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Diamine Golden Honey (150th Anniversary II) The ink maker from Liverpool is one of the staple brands in ink-land. They consistently produce solid inks for a very reasonable price. In 2017, Diamine released the second ink series to commemorate their 150th Anniversary. I obtained my set shortly thereafter, but more or less forgot about them when my attention drifted to Japanese inks. About time to do the reviews. Fortunately, these anniversary inks are still easily obtainable, so if you like what you see you can still get them. Golden Honey has a name that fits the colour: a really nice yellow-orange that looks great on paper. Beware that you need to choose your pens/nibs wisely: the ink’s lubrication is fairly bad in dry writers with finer nibs. But that’s easily solved using a wet pen or a broader nib – in my case, the ink is a perfect match for my Pelikan M600 Vibrant Orange with F-nib. Shading becomes really prominent in M-nibs and above, but with really broad stubs it’s a bit too much for me. For me, the ink works best with M-B-1.1 nibs, where it presents its best side. The ink writes nicely wet (but beware of that lubrication issue in fine-nibbed dry pens), and leaves a well-saturated line, even with the EF nib. The colour is definitely an orange, but leaning to yellow in low-saturated parts. Colourwise, it’s almost an exact match for Papier Plume Sazerac, but in a one-on-one fight this Diamine Golden Honey turns out to be the better ink. The ink works well with both white and cream paper, but the white papers do enhance the looks of the ink’s beautiful shading. With low-quality paper, there’s a tiny bit of feathering and you can expect a fair amount of show-through and bleed-through. To illustrate the colour span of Golden Honey, I did a swab on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper, where I really saturated portions of the paper with ink. Golden Honey has a broad dynamic range, evolving from a wispy almost yellow to a nicely saturated orange. This translates to strong shading when writing, but because the contrast between light and dark parts is nicely balanced, the shading never becomes too harsh. Nice! On the smudge test – rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab – the ink showed some – mostly yellow – smearing, but the text itself remains crips and clear. Water resistance is totally absent – some residue is left on the page, and with some detective work you might be able to reconstruct your writing (but don’t depend on it). Looking at the bottom part of the chromatography, I had expected better water resistance - but no. I’ve tested the ink on a wide variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. On each scrap of paper I show you: An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation An ink scribble made with a Lamy Safari M-nib fountain pen The name of the paper used, written with a Lamy Safari B-nib A small text sample, written with the Lamy Safari M-nib Source of the quote, written with an F-nib Pelikan M600 Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib Safari) The multi-paper writing test shows that Golden Honey handles most papers well, looking good on both white and cream paper. There is a small amount of feathering on low-quality paper, but nothing really extreme. With cheap paper, you do get a lot of see-through and some bleed-through, making it nigh impossible to use the backside of the paper. Drying times were about 5 seconds on absorbent paper, and about 15 seconds on most other papers (with my M-nib Lamy Safari). Because scans don't always capture an ink's colour and contrast with good precision, I also add a photo to give you an alternative look on this Diamine ink. To my eye, both scan and photo capture the colour well, but the scans definitely exaggerate the shading (too much contrast between the light and dark parts). Writing with different nib sizes The picture below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing (written on Rhodia N°16 80 gsm paper). All samples were written with a Lamy Safari. I also added a couple of visiting pens: a Pelikan M600 with F-nib, and an Esterbrook Estie with Journaler nib. Golden Honey looks definitely better in the wetter-writing visiting pens. My Pelikan M600 Vibrant Orange with F-nib captures its sweet spot: nicely saturated and just the right amount of shading. Related inks To compare Diamine Golden Honey with related inks, I use my nine-grid format with the currently reviewed ink at the center. This format shows the name of related inks, a saturation sample, a 1-2-3 swab and a water resistance test – all in a very compact format. Papier Plume Sazerac is almost identical, and Super 5 Delhi Orange comes close (and has the advantage of being waterproof). Inkxperiment – The Doors of Eden As a personal challenge, I try to create interesting drawings using only the ink I’m reviewing. I find this to be a fun extension of