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I haven’t heard many people talk about this, so I just wanted to make those who are unaware now aware. Here is just a quick thing on some price comparisons. “Retail” price was taken from online fountain pen and ink retailers: DIAMINE 30ml Cult Pens- $2.47 Retail- $7.50 PELIKAN 4001 30ml Cult Pens- $4.82 Retail- $11.75 ROHRER & KLINGNER 50ml Cult Pens- $5 Retail- $11.95 PARKER QUINK 57ml Cult Pens- $5.21 Retail- $11.02 DIAMINE 80ml Cult Pens- $6.21 Retail- $14.95 WATERMAN 50ml Cult Pens- $6.51 Retail- $12 PELIKAN 4001 62.5ml Cult Pens- $7.52 Retail- $16.50 DIAMINE 150th ANNIVERSARY 40ml Cult Pens- $8.15 Retail- $15.50 HERBIN 30ml Cult Pens- $8.40 Retail- $12.95 KAWECO 50ml Cult Pens- $8.41 Retail- $12 CROSS 62.5ml Cult Pens- $9.47 Retail- $16 LAMY CRYSTAL 30ml Cult Pens- $9.99 Retail- $16 JACQUES HERBIN 1670 50ml Cult Pens- $18.39 Retail- $29.50 JACQUES HERBIN 1798 50ml Cult Pens- $21.02 Retail- $29.50 MONTBLANC AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS BLUE 50ml Cult Pens- $33.66 Retail- $40 I just wanted to tell all of you who weren’t aware. Have a nice day, W. Major

Colour-wise, the comparison reminds me of Sailor Souboku vs Sailor Seiboku. Christine exhibits sheen, but not nearly as flamboyantly as Herbert.

Another Diamine ink in the Cult Pen exclusive 'Deep Dark' range has arrived. If you have been looking for a very dark red ink, this one is for you. I absolutely love the colour and it is one of the few red inks I would use in the office. Oh, and it has both shading and sheen! Form an orderly queue now USAGE DAILY WRITER: I can see that BUSINESS USE: I would use it for all but the most formal of communications ILLUSTRATIONS: Not convinced that it stands out enough NOTES: Yes (in a dry environment, at least) PERSONAL: Very welcome LOVE LETTERS: Not really my speciality but I can see this one being used for a serious love letter. PERFORMANCE FEATHERING: 4/4 BLEEDTHROUGH: 3/4 - very slight with the 1.1mm nib SHADING: 3/4 - lots, but can be hard to control? SHEEN: 2/4 - very obvious in the 3.8mm writing FLOW: medium, but can skip or burp on Rhodia though that may be the pens.... WATERPROOF: 1/4 DRYING TIME: 2/4 FADE RESISTANCE: (not tested) REVIEW WRITING SAMPLES Please forgive the even more than usually atrocious handwriting! (Bad cold => no patience) (As usual, the sample text is from the Office of Readings, in this case following the calendar for England and Wales where today is the Feast of the forty martyrs.) Cartridge stock Rhodia Rhodia R COMPARISONS WITH OTHER INKS The lines on the left (from the monster Diamine comparison) were written with the medium nib. This is cartridge stock. I hope this is useful.

A Blast From The Past: Red Cashmere Fountain pen Ink is available exclusively at: United States: Lemur Inks ( www.lemurink.com ) United Kingdom: Cult Pens ( www.cultpens.com ) Australia: JustWrite ( www.justwrite.com.au ) Red Cashmere was originally developed as a powdered fountain pen ink back in 2014 as part of the SuSeMai project by the Th-INKing Outside the Bottle Group on the fountain Pen Network. Red Cashmere was developed by Kevin Watson and Dave Marshall from the JustWrite Pen Company and the Th-INKing Outside the Bottle Group provided extensive support, advice, testing and feedback. Thirteen powdered inks were developed by the SuSeMai project but none were ever released for sale. Powdered ink had several advantages including the obvious savings in packaging and freight (no glass bottle or water) and fountain pen users could make the ink up as concentrated as they liked in their own empty ink bottles. The powdered inks worked fine but had a fatal flaw. There was no way to ensure the even distribution of biocide through the powdered ink. The focus shifted to gels and concentrated liquids and the powdered ink idea was abandoned. Most of the powdered inks did not adapt well to the gel concentrate form and sadly, they were lost forever... until now. Almost 18 months of extensive experimenting and development, made possible by the tireless and enthusiastic testing and feedback from FPN members, ultimately led to the establishment of Blackstone Inks and now Blackstone Ink is resurrecting Red Cashmere as a conventional liquid ink. The new liquid Red Cashmere ink has all of the characteristics and qualities of the original powdered ink but none of the disadvantages. It's a rich, dark red, free flowing ink that's very well behaved. If you'd like more information about the SuSeMai project or Red Cashmere search for 'susemai' on the FPN. Special Acknowledgement: Blackstone Inks would not exist if not for the encouragement, assistance and support of the members of the Fountain Pen Network. Thank you all so much.

