Diamine Burgundy Royale (150th Anniversary II)

[namrehsnoom]

Diamine Burgundy Royale (150th Anniversary II)

 

The ink maker from Liverpool is one of the staple brands in ink-land. They consistently produce solid inks for a very reasonable price. In 2017, Diamine released their second ink series to commemorate their 150th Anniversary. I obtained my set shortly thereafter, but it has taken me a while to review all of its members. This review covers the last missing ink: Burgundy Royale.

 

Burgundy Royale is a reddish purple that has an old-rose quality to it. Usually not my type of colour, but for some reason I find this Diamine implementation really attractive. This ink is well-saturated, and works without problem with all pens and nib sizes that I tried it with. Using really absorbent paper (like Peter Pauper), Burgundy Royale has a tendency to overflow the page with ink – way too much liquid – resulting in fat lines that don’t look too pleasing. Other than that, the ink worked well with all the papers in my test set.

 

This Burgundy Royale is one of three purple colours in the 150 Anniversary II Series. Its siblings are Lilac Night and Purple Dream.

 

This red-purple ink shades easily, with hints already showing in the EF nib, and becoming more pronounced as you move up in nib size. I personally like this ink best with nibs in the F-M-B range. Anything wider and the lines get a bit too saturated, and I find that the result becomes too dominating, disturbing the aesthetics.

 

To illustrate the colour span of Burgundy Royale, I did a swab on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper, where I really saturated portions of the paper with ink. Burgundy Royale has a fairly narrow dynamic range, without too much contrast between light and darker parts. This translates to subtle shading with excellent balance and aesthetics. Nicely done!

 

On the smudge test – rubbing text with a moist Q-tip cotton swab – the ink showed only a tiny bit of smearing, leaving the text itself crisp and clear. Water resistance is a mixed bag: most of the colour washes away, but a reddish-grey residue remains attached to the paper, resulting in a ghostly image of your writing that can still be read. This is also evident from the bottom part of the chromatography.

 

I’ve tested the ink on a wide variety of paper – from crappy Moleskine to high-end Tomoe River. On each scrap of paper I show you:

• An ink swab, made with a cotton Q-tip
• 1-2-3 pass swab, to show increasing saturation
• An ink scribble made with a Lamy Safari M-nib fountain pen
• The name of the paper used, written with a Lamy Safari B-nib
• A small text sample, written with the Lamy Safari M-nib
• Source of the quote, written with an Esterbrook Estie with 1.1 stub
• Drying times of the ink on the paper (with the M-nib Safari)

The multi-paper writing test shows that Burgundy Royale handles most papers well, looking good on both white and cream paper. There is a small amount of feathering on low-quality paper, but nothing really extreme. With cheap paper, you do get a bit of bleed-through, making it impossible to use the backside of the paper. Drying times are mostly in the 10-15 second range, going up to 20 seconds on shiny coated paper (with my M-nib Lamy Safari).

 

I also add a scan to give you an alternative look on this Diamine ink. To my eye, both scan and photo capture the colour well. 

 

Below you can find some enlarged details of writing samples. Shading is most pronounced on the Sakae Iroful paper. You can also see that the absorbent Peter Pauper paper sucks up so much ink that you get really fat lines that are oversaturated. 

 

Writing with different nib sizes
The picture below shows the effect of nib sizes on the writing (written on Rhodia N°16 80 gsm paper). All samples were written with a Lamy Safari. I also added a couple of visiting pens: a Pelikan M600 with F-nib, an Esterbrook Estie with 1.1 stub and a Wancher Dream Pen with M-nib. For me, the sweet spot of this ink is with the F-M-B nibs, where the saturation is just right and the aesthetics of the subtle shading add character to your writing.

 

Related inks
To compare Diamine Burgundy Royale with related inks, I use my nine-grid format with the currently reviewed ink at the center. This 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. Papier Plume Red Beans and Rice is a nice alternative that is just a touch less saturated, which – for me – improves the overall aesthetic.

