The Well-Appointed Desk

A few Birmingham Pen Co. Inks

AnaJune 6, 2022June 6, 2022

I recently purchased a handful of inks from Birmingham Pen Co. I had done a post about comparing some of the new inks with their previous formulas but this time I wanted to try a range of their various formulas: the Everlasting Formula (a permanent pigmented ink), the Keystone Inks (formerly known as the Rich Formula [sheening inks] and the Crisp Formula [traditional water-based ink]). We reviewed some of the Twinkle inks (shimmering) previously but I have not tried any of the Wishy-Washy formula (most washable inks).. yet so stayed tuned for that.

The inks we tested in this batch are clockwise from top left: Tesla Coil, Rotten Seaweed, Antique Sepia, Chimney Soot (Everlasting), Smokebox and Periwinkle. All inks sell for $15-$17 per 60ml bottle.

Rotten Seaweed vs (From top to bottom): Robert Oster Saguaro Green, Colorverse Pluto & Beyond, Robert Oster Chartreuse, Colorverse Gluon LE Version, J. Herbin Vert Olive

I’ll start with Rotten Seaweed which is in the range of my favorite colors — that muted lime green. Rotten Seaweed is a bit more gold-green than many in my collection. Its most similar to the Pen Chalet Robert Oster Exclusive Saguaro Green (second swatch from top). J. Herbin Vert Olive is a bit brighter and greener, Oster Chartuese (top sample) is a bit darker. In the middle swatches are Colorverse Pluto & Beyond and Gluon LE Edition from the Standard Model Set. While I have dozens of lime green, these were the closest. Rotten Seaweed is a more muted, golden green. I find it a very intriguing color and the shading gives an array of celery to day-old avocado colors.

Birmingham Pen Co Tesla Coil is a heavy sheening ink in a deep blue with a very visible red/pink sheen. Its a color that is pretty common in the ink world nowadays and is similar to Diamine Maureen, Organics Studio Nitrogen and the Colorverse Dromgoole’s Exclusive NASA Blue.

These inks always remind me of those automotive paint colors that look different in sunlight. Super sheeners like this will catch the light and look more red than blue but in lower, less extreme light or on different paper stocks, the sheen may not be noticeable at all.

Inks this sheening can have some rub off because there is so much pigment that it sits on the surface of the paper. If it comes into contact with any humidity or moisture, the color can smear. Tesla Coil is no more likely to do this than any of these other colors but just be wary. This smearing is of particular concern to lefties and folks who like to use both sides of the paper in their notebooks as there can be some transference.

Ah, Periwinkle! Laura and I were laughing because she’s been reviewing periwinkle hued inks the last few weeks in honor of the Pantone Color of the Year and here I go, encroaching on her theme. Birmingham Pen Co. Periwinkle is a more orchid reddish purple that some of the colors she’s reviewed (ink 1 and ink 2). Compared to the swatched shown above, Periwinkle as a beautiful shading ink, is a bit darker than Ferris Wheel Press Little Robinia and warmer in hue than Troublemaker Foxglove or Kobe #57 Himeajisai/Hydrangea. Its hard to say definitively if this is my favorite of the lot but its darn close.

Ah, Smokebox. I love a good grey ink an Smokebox is right up there in the shading, neutral/cool grey category along with Kaweco Smokey Grey, Edelstein Moonstone and Montblanc Oyster Grey. Smokebox is a more modestly priced ink when compared to Montblanc and Edelstein but the Kaweco is in a similar price range.

Birmingham Chimney Soot vs. my favorite permanent black, Platinum Carbon Black

I know it was probably unfair to put Birmingham Chimney Soot Everlasting ink up against the reigning champ of permanent black inks but it’s the only permanent black ink I own. Remarkably, it performed quite well with just a little color transfer on the largest, most ink saturated writing on th top of this card. On both cards, over the lettering, I brushed a wet paint brush over the writing to test its waterproofiness. Chimney Soot is a competitor!

Birmingham Antique Sepia comparison: (top to bottom) Troublemaker Petrichor, Kala Abstraction Sierra Mist, and Troublemaker Kelp Tea.

The last ink I tried was the Antique Sepia which is a color-shifting ink. It has a lot of mossy green with pools of a warmer pinky-beige and some deeper teal halo-ing. Finding a comp to this weas a challenge. I don’t have a lot of color shifting inks but the Troublemaker colors (Petrichor and Kelp Tea) have some of the same hues but with different over- and under-tones. Kala Abstraction Pigment ink in Sierra Mist is the closest ink I have to the dominant color in Antique Sepia.

