Ink Review: Diamine Amber

January 31, 2016

My latest ink is Diamine Amber

I thought I would try Diamine Amber because I found a bottle of Pelikan Edelstein Amber last year and I really like the colour. So I wanted to see if Diamine Amber was similar.

However, I found it more of a yellow/orange than P.E. Amber and less saturated than Diamine Marigold (that I also have to review) and Sheaffer King's Gold. It has that very bright eye-popping tone in it like Montblanc Gandhi and Diamine Pumpkin that my scanner finds almost impossible to reproduce. I tried my best to make as many adjustments as I could to get it as close as possible to the colour of the ink I see on the paper.

On the whole, I think Amber should be a little more brown than this in order for it to look like it's namesake.

It wrote straight away without any hard starts or skipping. It lubricated the nib well enough, flowed well and didn't feel at all dry when I was writing with it. However, it took longer to dry than I thought it would. As with many yellow/orange inks it can be a bit difficult to read, particularly if you like F or EF nibs. So if you use it you may want to try it in a broader nib as that makes it easier to read. As you can see if you compare the writing from my 1.1 stub and my F nib. On the other hand, I've seen many inks that are more difficult to read than this one. So it's not so bad.

It's not water resistant at all. It washed away after less than 30 seconds. So I wouldn't recommend using it for addressing postcards or envelopes in wet weather areas.

Neither waterproof nor water resistant.
Bearing in mind the paper I use is thick with a shiny surface, and I used a Lamy F nib, M nib and a 1.1mm stub nib, this ink took 18-20 secs to dry. That's slower than some other inks I've reviewed recently.
It's not a very saturated ink. There are some gold and orange inks that are more saturated than this one.
It is currently available in 80ml glass bottles or 30ml plastic bottles
Diamine sell it directly to end-users on their web-site.
It's a reasonable price.