Welcome to Ink Of The Month for December ’19
Lamy is one of those brands that I have very mixed feelings about; on the one hand I admire the build quality and reliability of their pens but on the other hand I really don’t like the triangular section on the Safari/Al Star range, in my opinion it is long overdue for a design overhaul.
So as you will have gathered, I’m a mixture of impressed and unimpressed and so it was with some trepidation that I approached their inks.
In the past I had read good things about Lamy ink but never got around to trying it and then one day I found myself in Warren & Son in Winchester. A wonderful stationery store, and if you should ever find yourself in Winchester, I would urge you to pay them a visit.
Whenever I’ve been in, I’ve found the front of the store dedicated to seasonal and similar offerings and its only when you venture to the back of the store do you find the serious stationery. The hold a good range of fountain pens and notebooks and other ‘essential’ supplies.
So, there I was at the back of the store in the staring at the display of fountain pens when I noticed the Lamy’s Crystal Inks; five minutes later and £19GBP lighter I was leaving the store with a bottle of Azurite and a bottle of Obsidian. If you are not familiar with Lamy inks the Azurite is nice purple and the Obsidian is black.
Before I talk about what the ink is like I’d just like to dwell on what you get; and what you get is 30ml of your chosen ink in a predominantly white box with the crystal design reflecting the colour you have bought and the bottom edge having roughly a 4mm border again in the colour you have bought.
From the outside this is pretty fancy packaging and it gets better when you open the box because inside your bottle is held in place with a piece of card with a hole cut in it to take the size of the cap that stabilises the bottle. When you lift the bottle out you will see, in the bottom of the box, a card and foam insert that the bottle sits on, I told you this was some fancy packaging!
The triangular bottle is made of glass with a thick base and a large circular silver cap embossed with the Crystal logo and what this means is that the opening of the bottle is spacious so you will have no issues loading your pen.
I loaded the ink into a Wing Sung 3013 with a ‘medium’ nib and took it for a spin. The ink is well behaved and flows very freely and if anything in this pen it is definitely a wet ink so when writing with it I found it tends to come out darker than the swab tests, but I can say without hesitation it is a lovely ink to use.
The swab test itself came out a vibrant, well saturated purple with a nice hint of blue and this darkens a little with a second and third pass but not as much as I expected.
So, do I think this is worth your pennies?
Definitely, for £9.50GBP or thereabouts, what you get is a wonderful boxed ink that will make a fantastic gift, so either treat yourself (always a good idea) or the stationery addict in your life by dropping one of these in their stocking this Christmas.
For now, I am looking forward to seeing how Obsidian compares to my favourite black, Herbin’s Perle Noire, and in the meantime I’m adding a bottle of Ruby to my shopping list.
Disclaimer: The ink was purchased with my own funds at retail price. The opinions expressed in this review are my own; and I am not connected with either the retailers or manufacturers in any way.
The Indian Marmalade Company 