Overall, I’m delighted to see how vast the Birmingham Pen Co. ink offerings are and how much they are experimenting with a range of ink properties. Their generous 60ml bottle for approx. $15 is incredibly reasonable for indie-produced inks.

Check out their collection for yourself and let me know what your favorite colors are.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Birmingham Pen Co. for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In news

See You in St. Louis?

AnaJune 3, 2022June 3, 20226 Comments

We are just weeks away from the Saint Louis Pen Show. This is the first show since 2019 the Well-Appointed Desk has had a table so you will know exactly where to find me. I will be bringing a full selection of Col-o-ring products, letterpress stationery, rubber stamps, stamp pads and vintage office supplies. I don’t plan on bringing any typewriters unless we have specific requests.

Jesi will once again be helping Dromgoole’s with their ink table.

Jesi and I will also being hosting a seminar All the Inks on Saturday at 2pm. If you have any ink related questions or topics you think we should cover in the seminar, leave a comment below and we will try to add it to the presentation.

And, of course, in the evenings, you may be able to spot Jesi and I hanging around the bar with lots of pens, inks and papers to try. Please come over and say hello. We don’t bite but we do like G&Ts.

If you have any pens that have been reviewed here on the blog that you might like to see in person, leave a comment and I’ll pack it in my trusty USPS “official use only” mail bucket.

I can’t wait to see everyone in person. Will you be there too?

In feature, Ink Review

Ink Review: A Closer Look at Anderillium

Jessica ColesJune 2, 2022June 2, 20222 Comments

This week I am looking at the properties of Anderillium inks, starting with the first four from the Cepholapod series: Blue-ringed Octopus blue, Bobtail Squid green, Vampire Squid red, and Cuttlefish brown. If you would like to see all 16 ink colors, be sure to read my post from last week!

First, a comparison of colors. Blue-ringed Octopus blue is a bright cyan that sheens red occasionally. It reminds me of Pelikan Edelstein, but when I compared the two, Blue-ringed Octopus is noticeably darker.

Bobtail Squid green is a bit brighter than Robert Oster Jade, and not quite as yellow. I love the shading in this ink – the difference between the dark and light shades is dramatic.

Vampire Squid red is a wonderful bright red that is dark enough to not hurt your eyes. You can see a touch of the gold sheen in the lower right corner of the swatch card below.

Cuttlefish brown is a very interesting ink – when used with a wet-writing pen or nib, it appears off-black. When Cuttlefish is used in a fine pen or a dry pen, it appears as a light, muddy brown with hints of yellow. Montblanc Wood & Tobacco is the closest color I have to Cuttlefish and even the Montblanc ink isn’t quite as dramatic.

Below are the four inks on wheat straw paper from my swatch booklet. There was no feathering and no show-through but also no sheen on this paper.

Below is Tomoe River paper. I’ve slightly smeared each ink below to show some of the properties of the ink although please note that the green in the Blue-ringed Octopus smear is from inky fingers, not from the ink itself. TR paper shows the Bobtail ink shading and a bit of the shading in Cuttlefish, but the nibs that I used for Blue-ringed Octopus and Vampire Squid were too narrow to show sheen. You can see a hint of sheen in both in the smeared ink at the bottom of the page, however.

Shading is better on the Cosmo Air Light paper below, especially in Bobtail Squid. Cuttlefish showed no real shading here and I continued to not see sheen in Blue-ringed Octopus or Vampire Squid. The smear tests with the blue and red both showed the sheen, however.

Midori MD paper light seems to have a flattening effect on each of the four inks although you can see more of the color variation in the Cuttlefish smear. I saw no sheen on this paper.

Out of the four types of paper I used in these tests (five if you count the Col-o-ring cards), there was no feathering, no bleed-through, and no smearing (except where I smeared on purpose!). Out of the four inks, Cuttlefish and Bobtail Squid are absolute favorites because of their unique colors. Blue-ringed Octopus is a beautiful cyan and I am going to try a wider nib for better sheen. Vampire Squid red is one I would probably pass on – the color is not quite saturated enough for my taste and was too dry.

All four inks I have shown in this post do feel slightly dry on paper but flow well through the pen. I didn’t experience hard starts or railroading, but the feel on the page was similar to writing on slightly toothy paper. I rather enjoyed the feel of the drier ink! I have several wet-writing pens that will be great to use with Anderillium inks to balance the flow.

Check back next week for more Anderillium ink testing!

