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Colour: More of a dark pink than a red Flow: Moderate Feathering: Not observed on Rhodia Dotpad 80g/m² paper, looking closely at the thinnest hatching lines, and words/glyphs ‘reverse-written’ with the nib upside-down (i.e. the bottom of the feed facing up) Show-through: Low to nil Bleed-through: Not observed Drying time: 9–10 seconds Smudging after fully dry: Didn't happen when I rubbed my thumb over the hatching/stippling panel and the largest Chinese hanzi characters Water resistance: So apparently poor that I don't think I need to soak some part of the sheet for an hour or so Shading: Very subtle, when the range of colours that can come from this ink is so narrow Sheen: None observed — and I checked with a loupe and a bright LED light Shimmer: None My thoughts: My initial impression is that this is an uninspiring colour; and, looking at some old writing samples, I thought it is similar to Pilot Iroshizuku Tsutsuji. However, I've since done a side-by-side comparison of those two, and the apparent differences actually made this ink seem slightly more appealing now. If I wanted to use a red ink that dries quickly and exhibit a reasonably consistent colour, such as when I'm marking up draft documents that I'm not keeping for future reference, this could actually be quite suitable.

My Year in Ink - 2019 I've used quite a few inks this year, but the ones I reviewed were also the ones that got more extensive usage in multiple pens. I enjoyed writing with all of them, but some I preferred more than others. In this end-of-year comparison I will show off my inks of 2019, and select my top 3 in multiple categories. Enjoy.. and maybe you'll even find an ink you weren't aware off, but that ticks the right boxes and yearns to be added to your collection ;-) Category 1 : most beautiful writing ink Inks are first and foremost meant to be used for writing in fountain pens. Here I select the top 3 inks that I loved most for personal journaling. This proved to be more difficult than I thought, because I enjoyed quite a number of the inks that ended up in my pens. Below I present swabs & writing samples (in B-nib) of all 22 inks. And the winners are: Mont Blanc Rudyard Kipling Jungle Green Papier Plume Mardi Gras Indians Purple Mont Blanc Velvet Red The Rudyard Kipling ink kept growing on me. I liked it on first use, sure, but went back over and over again to this ink when filling up pens. And the more I used it, the more I liked it. Definitely a winner. A pity that this is an LE ink - once the bottle is empty, it'll be gone forever. Mardi Gras Indians Purple is a really nice deep dark-purple that is one of Papier Plumes' best (almost on par with Bayou Nightfall, which I like even more). Great ink for journaling.Third place proved to be a difficult choice: Mont Blanc Petrol Blue and J.Hebin Vert Empire were also strong contenders. After some soul-searching, I decided to go with Velvet Red. Overall the Mont Blanc inks I used this year proved to be great writing inks - 3 out of 5 if you count the runners-up to the top three. Worst of the bunch: Robert Oster Green Olive. Totally not meant to be a writing ink, not even in juicy pens. It simply is too light to be useful. Category 2 : lovely dissection Inks are built from dyes, and can differ greatly in complexity. When doing a chromatography, you get two results: you get to see how easily the dyes dissolve in water, plus you get an idea of the component dyes that are used for constructing the ink. Useful information, but these chromas are also beautiful objects of art on their own. Here I select the top 3 inks with the most lovely chroma. And the winners are: Papier Plume Mardi Gras Indians Purple Robert Oster 1980 Dusky Pink Mont Blanc Jungle Green Worst of the bunch: Callifolio Bleu Azur. Seems to be a single-dye ink - not much to look at in the chroma. Category 3 : artsy experiment With every ink review, I try to do an "inkxperiment" where I have some fun with the ink while making a more or less abstract drawing. Some of these worked well, others less so. But all of them were fun to do, and allowed me to stretch my drawing skills. Here I select the top 3 inks with the most successful inkxperiment (in my personal opinion). Inks are obviously for writing, but are also excellent material for watercolour style drawing. I've found that these inkxperiments show quite well what can be achieved with the inks in a more artistic setting. And the winners are: Lamy Petrol Robert Oster Green Olive Callifolio Bordeaux Lamy Petrol is a really dark teal, and worked wonderfully well for stick-figure drawing on rough watercolour paper. I really liked the outcome of this inkxperiment. Green Olive is useless as a writing ink, but yellow inks are often great for drawing - as seen in this inkxperiment. You get a broad spectrum from light-yellow to dark yellow-orange with full saturation. Really nice, and a fun inkxperiment. Callifolio Bordeaux resulted in a landscape drawing that worked quite well. The ink colour itself is not my thing though. Worst of the bunch: Mont Blanc Velvet Red. This is a wonderful writing ink, but I found it a difficult ink to draw with. I've enjoyed myself immensely doing these ink reviews. And there are still lots of inks on my shelf to continue doing ink reviews in 2020. I continue to be surprised by the broad variety of inks that are available for us to enjoy. Great job and a big thank you to all ink makers across the globe! Let's keep our fingers crossed, and hope that 2020 will bring us some other great new inks to play around with.

Rohrer & Klingner is continuing their Limited Edition yearly inks after the Aubergine last year. This year it is labelled "R & K Kastanienbraun" or Maroon. https://www.rohrer-klingner.de/?page_id=1056&lang=en Looks more brownish and not maroon to me though...

Turin Penshow - Saturday, November 9 2019 Hotel NH Santo StefanoVia Porta Palatina 19 TorinoTorino - ITALY11:00am - 19:00pm http://www.pennamania.it/turinpenshow/ PRICES: € 90.00 for the 180x70cm table € 80.00 for the 180x50cm table . To reserve a table 180 x 70 or 180x50, book by Sunday 27 October 2019. Contact: info@pennamania.it To book two or more tables, contact: info@pennamania.it for price request. For special request, contact: info@pennamania.it EXHIBITORS: . Set up in the Basilica Room at Hotel NH Santo Stefano . Set up start by 10:00am TURIN PENSHOW EVENTS: In addition to the classic exhibition, for the 2019 edition of Turin Penshow returns the table of writing test with some upgrade... . Historical table (writing with quill pens, calamus, nibs) . Vintage table (vintage pens, different brands) . Contemporary table (by Edelberg brand) . Kids table OTHER EVENTS OF TURIN PENSHOW: . Demonstration with Calligraphy teacher. . Entrerprise calligraphy fountain pen for Copperplate and Spencerian handwriting style . New Asterope pen, enjoy with the prototypes of the re-born early capless pen of the history . Web Interview Corner, all collector can leave a web interview at the Pennamania youtube Channel . Foolish Magazine, the new magazine about fountain pen and calligraphy HOTEL ACCOMMODATION: Special price for overnight stay at the NH Santo Stefano hotel at the following link: https://www.nh-hotels.it/event/associazione-pennamania The convention is valid for the period from Friday 8 November to Sunday 10 November Check in from 3.00 pm on the day of arrival. Check out by 12.00 am on the day of departure http://www.pennamania.it/tps/2019/santostefano1.png

Couldn't find it posted up anywhere that my searching could find so might as well hoist the flag. http://www.melbpenshow.com.au

Some forecast for 2019 emerged on the net. New Joy, Aion, Safari, Studio, and the very confusing AL-Star and Lx. See here: https://frankunderwater.com/2018/12/30/a-peak-into-lamys-2019-special-editions/

The Philadelphia Pen Show will be the in 201 Hotel in downtown Philadelphia. It was moved due to construction at the Westin. This is the old Sheraton, which used to host the show before it moved. The 201 has a larger show room. The show website is here. Well organized show in a city with lots to do. Greg