What pen(s) are you using today?

[USG]

On 2/6/2023 at 2:56 PM, Mercian said:

That’s fascinating 👍

 

I find it amusing that I (a Brit) have internalised what the CED says is the ‘American’ definition of ‘maroon’, whereas you (an American) have internalised the ‘British’ definition 😁

 

Going back to our difference of opinion of this ink’s colour, I don’t think that your ink has changed colour in its bottle over the years (not least because mine hasn’t).

 

But, when we compare your photo…

 

 

…with mine…

 

 

I don’t think that we have the same ink!

 

I do not perceive the same amount of red in your ink as I do in mine.

(I think that the ‘redness’ or ‘maroonness’ of my ink is particularly visible in the final sentence on my photo, but also in the curve of the ‘D’ in the word ‘BROADER’ that I wrote with the italic nib.
Equally, I do see the first sentence written with the italic nib as more-‘brown’ than the sentences written with the 45’M’ nib.)

 

I also notice that the colour of your ink’s box is different to the colour of my ink’s box.

The combination of these two observations made me suspect that Waterman might have re-formulated their ‘Havana’ some time in the late 1990s.

 

So I went looking for old reviews of it.

This review by @KCat appears to show an ink that resembles your ink more than mine, in that it does not seem anywhere near as red as mine is.

 

But all the other reviews seem to show an ink that is as red as mine.
Also, in this review by @kopio(ignore the scan in the OP, it looks miscalibrated) there is this comment by @finalidid, in which s/he recounts the experience of having had Havana dry out to a green crust in some pens (follow the link to see more details).

I therefore wonder whether Waterman might have changed the ink’s formula to prevent the ink from turning green in pens 🤷‍♂️

 

That is of course mere speculation, and the difference in my perception of my ink could well be due solely to a combination of my habit of using narrow (-ish) nibs, and the idiosyncrasy/‘uniqueness’ of the proportions of different colour receptors in my retinas 😁

 

First some data.  Fortunately I wrote the date inside the lid of the box.  My ink was purchased in 12/99.  I also found another box of Waterman Havana from a couple of years before that with no date.   They both have identical barcodes 9778351068.  What's your barcode?

 

Before we get into the Maroonness of yours or the Brownness of mine I want to show you something.

 

 

 Here are my two boxes of Havana ink.   One of the problems I find with looking at scanned colors and reading ink reviews is that the lighting and the color of the paper are critical.  In your pic, you're using  a vintage paper and I'm guessing the lighting is a yellowish light as opposed to white light or daylight.
A lot of what you wrote looks like the same color as my sample, so there's that.  The color difference starts when you begin to thin out the ink to the point where the color of the paper (showing through) and the lighting are having an effect.  We've all seen enough ink swabs to know that the density has a dramatic effect on the color of an ink.  So, do we grade the color of an ink by a thin application, a medium application or a heavy application?  My preference is to judge the color of an ink from a medium nib, where the color becomes stable.   Sure, if you write with Havana light enough, there may not be enough color on the page for it to look brown, and  the light brown may not look brown anymore.  Now if you recall from my Maroon research, the way you mix maroon paint is to start with red, add blue to darken the red and then add yellow to get the desired color.  In your situation it looks like the ink was applied thinly, and yellow was added from the paper and your light source.  For a long time I was using a halogen desk lamp until I tried a 60W daylight LED bulb.  I was amazed to discover that the Halogen was adding yellow to all my ink colors. The difference was more than noticeable.   I have since changed to white LED light.  Now I really don't know your light source but the the pic is not evenly illuminated nor bright enough to really see the color of the ink except at the bottom where it's brighter and I'm going to call that light brown and not red, because I know Havana is a brown ink.🙂

 

As for your Havana, the samples in the pic you posted, where there was enough ink on the page to see the true color was the same as the color on my samples, written with a medium nib on a dip pen. I don't think a pale version of a color should be considered its true color.  So if a pale enemic line from a fine nib, on yellow paper, under yellow light, looks maroon to you, it's because you haven't laid down enough ink to see the true color of Havana. 🙂

 

So where am I going with all this....🤪

 

I'm trying to make a point about lighting.  Check this out. This is the same pic with the LED lamp that was illuminating the Havana box turned off. 

 

Trying to form an opinion about a color from something we see online can be as deceiving as the subjective description someone wrote under conditions we may not be able to replicate.  Reviews are very valuable but they have to be taken with a grain of salt.  Another thing about reviews is that they influence each other. 🙂

 

 

I'm writing this fast so If I see anything that needs to be corrected, I'll edit and make the changes.

