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Ink Review: Birmingham Pen Company Twilight Background: Birmingham Pen Company (BPC) started as the brainchild of two brothers – Nick and Josh. Initially, Nick and Josh worked with third party ink producers in England and Germany to produce their inks. BPC started making their own inks over a year ago. While some changes have been made, their new formulations include “Crisp” inks designed for everyday use on all papers, “Swift” inks that are a bit wetter, starts up quickly and works well on premium papers, “Rich” inks which have high sheen and saturation, “Everlasting” inks that have high water resistance, “Twinkle” inks with shimmer and “Wishy-Washy” inks that are designed for performance but a washable from fabrics and surfaces. The glass bottles with tight-fitting plastic lids bottles are very nice and functional. My largest pen fits nicely into the bottle for a full fill. BPC offers three sizes: 30ml, 60ml and 120ml for all inks except the Twinkle inks which are only available in 60ml. The 120ml bottles have an eye-dropper lid instead of the regular lid. Review in Brief: Saturation: moderate saturation Sheen: some nice green sheen Shading: medium shading from fine to wider nibs Haloing: low Lubrication: medium lubrication Wetness: moderately wet Water Resistance: Moderately water resistant Feathering: minimal feathering on lower quality papers Bleedthrough: minimal only on lower quality papers and with high ink application Showthrough: medium showthrough on 52gsm TR paper, minimal on Rhodia and Apica Price: reasonable for 30mls, very good for 60ml and exceptional for 120ml which is the best value. While some inks retained the same name (or an abbreviated version), they may be slightly different. Ana at the Well Appointed Desk discussed this very well in her January 2021 blog (https://www.wellappointeddesk.com/2021/01/ink-brand-overview-the-new-birmingham-pen-company-inks/) The older version of this ink, known as Allegheny River Twilight, was review by craptacular in 2018. You will note that there is a difference between the older version and the new “Swift” formula. Pens: a Pilot Vanishing Point with a fine nib, and a Conklin Duragraph with a 1.1 stub nib. Papers shown: Rhodia, Tomoe River, Cosmo Air Light; Not shown: Apica CD Premium, Advantage 24 lb copy paper; Cambridge Premium Notebook paper. Rhodia Dot Grid Paper The ink is nicely saturated with some green sheen when pooled. The ink flows wonderfully in both pens. The Pilot VP has a very dry nib and is very particular about the ink it uses. This pen glides effortlessly with this ink. The Conklin Duragraph, on the other hand, is a very wet pen. The Twilight ink is almost too wet to use in this pen. The ink does dry fairly quickly on all papers tested but is slower on Tomoe River and Cosmo Air Light (20-25 seconds). he ink is surprisingly quite water resistant although it is not known as an “Everlasting” formulation. Feathering and bleeding are not seen on Rhodia, Tomoe River, Cosmo Air Light. There is some feathering on the 24 lb. copy paper, and minimal feathering on the Apica CD and premium notebook paper, and the three papers showed small amounts bleedthrough in heavy applications of the ink. Because this is a fairly saturated ink, there is showthrough on Tomoe River, Rhodia and Apica as well as the copy and notebook papers, especially with the 1.1 stub nib. Tomoe River Ivory Paper Tomoe River Ivory Paper Cosmo Air LIght Paper Apica CD Premium Notebook Paper The chromatography was simply done with a coffee filter. It shows how the ink color breaks down in to a complex variety of yellow, blue and red. Here are some color comparisons. Overall this is a very nice ink that behaves very well. I highly recommend giving this ink a try. Disclaimer: I purchased this ink directly from Birmingham Pen Company. Any photos, opinions and thoughts regarding the ink are my own and are not sponsored by Birmingham Pen Company and do not necessarily reflect their opinions.

They are here and more beautiful in person then in the pictures! Very limited supply get your Twilight before they are gone! You can contact us by phone 1-800-263-2736, 410-992-3272 or email support@penboutique.com

I have decided to review some of my inks. These aren't necessarily in any particular order. This one is Diamine Twilight. I would call it a blue-black ink. It leans more towards the green portion of the colour spectrum than some dark blues like Tchaikovsky, Regency Blue and Midnight. It's more like a darker version of Prussian Blue, or Eau de Nil that both have green tones in them. It's a well behaved, quite saturated ink with a little shading. I found it flowed smoothly across the page, and had no problems with lubrication in both of the pens I used. I think it looks better in the Lamy Nexx M with it's 1.1 nib. This ink exhibits showthrough and a little bleedthrough on my thick paper, so I tried it on Rhodia dot pad paper. Showthrough and bleedthrough are both noticeable. The water test on the review form shows this isn't a waterproof ink. In fact it almost completely disappeared after a few seconds.Bearing in mind the paper I use is very smooth, and the nib used at that time was a F, this ink took 16-18 secs to dry.Showthrough and bleedthrough are both noticeable.It flows through the pen well and lubricates the nib well. I saw no skips or hard starts from either of the pens that both stayed uncapped while I swapped and changed, and did swabs and comparisons with other inksIt is currently available in 80ml glass bottles, 30ml plastic refill bottles or cartridges.Diamine sell it directly to end-users on their web-site.It's a reasonable price

I got a bottle of both of Diamine Blue-Black and Twilight, so thought I will post my first review. I really like both of these inks, the colours are great. I also did a water resistance test, held the paper under running water for about 10 seconds. Not much remained of the ink, but it's still readable. The review was done on an Office Depot recycled writing pad, 70g/m2. http://s21.postimg.org/f5t8uajtv/Diamine_BB_and_Twilight.jpg http://s29.postimg.org/ndqj7ufsz/Twilight_water_resistance_test.jpg http://s2.postimg.org/7bkk6ae3p/Blue_black_water_resistance_test.jpg Enjoy!

I saw a swab of Diamine Twilight on Goulet Pens website and I really liked the colour and decided to order it straightaway. Twilight is an amazing ink. It is i one of those that live up or even exceed your expectations. It's not the most well behaved ink in the world. But is has a very deep, noble grey-blue colour which makes is really nice to read and it also looks very elegant. I can see myself using it in almost any situation. With a broad nib, the colour comes across even more clearly. And, if you look closely, there is also a small amount of shading. I said it was not perfect, so here's what you need to expect: There is some feathering (even on Rhodia), but not to a degree that would bother me. You can also encounter bleed-through, but only with some broad and very wet nibs. For example, I had no problems with Lamy Vista 1.1 italic. On the positive note, compared to some other Diamine inks it dries quite quickly and while it is definitely not water resistant, it remains legible even after short water exposure and that's always nice. Diamine Twilight has become one of my favourite inks for daily use. And even though it is not perfect, I like the colour so much that I am prepared to forgive some of the shortcomings. You should give it a go too! ;-) Bigger pics are here available on my blog or my Flickr page.Paper: Rhodia A4 notebook (90 gsm)Pen: Vintage Parker Duofold 1.1mm stub nibWriting sample: J. K. Jerome: Three men in a boatWater test: drops left on the paper for 1 minute http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3814/9485796417_96f2989168_c_d.jpg http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3825/9485803005_e1f0e2af69_b.jpg http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5516/9485808243_eb6151ed94_b.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7285/9488612204_32179e86e3_b.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7421/9485821845_e5e571b055_b.jpg http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2853/9485753457_3269b46d0f_b.jpg