Cult Pens have 2 new extreme sheening inks to add to their collection - Christine and Philip. Appropriately named after the two leading lights at Diamine who have created them. When Maureen and Robert were released in 2018 I honestly thought that here are two extreme sheen inks that won't be bettered. Here we have a purple and deep teal, which appear to be the 'in' colours for 2019 but how do they fare? Philip (Purple) has no chromatic qualities and sheens a brown/gold. Christine (Teal) also shows limited chromatic qualities and sheens a deep red. As with Maureen and Robert they are both creative inks and look great when blended together both as pure inks and water blended. The sheens, in my opinion, are not as pretty as Maureen and Robert but in a very strong light that Philip gold sheen does liven up a little. I like Cult Pens Diamines a lot BUT my initial thoughts prevail. These do not have the WOW factor of Maureen and Robert, and in my opinion, these two inks are in a league of their own. Philip and Christine are like a little brother and sister and despite the lack of their bigger siblings WOW factor will still slot nicely into the family. And for the record, there are a lot of similar sheening inks to Philip and Christine out there - many of which appear on this blog! Just saying.

We're delighted to announce that Blackstone Inks are now available at Cult Pens in the UK. Cult Pens have been around since 2005, they have a huge range of pens, fountain pens and ink and they're as crazy about pens and ink as we are. Visit the Cult Pens website: https:www.cultpens.com

Sheening inks have had centre stage for some while now and just as I thought that might change, along come these two characters. And I have to say, they are just that. Great names, Maureen and Robert, and very pretty too! Many congratulations to Cult Pens for going with yet another great Diamine product. Of note, The Cult Pen Deep Diamines are still one of my favourite ranges. But this is your money shot. When these two inks are blended together with water, reworked when semi dry with concentrated inks and then overwritten with bleach when dry – this is what you get and I like it! A LOT. (Alphabet on Seaview Cartridge). If you want to see all the pics here's the link: https://nickstewart.ink/2018/11/10/maureen-and-robert-cult-pens-extreme-sheens/

Cult pens are offering a 10% discount for FPD. Some prices have increased since the last promotion especially Pelikan. https://www.cultpens.com/c/q/explore/events--occasions/fountain-pen-day

Pelikan FP prices have increased within the last 2 days by varying %. The M805 Stresemann has gone from £300 to £329 and M1000 from £357 to £393.

Cult pens has 10% discount on a large selection of FP's including Pelikan, Lamy, GvFC etc. Great for foreign buyers with favorable FX rates, free worldwide shipping (over £50) and now an extra 10% off ex VAT prices. https://www.cultpens.com/c/q/special-offers/10-off-enthusiast-fountain-pens

I'm not really a purple fan. I do think this ink looks fantastic though, especially the green sheen and the texture from my Pilot Parallel 6mm. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4IujqLCENIk/UtrBCchdV8I/AAAAAAAABR0/MeIXGI3DKIA/s1600/purple+2.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7Ow0aBk5fBI/UtrBBfo4g-I/AAAAAAAABRo/_IQxuVQwhfU/s1600/purple+1.jpg No complaints with flow or lubrication. Water resistance is not great, but could leave something legible behind. Time will tell whether it's a pain to clean... Images from my blog.

Cult Pens have some Atoma A4 & A5 refillable notebooks in their clearance section at the very reasonable price of £4.99 and £7.99: https://www.cultpens.com/c/q/special-offers/clearance I ordered three yesterday lunchtime, and they arrived this morning. Cult Pens do offer fantastic customer service - no affiliation, just a very satisfied customer. The Atoma notebooks are FP friendly, and available in lined or squared paper.