 

On 2/6/2023 at 4:52 PM, BlueJ said:

Mercian's "chromatograph" of Waterman Havana Brown mirrors my experience: this ink contains a blue-green component that diffuses faster than the red components. This has led to an interesting behavior in some of my pens. When filled with Havana and left standing nib-up for a while, they write green for the first few letters, then almost blue-black for a line or two, with the usual dark brown dominating after that. I don't really know if this is just due to the green component migrating selectively to the nib, or if some kind of oxidation or other chemistry is involved.

I have seen that green color too, after the pen was unused for a while. I don't know if I remember the black but there was some kind of transition as the green went to dark brown.  My impression back then was that the ink in the feed had oxidized.  Now I don't know. 🙂

[USG]

45 minutes ago, AmandaW said:

The ink glistens as it goes on the page and watching it dry is mesmerizing. I

 

👍👍👍

[AmandaW]

And then there's the Lamy Lx Marron - a brown pen. Did a typo happen in a translation somewhere? R&K's Kastanienbrown Maroon should have been 'marron'?

 

Picture borrowed from Goulet.

[USG]

6 minutes ago, AmandaW said:

And then there's the Lamy Lx Marron - a brown pen. Did a typo happen in a translation somewhere? R&K's Kastanienbrown Maroon should have been 'marron'?

 

Picture borrowed from Goulet.

 

 Marron means Chestnut in French, it means Brown in Spanish and Italian  🙂

[AmandaW]

Maybe Waterman Havana got a typo or mis-translation too. It should have said 'marron', someone called it maroon, and it got copied and copied...

 

Just like R&K did on the packaging of their Kastanienbraun (which translation- tells me means chestnut brown).

[USG]

25 minutes ago, AmandaW said:

Maybe Waterman Havana got a typo or mis-translation too. It should have said 'marron', someone called it maroon, and it got copied and copied...

 

Just like R&K did on the packaging of their Kastanienbraun (which translation- tells me means chestnut brown).

 

Hahaha,  Maroon is a shade of dark red.  Your pen looks more brown coppery-bronze than maroon.  I don't see chestnut either.  You know what it really looks like, lipstick..🙂

 

Wait, your flying an Australian flag, 🍤🍤 does that mean you see maroon as red with blue added or red with brown added.?

 

[AmandaW]

30 minutes ago, USG said:

 

Hahaha,  Maroon is a shade of dark red.  Your pen looks more brown coppery-bronze than maroon.  I don't see chestnut either.  You know what it really looks like, lipstick..🙂

 

Wait, your flying an Australian flag, 🍤🍤 does that mean you see maroon as red with blue added or red with brown added.?

 

Oh, definitely brown with red. 🙃

[InkyColors]

2 hours ago, AmandaW said:

And then there's the Lamy Lx Marron - a brown pen. Did a typo happen in a translation somewhere? R&K's Kastanienbrown Maroon should have been 'marron'?

 

Picture borrowed from Goulet.

You’re really making me want this pen!  I’ve read so many comments about the lx nibs being scratchy. Have you been happy with yours?

[AmandaW]

14 minutes ago, InkyColors said:

You’re really making me want this pen!  I’ve read so many comments about the lx nibs being scratchy. Have you been happy with yours?

Very happy. I have had a couple of slightly scratchy Lamy nibs on other pens, but they were easily fixed.

 

Here's some eye candy of my Ruthenium and Marron.,, (with an Al-Star on the left).

 

[mightier.than]

16 hours ago, USG said:

 

Wow, that’s really nice…. Very nice photography btw…🙂 👍

🙂 👍 😀   🙂 

Thank you, you are very kind. 

[mightier.than]

4 hours ago, AceNinja said:

Here's another Pelikan M200 Brown Marbled in use!  It's a medium nib, currently inked with Diamine Ancient Copper.  The nib is so smooth.

 

Lovely. I have been looking for Diamine Ancient Copper for a couple of months but my local stores are out of it. 

 

Great photos, btw.

[mightier.than]

I sometimes buy pens as a pair or a set and the Kaweco Perkeo is one such where I went ahead and got two!

At first glance a very simple and not-expensive-looking pen, it draws you in when you spend the first few minutes in the hand. It's very comfortable, light, and writes beautifully. 

The all-black one is fine nibbed and inked with the Kaweco turquoise. The white translucent is medium nibbed and inked with Kaweco grey. 

The medium nib is a wet writer and lays down a nice thick line. The fine nib is somewhat wet and has a bit of feedback, but lays down a nice fine line. I found the fine nib less pleasant to use for the first fill but either it's got better after the first deep clean or I have got used to it (or a bit of both) and now I enjoy writing with both of them. 

In my carry today.

 

Edited February 7, 2023 by naganaga

[mallymal1]

Just an idea re: the Waterman Havane/Brown. 