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Link Love

Link Love: Kitten Vibes

AnaJune 1, 2022June 1, 20221 Comment

The kitty vibe is strong this week. Our pal Charlie over at Doodlewash created a darling watercolor illustration of a kitten ready to pounce and Emmeline Draws released her new enamel pin, Book Kitties. When a theme emerges, I just need to go with it.

Illustration by Charlie O’Shields at Doodlewash

Speaking of kittens, our kitten clan is doing well. The kittens go for their second round of vaccinations this week and Pickle, the one kitten who is already adopted, will be going to her fur-ever home this weekend. They are exuberant, curious and bring us a ton of joy. Hopefully, soon many will go off to new adventures with new homes to bring joy and happiness to others too.

I know there’s been a lot of kitten talk these last few weeks but six kittens and a mama cat certainly have occupied a good deal of my head space (and studio space).

I could have written about the Star Wars Celebration event and the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi but you knew I was a Star Wars nerd already?

Don’t forget the great links below including the Dominant Industry Mirror Inks, edible burrito tape and the Lamy Aion gets sour grapes from A Fleeting Ripple. See you all next week!

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In Ink Review

Ink Review: PENBBS #273, Blue Sky Shimmer

Laura CameronMay 31, 2022May 31, 2022

In my ongoing quest to find the perfect periwinkle ink, I couldn’t leave out PENBBS #273, Blue Sky Shimmer (60mL for $16.00). I should say that I’m biased in that I think PENBBS makes some of the best shimmer inks I’ve seen!

Blue Sky Shimmer is a light powder blue, with silver shimmer. It shades quite a bit, and while it is lovely in every application. I do think in writing it’s a bit light for my tastes.

The reason I love PENBBS inks so much is that I think they do shimmer just right for my tastes. They use the finest particles I’ve seen, and I’ve not had one clog up a pen. Their light touch gives the ink just the right amount of shimmer so that I don’t feel like a super sparkly vampire when I’m writing on business documents or signing checks with my fountain pen!

In terms of the recent inks I’ve reviewed, Blue Sky Shimmer is a bit like Vinta Ink Salimbay in terms of intensity. But Salimbay leans a bit more purple, and that shimmer is all pink. Between the two, I might be partial to Salimbay. These two are definitely the lightest and most ethereal looking of the inks I’ve tested so far, and probably come closest to Pantone’s Very Peri. What do you think?

Paper: Maruman Mnemosyne N182A Inspiration Notebook A5 ($10.50)
Pen: Delike Glass Signature Pen ($37.80)
Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Book ($10) and Col-o-Dex Rotary Cards ($15)
Inks: PENBBS #273, Blue Sky Shimmer (60mL for $16.00)

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Fountain Pen Review

Kickstarter: Ensso Ebonite Fountain Pens

AnaMay 30, 2022May 30, 2022

The latest Kickstarter from Ensso is a pair of Japanese Ebonite fountain pens. One is a mini pocket pen and the other is a full-sized, cigar-shaped (dirigible-shaped?) fountain pen. Ebonite is extremely lightweight which allows these pens to be of similar width and size to the earlier Ensso metal machined PIUMA pens but at a fraction of the weight.

The mini pen is so small that it can take either cartridges or be eye dropper filled. The front section is extremely short. I suppose the Kaweco squeeze converter might work but it doesn’t really hold more ink that a cartridge. The mini pen did come with a rubber gasket and pre-greased threads making the first eye dropper filling an easy task.

The pens feature a #6 Bock nib painted black for a matte black-on-black aesthetic. There is an option for a silver tone titanium nib rather than the black.

Clearly, the mini pen is too short to use without posting the cap but the full-sized can be posted or used unposted. It’s satisfactorily long enough to work either way.

I know a lot of people prefer JOWO nibs but I found these Bock nibs to be a joy to write with.

Size Comparisons:

When compared with other pens, I lined the mini pen up along side a Kaweco AL Sport, Opus 88 Fantasia and a Sailor Pro Gear Pocket. The full-sized is compared to an Aurora Optima, an Opus 88 Koloro and a Lamy Al-Star. The mini is definitely smaller in length that any of the other pens shown while also being the widest. The full-sized is comparable in length, when capped, the the Koloro and AL-Star.

When posted, the mini is comparable in length while noticeably featuring a larger nib. The full-sized Ensso Ebonite is almost the same length as the Lamy when posted.

As for weight comparisons, the full-sized pen weighs 18gms posted or capped and 14gms unposted. The mini pen weighs 12gms posted/capped and 9gms unposted. This makes the full-sized pen comparable in weight to a Lamy Safari and the mini pocket pen comparable to a Kaweco Sport (approx. 10gms with cartridge).

