ROHRER & KLINGNER
Available in:
Sunflower, Morinda, Pernambuco, Magenta, Old Bordeaux, Solferino, Cassia, Royal Blue, Permanent Blue, Sea Blue, Verdigris, Vridian Green, Verdure, Old Golden Green, Sepia, Leipsician Black, Scabiosa (Iron/gall), Salix (Iron/gall)
I always enjoy coming across a different ink. When in Edmonton, Alberta last month I stopped by Stylus Pens and came across Rohrer & Klingner Ink. A brand I knew nothing about.
To be clear, the company produces a number of different types of ink: Caligraphy, Traditional, Drawing ink etc. The only ink you should be considered for your fountain pen is their Writing Ink line.
The ink for pens has been available in North American since 2006. Pen stores if they stock the ink, will typically stock writing ink, but if you are in an art supply supply store, the other lines could be available.
At the time of my first review (May 2012) in the United States, Pendemonium, JetPens and the Pear Tree Pen Company and in Canada, Stylus Fine Pens of Edmonton are listed as dealers. In Europe there are numerous pen stores listed stocking the product.
The company produces inks in 18 colours. The company says the inks are produced with inter alia modern raw materials, use high-class, brilliant colorants, specially treated water and minimal amounts of additives. This well-balanced composition, Rohrer Klingner says, gives optimal flow of the inks.
The inks come in a 50 ml bottle that is round an tall. Good for filling pens, and nicely stands in a briefcase. The glass of the bottle is brown. That is to protect the ink from light. I mention that as when I first opened the bottle I had thought I purchases a brown ink by mistake.
Verdigris
The color of this ink that is shown on the company's colour chart simply does not look like the ink that you write with.
There are no blue tones but rather a dark green-gray -- thus the name.
I found this to be a good writing ink. I have used it non-stop for a week now in meetings. It has performed well on a variety of papers and so far I have been using it in my Delta Dolcevita Oro with a Stub nib and also my Montgegrappa Expressione with a Broad nib. Both writing very well.
The ink has a dry time of under 5 second, and I was writing on a rather hard, non-porous paper (Boise 32 lb Presentation Laser) paper. If I dabbed my finger in water and then ran it across the ink, yes there was some colour smear, I would expect that, but it was not a case of the ink just lifting off the paper and "melting" away.
The ink was easy to use in terms of cleaning. At one point I kept thinking, is this the right colour? So I flushed out my pen with water, and then refilled. It was not one of those inks that you simply can't get the remains of out of your pen. So, overall the ink can not be thought of as water resistant.
Interesting enough, when I was asking about various inks, and I mentioned I like dark saturated colours, this brand was not recommended. Maybe because of how the colours look on the chart. Anyway, I am glad I went back and grabbed up a bottle.