 

Sounds like a good excuse to swap addresses and send each other letters written in those inks, to get first hand comparisons.

 

[USG]

7 hours ago, AmandaW said:

Oh, definitely brown with red. 🙃

 

LOL, but then you wouldn't have maroon, would you 😖 ❓  You'd have one of the lovely shades of brown. 😇🤠

[InkyColors]

6 hours ago, AmandaW said:

Very happy. I have had a couple of slightly scratchy Lamy nibs on other pens, but they were easily fixed.

 

Here's some eye candy of my Ruthenium and Marron.,, (with an Al-Star on the left).

 

Nice!

[USG]

4 hours ago, mallymal1 said:

Just an idea re: the Waterman Havane/Brown. 

 

Sounds like a good excuse to swap addresses and send each other letters written in those inks, to get first hand comparisons.

 

 

It's not necessary.  I can see from the samples that the inks in question are capable of a similar range of brown shades. 

 

The issue seems to revolve around the misuse of the term Maroon, not the color of the ink.

 

I never visualized Maroon as a shade of brown and when Havana was referred to as a Maroon ink, I said it wasn't. When I researched the color Maroon, sure enough, Maroon is a shade of RED (with brown or blue added). 

 

Another problem which only surfaces now is labeling the entire range of shades that Waterman Havana is capable of, according to one of its less saturated renditions.

 

In less concentrated applications, Waterman Havana can approach shades that can be misinterpreted as belonging to the Maroon family but  as the concentration increases, the true color reveals itself as a distinct brown, that only becomes a darker brown as the ink flow increases. 

 

 I failed to see how a wide range of brown shades makes Waterman Havana a (RED based) Maroon ink. 

 

It's like calling a Black ink gray because in a less saturated application it looks gray.

 

 

Today's Pen

Tomoe River Sanzen Paper

The ink is about half as dark as it shows in the pic, ie, very very light 🙂

 

[chromantic]

Optima Viola with Cross Violet last night.

[essayfaire]

On 2/5/2023 at 7:18 PM, AmandaW said:

And then there's R&K Kastanienbraun which is subtitled maroon on it's packaging, 

I never noticed the packaging said that.  Or I brushed it off as I was so enamored with the brown ink!

On 2/5/2023 at 11:31 PM, USG said:

Haha,  the problem with the sample on the left is the blue-gray color of the Clairefontaine paper. 

Very interesting, as it the chromatography discussion!

On 2/5/2023 at 11:33 PM, naganaga said:

Starting today on my office carry is the Pelikan M200 Brown Marbled. 

 

On 2/5/2023 at 11:33 PM, naganaga said:

Inked with the Taccia cha.

I have one of those pens!  I had tried inking it with Pelikan Edelstein Golden Beryl, but that was too gold for it.  I think I have the R and K mentioned above in it now.  I haven't inked it with the Taccia Cha, but that's actually one of the inks I think is vastly underused and overlooked.  It's a wonderful, reasonably-priced, well-behaved and well-saturated brown!

On 2/6/2023 at 8:31 AM, inkstainedruth said:

 Fire engine red.

What on earth would you do with it?  I don't draw, so red had all sorts of bad connotations, red ink, errata, etc.

 

On 2/6/2023 at 8:37 PM, AmandaW said:

It's a remarkable pen. It did not dry out, or even hard start, after sitting in a drawer since 2020 - just the occasional note written with it to make sure it was OK. And now having written out half the cartridge it's proven to have a nicely tuned nib as well. All for the princely sum of $3.30.

It's so cheap I can't justify paying for shipping.  Sounds enticing, though!  I hate my pens that are hard starters.

[AmandaW]

27 minutes ago, essayfaire said:

It's so cheap I can't justify paying for shipping

Hmmm... I can't recall how i got this one. I either drive about 120km round trip to get it or it was sent from the other side of Australia.

 

Now I'm trying to match the colour and wetness of the ink that came with it. Am thinking Iro Asa-gao...

[mightier.than]

1 hour ago, essayfaire said:

 

I have one of those pens!  I had tried inking it with Pelikan Edelstein Golden Beryl, but that was too gold for it.  I think I have the R and K mentioned above in it now.  I haven't inked it with the Taccia Cha, but that's actually one of the inks I think is vastly underused and overlooked.  It's a wonderful, reasonably-priced, well-behaved and well-saturated brown!

Oh, yes. The Taccia cha is a fantastic brown, and rivalled only by Krishna Inks' couple of variations on brown (I'd still prefer Taccia on most of my fine pens because Krishna tends to shade and one of them sheens and those are best demonstrated in a medium or broad nib). 

 

I believe the Taccia inks are underrated overall. I love their midori green and the slightly olive/khaki green as well as their plum.