There are 300 “early bird” backer pens available at $79. After that, the price goes up to $89 per pen. There is a $40 upcharge for a titanium nib.

I’m pleased that Ensso is trying new, lighter materials for their pens. I am hoping that this kickstarter will be successful so that they might introduce some other colors or material — though this pen will cement my place int he Black Pen Society.

Tools:

Paper: Elia Note with 8mm guide sheet
Pens: Ensso Japanese Ebonite Regular & Pocket Sized Fountain Pen ($79 and up)
Ink: Diamine Prussian Blue (18-pack of cartridges for $8.50) and Monteverde Sweet Life Blue Velvet Cake ($10 for 30ml bottle)

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Ensso for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Paper Review

Notebook Review: Dapper Notes/Railway Station Press Mikado Notebooks

AnaMay 27, 2022May 24, 20221 Comment

Review by Tina Koyama

The pocket-size notebook market is well-saturated with the stapled-paper basic. Finding a unique offering isn’t easy; in fact, only one comes easily to mind: Dapper Notes and Stationery. Handmade by Enon Avital, each fabric-covered, sewn notebook edition has a distinctive theme. Many past limited editions included cover designs in collaboration with other artists. Offered by subscription and individually (if you are fast and lucky enough), the small runs sell out quickly.

Dapper Notes’ current collaboration is with Stuart Bradley of Railway Station Press, publisher of non-fiction books. Their Kickstarter campaign, which ends June 16, brings together Avital’s Mikado notebooks and Bradley’s collection of reproductions of Hiroshige’s Last Woodblocks: 100 Famous Views of Edo, which includes 119 images ($30). Bradley’s 6-by-9-inch, perfect-bound book is in a vertical format with one full-color print per page. A spiral-bound Stamp Collectors Limited Edition album, which comes with six Hiroshige stamps, is also offered ($48). (Other books and postcards are also available at some reward levels. See the Kickstarter campaign for more details.)

The Mikado notebook edition includes two elegant cover designs of Hiroshige images, Flying Crane and Standing Crane ($15 each). The two cover images are based on woodblock number 102 of the Edo series, which shows two red-crowned cranes. According to the Kickstarter campaign information: “For the Japanese, the rare and beautiful red-crowned cranes are symbols of good luck and longevity.”

The standard 3 ½-by-5 ½-inch size, the notebooks’ dimensions are the only thing about them that is standard. Produced in England, the 7.5-ounce cotton twill fabric is glued by hand to book cloth. The two Mikado books include four varieties of end sheets made of hand-stenciled washi paper in red or blue. (First image below provided by Bradley. It’s one of eight pages in the book showing Avital’s bookmaking process and materials.)

Flying Crane, the notebook shown in this review, has 48 pages of dot-grid ruled, 70-pound white paper. Standing Crane’s paper is grid ruled. The first page includes space for pertinent information. The last sheet includes a printed ruler, with information about the collaborators behind it.

The hand sewn book is stitched with heavy blue thread.

Interior paper of 70-pound weight is a nice treat in any pocket notebook. It has slightly more tooth than what’s typically found in Field Notes and other similar notebooks, so it takes well to both pencil and pen.

For my media tests, I pulled out some of my juiciest pens just to see what it could handle. Only bits of my super-juicy Sailor Fude De Mannen nib with Platinum Carbon Black ink and the Zebra Optex highlighter came through to the reverse side. Even the Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle pencil did not come through where I washed it lightly. I will enjoy both writing and sketching in this book.

Although it doesn’t bother me, one thing that some may complain about is that the book doesn’t stay completely closed when laid on a desktop, probably due to its thickness in a single signature. I do have a small concern about cover durability. I’m sure the fabric is more durable than paper against moisture, but the edges are already fraying a bit. I carry my pocket notebooks in a bag pocket where they receive little wear, so it will probably be fine. But those who hip-pocket carry might want to use a cover with this one. (I would be interested in hearing from readers who use Dapper’s books about how they fare after pocket-carrying for a while.)

Below are a couple more pages from Bradley’s book that show some of Avital’s bookmaking production steps. I was also given some lovely postcards that Bradley published featuring images from Hiroshige’s 53 Stations of the Tokaido Road woodblock prints.

If you have been wanting to try a unique, distinctive and handmade pocket notebook, Dapper Notebooks’ Mikado edition would be a good one to start with. The Kickstarter campaign ends June 16. Go!