the hobby, and these single-ink drawings are great for exploring the colour-range nuances that are present in the ink. I love doing them! Inspiration for this drawing comes from Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “The Doors of Eden” – an SF masterpiece that explores the concept of parallel Earths. In each world, evolution took a slightly different path, with species other than homo sapiens coming out as top predator. And now these worlds are touching and merging… which shouldn’t happen and threatens the fabric of existence. I started with an A4 piece of watercolour paper that I divided in panels representing the parallel worlds. Each section gets a mini drawing, identical in theme but slightly different – referring to the diverging paths evolution took on these worlds. Our own Earth gets slightly bigger panes. The painting builds up from heavily water-diluted Golden Honey, and then adds layers with more and more ink added to the mix. Final details were made with a fountain pen and pure Golden Honey. The resulting drawing shows the broad range of tones that can be extracted from this Diamine ink – simply great! You might also notice that on the absorbent watercolour paper, the colour in the panels gets a fairly one-dimensional, almost cartoony look. Overall, I really like this Golden Honey for this artsy type of activity. Inkxpired – computational art I love experimenting with pen/ink/paper, and have added another layer as part of the hobby. I’m exploring computational art, inspired by the ink drawings I do during ink reviews. Another fun offshoot of the hobby… and all that starting with a few drops of dye-coloured water on paper. Starting from the original “The Doors of Eden” drawing, I first converted it to a black-and-white picture with exaggerated contrast. I then applied an “old photo” filter, and added a sepia-toned gradient to the result. Finally, I used a “pixel sort” filter to blur the boundaries between the different worlds. Conclusion Diamine Golden Honey is a lovely-looking yellow-orange, that I can recommend for both writing and painting. A happy colour, that is the perfect match for my Pelikan M600 Vibrant Orange with F-nib. Just be aware that it doesn’t like dry writers, and you’ll be good. If you enjoy orange inks, this one is most certainly a must-have. Technical test results on Rhodia N° 16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib Backside of writing samples on different paper types

Ink Shoot-Out : Papier Plume Sazerac vs Diamine Golden Honey For no special reason, I have been using quite some ochre & orange inks this summer. While playing around with my inks, I noticed that Papier Plume Sazerac and Diamine Golden Honey seem to be quite similar oranges. This peaked my interest... time for a detailed comparison of both inks to find out which one I like the most. Enter... the Ink Shoot-Out. A brutal fight spanning five rounds, where two inks engage in fierce battle to determine who is the winner. Tonight we have a free-form fighting tournament... anything goes... but no biting! In the left corner - from the French Quarter in New Orleans - François "La Guillotine", the killing machine that chops down his opponents. In the right corner - from London's Soho district - "Gentleman" Joe, whose jaw-crunching uppercuts are always accompanied with a "my sincere apologies". Both champions enter the ring. The crowds are cheering for what promises to be a brutal fight. The bell rings and signals the start of the first round. May the best ink win... Round 1 – First Impressions Both inks make a great first impression on me. These are nicely muted oranges, and definitely not vibrant. I like my inks this way... a good presence on the page, but not eye-searing and in-my-face. These inks have style! Both inks also exhibit subtle yellow-leaning shading, without too much contrast between the light and darker parts. This gives your writing an aesthetically pleasing look. But even in this first round, it's definitely a dirty fight! Both champions show off their elegant moves, but they also throw some heavy punches that really hurt their opponent: Golden Honey is without any doubt the master of the finer nib. Sazerac feels really dry and undersaturated with fine and medium nibs. Golden Honey writes nicely wet with much better lubrication, and leaving a more saturated line. "My apologies"... but it's clear that in this area the New Orleans champion takes some pain. Papier Plume's Sazerac on the other hand looks richer and shows a broader tonal range in the swabs and on the saturation sample. A bit more character, more elegance. That's a rib-crunching chop from "La Guillotine". Looking at broader nibs (the squiggles drawn with a 1.5mm calligraphy nib), Sazerac becomes more saturated, but - in my opinion - also loses some of its charm. Golden Honey keeps a more yellow-orange appearance, retaining more of its muted character. Both inks make a great first impression. Sazerac looks