the lack of a converter just feels annoying.

Aside from my converter complaints, the pen is an absolute delight. It's small and easy to carry around, and it also feels really sturdy despite its small size. It's really well weighted and feels comfortable when writing posted or non-posted. It's a versatile writer in the sense that I can pack it in the smallest cases but still enjoy all-day comfort when using it for longer writing sessions.

Like I remembered from using other Sailors, the nib is quite stiff and smaller than my other medium fine nibs. While the nib is stiff, it's still quite soft as it moves across the page. It writes very smoothly out of the box and has excellent ink flow, if not a tad on the dry side. I can get a small amount of flex out of the nib by applying pressure, but it's a minimal bit of variation. Honestly, I don't feel comfortable trying to flex this nib because of how stiff it is. It's certainly not meant to vary line width much at all. The 14k gold material is there to provide some cushion to the writing experience — nothing more.

Despite the stiff nib, this is still an extremely comfortable and easy-going pen to use. Regardless of the paper I've tried with it, it always glides across the page with ease. Even if I forget to cap it after a few minutes, the ink still flows easily. Likewise, if it's been capped for a few days without any use, it starts writing almost immediately.

The color of the material used in the pen is a bright, cheery blue with specks of glittery silver material. The name Blue Dwarf refers to a theoretical type of star, which is where I think the glittery material lends itself to the overall aesthetic. From JetPens:

It is inspired by the wonder of blue dwarf stars, which have been predicted by astrophysicists but will not arise in our universe for trillions of years. The blue dwarf is an inspiring reminder that, as incomprehensibly ancient as the universe seems, there is still far more yet to come.

The build quality of this pen is just astounding. There's no wonder Sailor pens are as pricey as they are. You're paying for excellence in quality and materials, and it easily shows every time you pick this pen up. It's such a delightful writing instrument to use and equally delightful to see laying on a table.

The Sailor Pro Gear Slim Blue Dwarf is a limited edition, with only 1,500 being produced worldwide. If you like this pen and want to pick one up for yourself, make sure you act quickly!

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

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!