It’s fair to say that my experiences of Pelikan fountain pens have not, to date, been good. I had the Stola 3 which arrived damaged thanks to the genius who designed the tube case clip for Pelikan and then I had the M205 Demonstrator; suffice to say I have thrown away better unbranded pens than this.
As my experiences of Pelikan had set the bar so low that I tripped over it my expectations were not high, but I like orange inks, so I was prepared to try it out.
I ordered a bottle of Mandarin as part of a larger order and it duly arrived; it comes in a nice presentation box and when I opened it, I was very pleased to see the ink was well secured by two blocks of foam.
It is when you get the bottle out of the box and the light catches it that the magic happens; light hitting the ink causes it to glow and this is increased by the light reflecting from the thick glass base.
It’s easy to see that a lot of time and effort has been expended creating the bottle from the faceted cap with its silver Pelikans to the concave sides and thick base. No doubt it would have been very easy, and far less costly, for Pelikan to get a standard bottle instead of creating their own but then that would have made this just another ink.
If you want a good example of what I mean when I talk about the design of the bottle just pick one up and hold it in your hand because that’s when you notice how comfortable and secure it is in your hand; and that’s the benefit of the concave sides.
So how did it do when I tested it out?
The answer to that is very well.
The three stripe Q-Tip test produced good results providing a good strong orange and as far as I could see there was no sheen to this ink. The text test produced nice consistent orange text, the ink flowed well without being excessive, so it dried quite quickly, and I didn’t experience any skipping or hard starts.
Finally, is it worth your pennies?
At around £17.00GBP this is not a cheap ink and you could get a comparable ink for considerably less e.g. Diamine Pumpkin or similar, however, I think you would be missing out; so the next time you are in the market for an orange ink put this one on your 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 