slightly better for drawing, but Golden Honey is clearly the better ink for writing. The fact that Sazerac still feels very dry in my M-nib Safari costs it points though! A fair fight with punches in both directions, but Gentleman Joe clearly dominated this round. In my book, this round is a solid win on points for Diamine Golden Honey. Round 2 – Writing Sample The writing sample was done on Rhodia N°16 Notepad with 80 gsm paper. Both inks behaved flawlessly, with no feathering and no show-through or bleed-through. With the EF nib, both inks were equally horrible... dry, scratchy, unsaturated. Yuk! With the M-nib, Diamine recovers and writes nicely wet and with good saturation. But Sazerac still suffers, and keeps feeling dry and scratchy. With broad nibs, both inks offer a pleasant writing experience. But looking closer at the broad nib, you can see that Sazerac leaves a wider and a bit over-saturated line. It almost becomes too wet, where the line left on the pages expands a bit too much. This also seems to result in a flatter and less-pleasing look. Diamine Golden Honey on the other hand retains its crispness, and shows more character and depth. I definitely like the Diamine ink better in this respect. Colourwise, both inks look quite similar. But for writing there are big differences! Here the English champion delivers an uppercut that totally floors its opponent. "My sincere apologies" indeed! Sazerac goes to the floor, totally dazed. The crowd goes nuts, and roars its approval. What a spectacle! There is no doubt at all... round 2 is a solid win for Gentleman Joe. Round 3 – Pen on Paper This round allows the batlling inks to show how they behave on a range of fine writing papers. From top to bottom, we have : FantasticPaper, Life Noble, Tomoe River and Original Crown Mill cotton paper. All scribbling and writing was done with a Lamy Safari M-nib. Both champions did well, with no show-through nor bleed-through. But this round is not about technicalities, it is about aesthetics and beauty. Are the fighters able to make the paper shine ? One thing is immediately apparent: these inks are at their best on pure white paper. Due to the yellow undertones, their presence on more yellowish paper (like the Life Noble) is underwhelming. With the M-nib, the Diamine ink is more saturated, much wetter, and offers a superior writing experience. Looking at the swabs and saturation samples, Sazerac shows more depth and character. For this round, both inks are on par with each other, both scoring some points and taking some punches. Sazerac seems to recover, and now stands up again to the English champion. But neither ink dominates, and as such this round ends in a draw. Round 4 – Ink Properties Both inks have drying times in the 15-20 second range with the M-nib in my Lamy Safari. To test their smudge resistance, I rubbed the text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab. Here, Diamine Honey shows a little bit more smudging, but the text itself remains crisp and clear. To test water resistance, I dripped water on the grid and let it sit there for 15 minutes, after which I removed the water with a paper towel. Both champions are weak! Water resistance is totally absent, and all ink simply disappears from the paper. Not good! What a disappointing display! Both champions went on the defensive, and performed very weakly in this round. The crowd gets restless, starts boo-ing. That is not what we paid for! For this round, neither champion gets points. Round 4 thus ends with a draw. Round 5 – The Fun Factor Welcome to the final round. Here I give you a purely personal impression of both inks, where I judge which of them I like most when doing some fun stuff like doodling and drawing. And for this round, both inks are simply amazing. I did the drawing on HP Advanced Photo paper. The background uses heavily water-diluted ink, which brings out the yellow. For the flowers I used 2:1 diluted ink, while the flower accents and stems use pure Sazerac and Golden Honey. I dare you the find the difference! Both inks are equally gorgeous looking when used in a more artistic setting. I really enjoyed using them. For this round, both champions recovered completely, and gave their best. Punishing kicks, solid blocks, graceful moves, loads of energy… The crowd is loving it... this is what we came to see. Round 5 totally rocks, but in the end both champions performed equally well, and no clear winner emerges. The Verdict Both inks are great-looking muted yellow-oranges, that look fantastic on paper (provided you use broader nibs). For writing, Diamine Golden Honey is without any doubt the better ink. It's still horribly dry in fine nibs, but starting with M-sizes the ink recovers and provides a smooth & pleasant writing experience. Otherwise, both inks are really quite similar. But round 2 clearly determines the outcome of this fight, and so the Belgian judge declares Diamine Golden Honey as the winner of this shoot-out.