 

Inkxperiment – BubbleFest I
As a personal challenge, I try to create interesting drawings using only the ink I’m reviewing. I find this to be a fun extension of the hobby, and these single-ink drawings are great for exploring the colour-range nuances that are present in the ink. I love doing them! 

 

For this drawing, I wanted to experiment with drops of ink to create a bubble pattern. I will continue this experiment across a couple of ink reviews, just to see how things turn out. No specific inspiration, but let’s call it a Bubble Fest 😉

 

I started with an A4 piece of HP photo paper, which I divided in sections. I then added drops of water, to which I added a tiny bit of ink. I let these drops dry naturally, and then added a few more layers. The dried fluid creates a nice texture, which could probably be better-looking with a less saturated ink. Well, that’s for a future inkxperiment. I finished the drawing by adding some background colour, and some bigger bubbles stamped in with fruit-juice bottle caps. The final drawing gives a good idea of what can be achieved with Burgundy Royale as a drawing ink.

 

Inkxpired – computational art
I love experimenting with pen/ink/paper, and have added another layer as part of the hobby. I’m exploring computational art, inspired by the ink drawings I do during ink reviews. Another fun offshoot of the hobby… and all that starting with a few drops of dye-coloured water on paper.

 

Starting from the original “BubbleFest” drawing, I first used a filter that created some really bright neon-like colours. I then followed up with a comic-book filter to accentuate lines in the drawing, and finally applied an antique paper filter with the brightness turned up. I like the resulting picture, that works really nice as a screen background on my laptop.  

 

Conclusion
Diamine Burgundy Royale is a solid red-purple that tends to oversaturate sometimes (either on overly absorbent paper, or when using really broad nibs). Although this is not my type of colour, the ink has an old-rose quality to it, that – for me – saves this ink from the ink graveyard. 

 

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

 

Backside of writing samples on different paper types

 

 

[LizEF]

I like it!  Thanks, @namrehsnoom!  Great review, as always.

 

This color makes me think of the velvet on the furniture in a fancy sitting room - or something.   Classy and antique-ish - or at least old fashioned...  I've been using up my remaining Oxblood and recently finished reviewing R&K Alt-Bordeaux, and this one seals the deal - I need a bottle of ink in this range of color.

 

As the inkxperiment scrolled into view, I first thought it was going to be a crime scene   But I love the bubble fest with its lone leaf - I think it's the leaf that does it.  And the computational version is a refreshing surprise!  Great job on both.  I look forward to future bubble fests.

[yazeh]

Thank you for such an excellent review  Sorry this ink will be joining the ink graveyard. You might use the whole bottle with the other graveyard members and do Jackson Pollock style ink-experiment. 

I actually like this colour as I have a soft spot for old roses. I find the colour, classy, quiet and elegant. Will I buy a bottle, I don't think so. I have too many inks. 

 

I like your ink-exploration, both in the textured computational style and it's subtle burgundy style, even though @LizEF imagination nearly ruined it for me  

 

Looking forward to year next ink-exploration 🙏

 

[LizEF]

1 hour ago, yazeh said:

even though @LizEF imagination nearly ruined it for me  

Sorry.

[yazeh]

4 hours ago, LizEF said:

Sorry.

Well, one can posit that an old rose, was massacred in that area @namrehsnoom decided to play homage to it ,😊

[LizEF]

2 hours ago, yazeh said:

Well, one can posit that an old rose, was massacred in that area @namrehsnoom decided to play homage to it ,😊

  Even better!

[Mercian]

On 3/29/2025 at 8:06 PM, namrehsnoom said:

Inkxpired – computational art
I love experimenting with pen/ink/paper, and have added another layer as part of the hobby. I’m exploring computational art, inspired by the ink drawings I do during ink reviews. Another fun offshoot of the hobby… and all that starting with a few drops of dye-coloured water on paper.

 

 

I ♥ this ↑ picture!

Its colours and 'texture' remind me of stained glass in a cathedral window

[AmandaW]

It got me at the "old rose quality"... definitely my kind of colour. Antique. Yes, I feel antique too.

[Baggins]

Late to see, but just as grateful.🙏