Pelikan Edelstein Star Ruby (Ink Of The Year 2019)

[namrehsnoom]

Pelikan Edelstein Star Ruby

- Ink of the Year 2019 -

In 2011 Pelikan introduced the Edelstein series of high-end inks, available in a variety of colours. The theme of the Edelstein concept is the gemstone - each ink corresponds to the beautiful colour of a gem. The Edelstein line of inks is presented in 50 ml high-value bottles, that are truly beautiful, and worthy of a place on your desk.

In this review the stage is taken by Star Ruby, the Edelstein Ink of the Year 2019. This is a limited edition ink, that could be gone in the near future, although it's not unheard of for Pelikan to change its mind. Star Ruby is a very saturated reddish pink ink. I'm more inclined to softer pastel-toned inks, but to my surprise, I quite liked this one. It's just enough off-pink to appeal to me. I see myself using it mainly for personal journaling, or even as a business ink for marking papers.

Star Ruby succeeds in finding the middle ground between pink and red, and as such can appeal to a broad audience. The chromatography looks a bit boring though - this seems to be mainly a single-dye ink. The chroma also shows little promise for using Star Ruby as a drawing ink for artistic purposes - there’s just not enough of a colour span.

Star Ruby really excels as a writing ink, that can handle all nib ranges without a problem. The ink has excellent saturation, and is well-lubricated. It's a pleasure to write with it. Shading is present in all nib sizes, but remains subdued and not in-your-face. The contrast between light and darker parts is aesthetically pleasing. Overall, I really like what I see on the paper.

To show you the impact of saturation on the ink's look & feel on paper, I made some scribbles where I really saturated portions of the Tomoe River paper with ink. This gives you a good idea of what the ink is capable of in terms of colour range. Being a very saturated ink, Star Ruby exhibits only a limited colour span. On very saturated parts, the ink shows a golden-brown sheen, which is clearly visible on the right side of the picture. In normal writing - using my everyday pens & paper - I couldn't reproduce this sheen though.

Technically, the ink behaved perfectly, with exceptionally good flow and saturation, and a good contrast with the paper even in the finer nibs. Overall a pleasurable ink to write with. Drying times are quite short in the 5 to 10 second range with M-nibs. Star Ruby copes well with a wide variety of paper - and can even tolerate the crappy ones. To proof this point, take a look at the writing sample on Moleskine paper: no visible feathering, and the colour looks quite good too. Star Ruby works well with both white and more yellowish paper. As a writing ink... impressive !

Unfortunately, Star Ruby shows a total lack of water resistance. Even the slightest touch of water obliterates your writing, leaving only a pinkish mess - see the water test at the end of this review.

Writing with different nib sizes

The picture below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing. All samples were written with a Lamy Safari, which is typically a dry pen. I also added a visiting pen - a wet Pelikan M200 with an F-nib. With all these combinations, the ink writes very pleasantly and leaves a nicely saturated line.

Related inks

To show off related inks, I recently switched to a nine-grid format, with the currently reviewed ink at the center. The new 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. This format makes it easy to compare the ink with its eight direct neighbours, which I hope will be useful to you. I've added Edelstein Turmaline and Ruby to this comparison: this clearly shows that Star Ruby strikes a middle ground between pink and red.

Inkxperiment - the end of the road

I've put myself the challenge to try to produce interesting drawings using only the ink I'm reviewing. I find this to be a fun extension of the hobby, and have found these single-ink drawings ideal for experimenting with different techniques. From the chroma, I already knew this would be a challenging inkxperiment... the limited colour span of this ink makes it less than ideal for artsy experiments. I started with HP photo paper, on which I painted the background using heavily diluted ink. I then added the road & tree trunks using 1:3 diluted ink. Finally I used pure Star Ruby to add highlights to the road, and to draw in the little figure with the umbrella. For the leaves, I used my recently discovered dish-washing sponge with pure ink to stamp in the foliage. The end-result gives you an idea of what can be obtained with Star Ruby as a drawing ink. Personally I'm not impressed: the ink has too limited a colour span to allow for interesting drawings.

