Review by Laura Cameron
At the St. Louis Pen Show, I was lucky enough to win a bottle of David Oscarson ink in what appeared to be a dark purple. The bottle wasn’t labeled other than with the brand, so I had no idea what I was looking at until I came home and Google’d it. It would appear that Bertram’s Inkwell (30mL for $14.95) is one of the exclusive distributors of a special ink produced in Europe to commemorate the 15th Anniversary of David Oscarson. The ink colorway is Royal Purple.
Royal Purple is pretty much what you would expect – a red-violet regal purple. The ink doesn’t appear to have much sheen, but has a ton of great shading.
I was pleased to see that Royal Purple came out dark enough using a thin nib. I was worried that it would end up shading lightly, but it is very readable even using the glass nib, the thinnest nib I have.
The only place I saw a tiny bit of green sheen was in my ink drops.
In terms of ink comparisons, I found Royal Purple to be closest to Monteverde’s Purple Reign. Even though they don’t quite appear so in this light, in natural light I found Purple Reign to be very close to the lighter tones of Royal Purple. Bungubox L’Amant was too pink, and Mont Blanc’s Psychedelic Purple was definitely too blue.
Overall, I’m pleased to be able to add this one to my collection!
I’m not usually crazy about purples, but I really like this one. Thanks for a good review.