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I was introduced to this ink, by the mighty Swan It is an iron gall ink sold by the Museum of Guttenberg in Mainz, Germany. They also have a line of Aniline inks, dip pen inks (including a dip pen (quill) iron gall ink), handmade paper, papyri, notebooks etc. Enough that will make stationary junkies salivating. However, this all comes with a hitch: the shipping. They use Fedex, so it’s very expensive. Through happenstance and a mysterious internet glitch, I got hold of this ink, my third iron gall ink after Scabiosa and Salix. Photo of bottle - The Herbin bottle is to give an idea of scale - The other inks are dip pen ink bottles from the same shop Ink It’s a true blue black. It oxidizes to a very dark colour over time. With absorbent paper, it turns almost black instantly but with other papers it can retain some of the blue dye. A drop of ink on paper can turn into black, but on a paper towel it is sky blue. It’s waterproof, dry and it has a funky scent. If I didn’t know better, I would say it’s similar to Essri, but as I’ve never used it, I can’t say. Blue dye in the transparent section: A drop of ink on Midori I’ve been using this ink for the past month, exclusively. For a long time, I have wondered why people gravitate towards blue blacks. I now understand. I have used almost half of the bottle. If I had only to take one ink with me on a desert island it would be this or something similar. I have almost abandoned all of my other pens and ink. This ink shines in vintage flexy pens. The combination is magical. It feels as if the pens are inhabited by the ink they were meant to right for. · Shading: Yes · Ghosting: Rare · Bleed through: On copy paper…. · Flow Rate: Good · Lubrication: Dry · Nib Dry-out: not noticed. · Start-up: No · Saturation: Yes. · Shading Yes · Sheen: No · Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Nope · Nib Creep / “Crud”: Sometimes · Staining (pen): Easy to clean · Clogging: Nope · Dry time: between 15-30 seconds. · Water resistance: Waterproof · Availability: Only in bottle 25ml bottles Video Writing Sample with Unic vintage flex Chromatography Comparisons with Salix - Top line - Salix fude - Middle Bible Ink - Vintage flex- Bottom - Salix medium For this review, I used five pens: A Pilot Metro (fine nib), a Jinhao 450 medium nib, A Kaweco knock off with a true Kaweco italic nib, A Conway Stewart 330, with a flexible OB nib, and finally a vintage French pen (Unic) with a wet Noodle flex. Writing experience was least pleasant with the Pilot. It truly writes like a nail. Ironically with the Chinese Kaweco knock off when I wrote with an EF wet nib it was more pleasant (I later changed the nib to an italic). It is still surprising to me how with time this ink turns darker. As I said before, this ink shines in vintage flex pens. The combination is magical. It feels as if the pens are inhabited by the ink they were meant to write for. It has completely tamed the Unic wet Noodle. The text is from Willis Barnstone's translation of the New Testament. Each two lines is written by a different nib: Fine, Medium, OB flex, Italic, Flex wet Noodle. Rhodia 3 days after After 30 seconds of water Midori - Front / Back / a week later.... Note how it retained the blue. This is not reflective of the normal pages of Midori. On a normal page the oxidization happens very fast. Tomoe River Taroko Design Front and Back (Tomoe River 68gr) Now two notebooks which are not fountain pen ink friendly: First Midori Cotton: And finally Field Notes: Enjoy!