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I have recently posted a review of the Kaweco AC Sport Red LE pen in the pen reviews forum. Here. I am adding a separate review of the Kaweco Ruby Red ink that I used in that pen when I tested it. I used a cartridge, and the Kaweco AC Sport Red LE pen has a F black, steel nib. I also used a 1.1mm steel nib in the same pen as a comparison. It looks much more saturated with the 1.1mm nib. This is an excellent red ink. It leans towards the red/pink end of the scale, which I much prefer, rather than those that lean towards the red/orange end of the scale. In fact some might suggest that Orchid Rose was a more apt description of it's colour than Ruby Red. I think it could even be described as a dark pink or cerise. It is a really well behaved ink and I can highly recommend it as a top quality ink. I should mention here that you might still find some older bottles of Kaweco Ruby Red ink, maybe even some that are sold as Orchid Rose. The inks are a very similar colour. However, you can tell if you have one of the newest bottles because the name of the ink is now printed on the box. It's also on the cartridge packs. Ruby Red cartridges come in a darker red pack than the older ink, and they now have Kaweco branding on each cartridge. This ink isn't waterproof, and it doesn't stain fingers. Kaweco ink is made in Germany. It is available in 30ml bottles or packs containing 6 standard international sized cartridges.

My latest ink sample from Diamine is Diamine Claret Diamine Claret is an ancient ink from Diamine. It's been around for a long time. Bearing in mind Diamine celebrated their 150th anniversary last year, when they first manufactured this ink, real claret was used to make it. However, there are now many rules about what inks can be made from, so Diamine have had to recreate it from available dyes, to try to get as close as they could to the original colour. So if any of you used it many years ago, you may have noticed a change. The colour really surprised me, as I expected Claret to be a darker red. I looked at my pen wondering if it wasn't properly clean when I filled it, but I knew it was. I'm fastidious about that. This ink is a full blown raspberry pink shade that leans blue. Not that I'm suggesting it's any the worse for that. It's reasonably saturated, and exhibits plenty of shading. It wrote straight away without any hard starts or skipping with both of my pens on several different papers. The flow is very good and so is it's lubrication at the nib. Although the flow feels slightly dryer than some of the inks I've recently tried, in that I couldn't see wet ink glistening on the line above the one I was writing, it didn't feel particularly dry. The dry time was quite quick and there were no smears after it was dry. It has no water resistance at all. The red inky water spread very quickly. I didn't really have any inks that were the same colour to compare it against. The ones I have are either brighter, with even more blue, leaning more towards purple, or darker leaning more red. So it was an interesting colour to try out. This isn't sold as a waterproof ink,and shows no noticeable water resistance.Bearing in mind the review template is on thick paper with a shiny surface, and I used a Lamy M nib and a Lamy 1.1mm nib this ink took 16-17 secs to dry. No smear when dry.It exhibited good flow and lubrication and I found it well behaved to write with. I saw no skips or hard starts while I did my swabs and dry time tests.It exhibited some show through and bleed through on cheap paper.It is currently available in 80ml glass bottles or 30ml plastic bottlesDiamine sell it directly to end-users on their web-site.It's a reasonable price.