Conclusion

Last year's Olivine was a bit of a disappointment: a good ink, but not the yellow-green colour that I had expected. This 2019 ink of the year exceeded my expectation. It turns out to be a really impressive writing ink, that works exceptionally well with all nib sizes and a broad range of papers. And the colour strikes the right balance between red and pink to make it appealing for a broad audience. Kudos to Pelikan... this is a worthy addition to the Edelstein line.

Technical test results on Rhodia N°16 notepad paper, written with Lamy Safari, M-nib

Backside of writing samples on different paper types

[melro]

Now thats commitment

Awesome review! extremely helpfull

[lapis]

Excellent review as always! Thanks!! Especially your painting of a walk through the forest is awesome. I don’t see any sharpness/brilliance of a ruby as a gem, so it doesn’t strike me as anything precious but its actual colour reaching into a real raspberry does look sweet.

I’ll buy it in any case just because I collect the darn things. To conclude — as you did — its naming is more convincing than it was last year....

[7is]

Thank you!! Please never stop writing ink reviews!

[Jazini]

Good review. thanks.

Oh no. Not another pink ink. This one is not for me.

[fountainpen51]

Nice. Thanks for this.

[Uncial]

I was looking forward to seeing this ink but its not for me. I enjoyed all your Dune quotes though

[Honeybadgers]

was very disappointed in this color. It stains like a mofo, not great performance, I found it a little prone to smearing, slow drying, no sheen, some shading. Just get Yama budo.

[Misfit]

It has that outline or halo-ing quality also. Excellent review.

[lgsoltek]

Amazing, as always! Looks like an ink I'll enjoy!

[goodpens]

Thank you for sharing your beautiful art!

 

When I first saw this ink, I was not interested. Your review, though, made me realize that it is a color I have been looking for, a mid-pink/red that represents the wild raspberries that grow near me each August. What I had settled on before (R&K magenta) is a little too purple. I may need to get someeven before the Pelikan Hubs in Sept, when this is likely to be distributed.

Edited April 24, 2019 by goodpens

[namrehsnoom]

was very disappointed in this color. It stains like a mofo, not great performance, I found it a little prone to smearing, slow drying, no sheen, some shading. Just get Yama budo.

That is a valid warning... it stains your fingers, taking some serious scrubbing to remove. I also needed a double cleaning cycle to remove it completely from my Lamy cartridges and Pelikan M205 Demonstrator (using water only). I do not have Yama-Budo, so cannot compare. From pics online it looks really similar.

Edited April 24, 2019 by namrehsnoom

[chromantic]

Not the color I think of when I hear "ruby".

[inkstainedruth]

Thanks as always for the comprehensive review. On my screen it looks a fair amount like Lamy Vibrant Pink. Anyone do a side-by-side? I'd be interested in the results. Because if it's close, there's no hurry for me to get it, and can (presumably) wait for this fall's Pelikan Hub.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[DrDebG]

Excellent review! Thank you for putting that much effort into this.

[Jan2016]

Thank you for another amazing review! I agree with Honeybadgers, I like Yama Budo in this group of colors.

[senzen]

Thank you.

[mulrich]

Not a color I'm normally interested in but once my daughters start getting into fountain pens I'm sure they'll love it (I'm trying to indoctrinate them but the FP bug hasn't quite settled in yet).

 

And I wish I had even a modicum of namrehsnoom's artistic talent (but not enough to actually invest the time to develop the skill).

 

Truly great work!

[eharriett]

Got this ink on day one. I don't know what it is, but these plum-purple shades of ink really attract me.

[Enkida]

Beautiful ink review, thank you!

 

That being said, doesn't it seem like Yama Budo "dupes" are kind of trending on the (?German?) market these days?

 

I already have Lamy Beryl, which may only be vaguely in the neighborhood of the same colour, but at the risk of drowning in these violet fuschia type inks, will suffice. Pelikan's take on it does look really pretty, though!