Akkerman Vs Diamine

[KevinS]

Akkerman is a pen shop. They introduced their inks to celebrate their centenary. It is highly unlikely that they opened an ink manufacturing facility just for this.

 

Diamine might well make their inks. However given the simplicity of mixing aniline dies with perhaps an additive or too,  it seems most likely that whatever the wholesale source of their inks, they will be blended to a spec. and not simply off the shelf. So it is I see so many Akkerman inks that are 'like' a Diamine ink, but just a little different.

 

The other reason I think Akkerman doesn't have an ink manufacturing facility is that other than the U.S. I haven't found one pen shop selling their inks other than themselves.

 

Given the rediculous prices of Akkerman inks in the UK (they are only available from Akkerman in the Nedderlands, I buy the nearest Diamine ink whenever I can.

 

Just my take.

[inkstainedruth]

I have found that the Akkerman inks tend to have a little better flow than their Diamine counterparts.  And much preferred Akkerman Ijzer-Galnoten one Diamine Registrars because it oxidized MUCH darker on the page (unless I had a bad sample of the Diamine Registrars, which oxidized to a washy blue-grey; nice shading, but that's about all that could be said for it).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[lapis]

I must go along completely with Ruth's statements above. I noted that myself when I did my review on that ink. But.... the flow diff is HUGE, whereas the oxidation-to-darkness grade is IMO only slightly better. Still, its (Akkerman's Ijzer-Galnoten) oxidation rate can take up to 24 h to go all the way. But that's no real problem.

[KevinS]

The thing is that mixing aniline dyes is a very simple process. 

It would be child's play for Diamine to make a slightly different selection of colours for Akkerman. 

It would be foolish for them not to do so.

 

[inkstainedruth]

Well, I remember the discussions when I first started here about the inks that xFountainpens.com (back before they became Birmingham Pens) sold that were re-branded/relabeled Diamine inks (forget the name, now, but I think the started with a C).  And people were trying to ID what the actual Diamine color was for the different inks.  A friend of mine liked the xfountainpen inks, and I always meant to try to figure out what the Diamine equivalent was so I could tell her what to get when those inks became unobtanium.

Interestingly, enough, xfountainpens ALSO then started selling what might have been rebranded De Atramentis inks, but while the inks had a different "label", IIRC, the bottles looked like the D'A bottles and the ink *names* were not changed.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth