Ancient Copper - Diamine

[AnneHW]

These ink reviews are fun, addictive and scary! I have this ink and it's been fine. In fact, I just cleaned out my Safari with an italic nib and it seemed to clean up nicely, something that's important to me.

 

I keep reading different things about Diamine, from good to bad. There are so many nice colors and I want to try more, but I'm kind of scared now!

[Frank C]

These ink reviews are fun, addictive and scary! I have this ink and it's been fine. In fact, I just cleaned out my Safari with an italic nib and it seemed to clean up nicely, something that's important to me.

 

I keep reading different things about Diamine, from good to bad. There are so many nice colors and I want to try more, but I'm kind of scared now!

 

I have almost all of the Diamine inks and use them regularly. I love the fact that they have 100 or more different and unique colors. As with any saturated ink, or any ink at all, good pen hygiene is important. Keep the cap on the pen. Use pens whose caps fit well. Don't leave unused pens full of ink—I've been guilty of this a few times. Rinse pens with cold water between refills. With these simple practices, you can use almost any ink with impunity. One additional suggestion is to get a bulb syringe or two—readily available at Goulet's or your local drug store—and use it to flush the nib and section. You can run more water through your pen in a minute or two than you can do using a converter in an hour.

 

The next step is to use an ultrasonic cleaner, but that is overkill for the average fountain pen user.

[Ste_S]

Those pictures are scary!

I haven't experienced any sort of nib creep with my Diamine AC, and I've been using it in various pens. How do you store your pens, op? I store mine either horizontal or standing up with the nib side up.

 

I don't think it's got anything to do with pen storage, more how airtight the cap on your pen is.

 

Three pens all stored horizontal in the same pen box. Two pens where fine with Ancient Copper - Lamy Al-Star, Visconti Rembrandt.

The third had large amounts of gunge around the nib and the feed. This was a Parker IM which has a notoriously non airtight cap.

[BetwixtTheLines]

 

I don't think it's got anything to do with pen storage, more how airtight the cap on your pen is.

 

Three pens all stored horizontal in the same pen box. Two pens where fine with Ancient Copper - Lamy Al-Star, Visconti Rembrandt.

The third had large amounts of gunge around the nib and the feed. This was a Parker IM which has a notoriously non airtight cap.

 

Ahh, makes sense.

[Quadratus]

I recently bought a bottle of Ancient Copper (as part of a gradual exploration of sepia-type colours). I can only say that I am delighted with its warm, deep tones and interesting shading. I have not had any difficulty with the nib (I use a Waterman "L'Etalon" with a 18k medium nib) and certainly no "nib creep". I would highly recommend this ink- although, for me, the Iroshizuku range still set the benchmark for excellence in fountain pen inks,

[Misfit]

I got a sample of Ancient Copper. I put it in a Pilot MR White Tiger. For the duration, there was no nib creep at all. They have small converters, but I don't write with a pen until it's empty, do the ink was in the pen for a month or more.

[raivtash]

Ancient color is my favorite color. Unfortunately, it also causes creeps on multiple pens of mine. What I am using right now is a diluted version of ancient color through an accidental discovery.

One of my inkwell had ancient copper and it dried out. In an attempt to clean the inkwell, I just filled up the inkwell. And the result turns out to be great. I no longer have ink creep so far and the color is still lovely.

[Chrissy]

I think that whether it nib creeps or not depends on how well the pen cap fits, and how much air the ink is exposed to, inside the cap, over a certain period of time.

[EBGBs]

Yes it seems to be the conclusion. Well it’s probably a mix of how much a given pen lets air in, and how much a given ink dislikes contact with air – and apparently Ancient Copper dislikes it a lot, more so than many other inks.

 

I’ve been wanting to try Ancient Copper for a while, and still plan to – I guess I’ll just do so in a solid pen with a threaded cap.

I never had any real problem with the few (5 or 6) Diamine inks I have, but yes there are often reports that some of them are temperamental in various ways (Midnight Blue, Grape and DAC are the names that come to mind) – So I would understand why some could prefer to be cautious. It’s probably not easy to maintain consistent characteristics across such a large range of products.

 

For those who look for an alternative to Ancient Copper; I don’t see much in DAC’s colour and shading that Monteverde FireOpal doesn’t do (I’m not 100% sure about that until I’ll get a bottle of Ancient Copper, and please note that I am biased; I LOVE FireOpal)

[Chrissy]

Some dyes behave differently to others. Orange and yellow dyes seem to behave differently to other coloured dyes.

 

I always get crystals or "coloured dust" on the bottle threads of bottles containing orange or yellow inks, and that doesn't tend to happen with blue inks.

[Kodiac136]

I've gotten some of this "gunk" before from Ancient Copper. Doesn't bother me, just wipe it off and woila, all good. For me, the color is worth a little bit of fuss.

[senzen]

Thanks to excellent reviews like Visvamitra's I eventually got Ancient Copper; it's a very particular colour, it does gunk up a little but I don't mind much since I have it in an easy to clean Lamy Vista; however the colour just didn't do it for me, I gave it away.

[Karmachanic]

I purchased Ancient Copper a month ago based upon this, Visvamitra's, review. Love the colour, saturation and shading. Knowing I would not use it often, I experimentaly filled a Wing Sung 698 (Plumix B italic nib). 3ml +/-. Since that time I have used 1ml and there is no creap. Stored horizontally.

 

Confirming what has been stated: it's da pen!

[TheDutchGuy]

I love this ink! Use it for headers, footnotes, annotations and such. Pen is a TWSBI Eco 1.1 stub. Stored horizontally. It takes me about 8 weeks before it's time for a refill. I don't flush the pen every time. Ink isn't causing any problem whatsoever.

[minddance]

Some pens present the problem of crusting, some don't. I leave it in a Pelikan m800 for months (!) now and nothing much happens.