My guess is that Cult Pens has quite a cult following in the UK. They apparently stock nearly everything they can get their hands on in the way of pens of all kinds, many inks. I have a feeling that if I spent much time on their website I'd end up with a fairly expensive cart of booty. Well they have Cult Pens ink made by Diamine. These are the "Deep Dark" inks, and they are not rebranded standard Diamine inks. The Deep Dark Brown has been rated by those in the know as the closest to the long-discontinued Parker Penman Mocha. But I personally could never justify to myself to order just a couple bottles of ink given the exchange rate, and added shipping costs. Thankfully an FPN friend sent out some samples of a couple of these inks. This is the Deep Dark Green. And I will tell you that at $1.23/£1 an 80 ml bottle of Diamine retails for £4.92, about $6, compared to nearly $15 in the US. I'm not sure there'll be nearly $9/bottle of shipping charges. So some bargains may be had for the adventuresome inky pirate. The green here is not a murky green per se, not like the KWZ ones, for even F-C. This is a fairly pur dark color. It reminds me of viridian or perhaps phthalo green watercolor. It's quite bluish, no leaning towards yellow. Much darker than F-C Loden. Perhaps not quite as dark as Sailor Miruai. No way of mistaking the color as green. Pen: Pelikan M400 (14kt-F) Papers: MvL=Mohawk via Linen, TR=Tomoe River, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet There is considerable red sheen wherever the ink pools, in punctuation, loops. Quite pronounced. A bit of water-resistance when washed over, less so when blotted.

My guess is that Cult Pens has quite a cult following in the UK. They apparently stock nearly everything they can get their hands on in the way of pens of all kinds, many inks. I have a feeling that if I spent much time on their website I'd end up with a fairly expensive cart of booty. Well they have Cult Pens ink made by Diamine. These are the "Deep Dark" inks, and they are not rebranded standard Diamine inks. The Deep Dark Brown has been rated by those in the know as the closest to the long-discontinued Parker Penman Mocha. But I personally could never justify to myself to order just a couple bottles of ink given the exchange rate, and added shipping costs. Thankfully an FPN friend sent out some samples of a couple of these inks. This is the Deep Dark Orange. And I will tell you that at $1.23/£1 an 80 ml bottle of Diamine retails for £4.92, about $6, compared to nearly $15 in the US. I'm not sure there'll be nearly $9/bottle of shipping charges. So some bargains may be had for the adventuresome inky pirate. I love the color of this ink, it reminds me of blood orange. The color is really nice and rich, not bright, deep and not thin. There's nice shading. Excellent handling, with very good flow and lubrication. There could be some sheen on Tomoe River, but you might need a wide nib to really bring that out. I'm not normally an orange or red ink fan, but for some reason this ink makes me go oo la la. This probably wouldn't become an everyday ink, but would be a joy to use whenever brought into rotation. If you live in the UK, you are one lucky person. The only downside is it's not very waterproof. Pen: Edison Nouvelle Premiere (M-steel) Papers: MvL=Mohawk via Linen, TR=Tomoe River, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet

A short while ago, the very nice people at Cult Pens suggested I'd like to have some new inks to play with. Who am I to refuse an offer like that? http://writerlywitterings.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/dsc_0001.jpg?w=640 Lots of inks side-by-sideA year ago I started to use Cult Pens' own Deep Dark Blue ink. This was a colour they designed to match their own logo, and it was made by Diamine in the UK (a brilliant firm with the best range of fountain pen inks, I think). I love Deep Dark Blue, and in fact it took over as my mainstay. I tend to have two or three pens with me while working, and the one I use daily (the Visconti, because it's bullet-proof and will never scratch), is generally filled with this ink now. Well, last month the nice people at Cult Pens gave me some more ink to try, and it was so good, I had to buy some more. The inks I have tested are the Deep Dark range, including green, brown, red and purple. For comparison purposes I've also mentioned the blue again (which I'll need to replenish soon, since the tide's going out in my old bottle). All the inks performed well in my pens. I used a pair of Cross pens, mostly my fine nibbed one, and my three Conway Stewarts, which include medium, B and italic medium. http://writerlywitterings.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/dsc_0002.jpg?w=191 Ignore the doctor's prescription at the bottom!First observation: it is clear to me that these inks deserve a fat nib. With the fine Cross the ink works well, but it's not so effective as using my standard, Diamine Passion Red, for marking up and editing. The main thing I use this pen for is putting in corrections on my MSs, and for this the Deep Dark Red fails utterly! It's so dark that (for my eyesight) when it is put on paper, it's impossible to tell an inserted comma from blank toner on the page. And it makes my writing look like a drunken spider's … (bottom para). However, as with other inks, when it's used in a fatter nib (middle para) it suddenly takes on a gorgeous life of its own. The thicker lines start paler and go dark as the nib moves with my italic nib. The variation of line thickness and ink colour is quite noticeable on my Rhodia paper – I just hope that comes across in the photo. I think it's a very good alternative to Oxblood. The brown ink in the top paragraph shows the colour depth with thicker lines even more distinctly, I think. The brown is a good colour that oddly seems to come out more pale than, say, Diamine's Saddle Brown, but that's no bad thing. I think I prefer this. It'll almost certainly be a regular ink in my Kaweco with the italic nib. I thought it would be useful to look at a standard Prussian Blue in comparison with the Deep Dark inks. On the photo at the top you can see how the Deep Dark Blue compares. http://writerlywitterings.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/dsc_0003.jpg?w=191 I like the purple in the middle!The odd thing is, the purple comes over as darker than the Blue - and yet it's got a slight reddish hue that shows up very pleasantly even with my Visconti medium nib (both were written using this pen). Once, when talking to another author, he scathingly mentioned fountain pen users who were so – well, let's just paraphrase – weird that they used green inks. I surreptitiously concealed my pen (Diamine Kelly Green at the time). This, for me, is the one colour I probably won't use. I do like greens (as the above anecdote confirms), but this is, for me, either not quite dark enough or too dark. If it were a little more concentrated, so that the hints of the colour came through in the same way as with the purple, I'd like it more. It does show good depth – look at the last couple of lines, where I say "Diamine's Emerald", for example. You can see an almost black shade with the overlapped strokes. However, for my money it could be deeper black so that the greenish tint only shows on occasion. But that is the only one I won't be using regularly. I really love these new colours. The brown is a bit of an oddity, but I like the way the colour works. As for the others, they give hints of their base pigments which are not apparent at first sight. When I put down a page in Deep Dark Blue, for example, at first glance it could be a Mont Blanc black; the Deep Dark Purple could be anything. However, set the purple against the blue or the red, and all of them take on their own individuality. For me, working with several colours at the same time in multiple pens, this gives me a subtle variation in style that really appeals. And for now, the only real problem I have is whether to refill my Visconti with Deep Dark Blue or Purple. Decisions, decisions … My thanks to Cult Pens for the Deep Dark Blue, Deep Dark Brown and Deep Dark Green – but I bought the other inks for myself. This review was not biased by bribery! http://writerlywitterings.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/dsc_00011.jpg?w=640

I'm reviewing some of my inks. Cult Pens Deep Dark Orange was requested by mmg122 I would call it a dark or burnt orange. It's a very well behaved ink with some shading. I found it flowed smoothly across the page, and had no problems with lubrication in the pen I used. It's a very popular colour because it's a dark orange, and isn't too bright. This ink exhibits no showthrough or bleedthrough on my Tomoe River paper. This paper is slightly thicker than the standard TR paper DDO is a saturated ink and my fingers were stained after washing my hands. The water test on the review form shows this isn't a waterproof ink Bearing in mind the paper I use is smooth, and the nib used at that time was an Italic, this ink took 16-18 secs to dry. It flows through the pen well and lubricates the nib well. I saw no skips or hard starts from the Phileas. It is currently available in Diamine 30ml plastic refill bottles or 80ml glass bottles It's only available from Cult Pens who sell it directly to customers on their web-site.It's a reasonably priced ink

Just a quick one, as I bought some DDR to make up the postage when ordering DD Purple (oh noes, more ink). I've compared Red Dragon and Oxblood before on my blog. Difference between those and DDR is subtle, to say the least. Scans are a bit more saturated than normal light but you get the idea. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oQquYmTTg6o/UtrBCjrNdqI/AAAAAAAABR4/9gUnwvHKEu8/s1600/red.jpg