Beautiful inks in a smart, deco style ink bottle
The Brand's Ink Bottle
Big bottle that looks great on the desk
About the ink
The Graf von Faber-Castel ink comes in a beautiful large bottle that has a bit of a art deco style.
The bottles give you a good supply of the ink, 75 ml rather than the more traditional 50 ml bottles, and considerably more than some of the brands that recently have been coming out with 30 ml bottles. Be prepared for a heft price. This is not a cheap ink price wise or in ink quality. Remember you are really getting 1 1/2 bottles of ink when you compare this bottle to the traditional 75 ml bottle.
The big bottle is important not only to have a good supply, but to provide a bottle of enough depth that it can nicely fill a pen with a large nib. I am not talking about monster nibs, but a Number 6 nib, common to many fountain pens, needs a specific amount of ink to have the nib fully submerged in the ink. The bottle with his heavy glass and the extra heavy base section just feels good to hold.
Graf von Faber-Castell calls their ink as indelible if it is smudge-resistant, reproducible, light-fast and permanent, cannot be erased and is resistant to many chemicals and solvents.
The ink is available in the following colours:
Stone Grey
I think 2020 and 2021 were the years of searching for the perfect grey ink. In 2021 I came across a bottle of Stone Grey while I was visiting my local pen store, Vancouver Pen.
The colour is a medium dark grey. I would say this ink has a medium flow. The colour has depth of the colour helps to prevent a page of writing with the ink having a washed-out look. The flow is good and I have tried it out in a number of different pens. The ink does not have a finicky character - use it in any pen you have.
The ink fully dries in 30 seconds so you do have to take care about smearing right after the ink hits the page. This is not a waterproof ink, but it gets classified as a water resistant ink. A water drop will cause smearing, but not totally lift the ink off the paper. There is shading that will come out when your nib creates different widths.
I does have the Diamine Grey, which is a bit darker. I have seen samples and this ink is somewhat similar to Diamine's Silver Fox ink.
Midnight Blue
I like dark rich colours. Some of my pens have large stub or broad nibs. Some ink colours do not hold a strong enough colour when the line of ink from a lrge nib. Midnight Blue has a great solid look and delivers a good consistent colour even in a large nib like my SCRIBO Feel Folgia pen with a big stub nib.
If you want a deep strong colour, this is one to consider. It is called Midnight Blue, and it is a blue black, with a emphasis towards the black. Sometimes I have used the ink and almost think it is black! I would not consider this an ink that shades. I have seen ink samples produced with swabs that shows a range of colours but that will not occur when this ink is delivered through a nib to paper.
The ink performs well on a variety of papers. My sample above is on artist's sketch paper. But as I write with the ink on other quality of paper I have not been dissapointed.
There is a bit of water resistance to the ink. If you hand is wet and touch writing there will be some smudging, but the ink does not just lift and disappear from the page. That's good. Reasonable dry time, some smudging if you drag you hand across the ink up to 10 seconds. This is influenced by the size of nib (width of the line) and the absorbency of the paper. If the ink is just sitting on the paper, then expect a bit more smearing. Overall, it performs well.
Midnight Blue
Garnet Red
A beatiful rich red that I use on a frequent basis. I think I like it as the ink is a red-burgundy tone. The burgundy gives the ink character and keeps it away from beling garish - something that red inks sometime have. So I find this red easy on the eye for both business and personal writing use. Some say the ink is a bit similar to Diamine Oxblood, but I find it a bit more red that Oxbloo.
The ink has good flow, and is dry in about 15 seconds.
The ink is classified as light-fast, which means that it will not fad away when your writing is left exposed to light.
Great ink in a beautiful bottle that looks great on your desk. This is a good selection for ink.
Cognac Brown
Cognac Brown is an interesting colour, it is a light brown/tan - well lighter than Hazelnut Brown. I found the colour varied by the width and style of the nib I was using. It has a beautiful soft brown look with enough colour depth that it does not look wash-out on the page. It is fairly water resistant. I dropped some water on my sample above as I was cleaningout a nib. As you can see, the inks remains on the paper, some smudging occurs. That is okay as with some inks when water has hit the paper the ink totally lifts off the paper.
Good performing ink, pretty much consistent with the other colours in the line.
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Olive Green
This is one of my favorite inks in the line. Some green inks can be harsh in colour. Not so with this olive-tone green. This colour looks elegant in all writing - business or personal. The green is solid and flat. There is little shading and no shimmer. No shinny surface that sometimes ust never dries.
The ink is on the "wet" side, with good flow. It is dry on the paper in under 15-20 seconds and fairly water resistant.
It has beeen a primary colour choosen for some of trips and writings in my Travel Journal. Good performance. Reasonable dry time.
Cobalt Blue
For many, it seems we are always on the search for the perfect blue. Well, this is close to it. Not sure the goal can ever be reached but this is almost as good as it gets. Dark in colour, you will not see any shading in your strokes. Just one good looking line of blue ink. The ink does not feather, there is little bleed-through and it is a moderately wet ink. Not a gushing ink that can be difficult on some papers.
Dry time is reasonable, about 25 seconds with paper such as Leuchttrum 1917, a little faster on typical office quality paper.
I have liked this ink from the first time I used it. Solid colour, great for business and personal writing. Works well in all pens I have filled - and that over theyears is quite a few.
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