The good stuff…
Platinum #3776 Century Nice Pur
Today Luxury Brands announced a new iron-gall ink from Platinum called Classic Ink that will begin shipping the end of February. MSRP will be $25 for a 60 ml bottle.
To quote Platinum:
Fountain pen inks that are produced using traditional methods have many times been replaced with an ink that is made by mixing dye inks due to their time-consuming production techniques. Meanwhile, Platinum Pen is currently the only company in Japan that manufactures blue black ink in a classic way. The ink color that is bright when you start writing becomes gradually black. It is also highly water resistant and suitable for permanent preservation. This time, we have paid close attention to the process of changes in color of the classic ink, and have released six new colors with the aim to enhance the joy of using fountain pens. Emphasis on the shading has been placed, offering a rich deep writing.
Kinda gives new meaning to “fade to black”.
The colors are attractive and shading is always an interesting property. My Platinum pens are excited to have a new mate or two. Not that they require special ink, but they have performed extremely well with Platinum inks and I anticipate no less with the Classic line. Whenever I get an opportunity to put one of them to the test, I will post the results.
Bruno Taut has the backstory if you would like to know more.
Caveat or not
A number of years ago, I wrote a post about iron-gall ink voicing mild uncertainty about whether it would be a high maintenance product. In the intervening years, it has proven to be on par with other inks. However, good pen hygiene is always the best policy to keep fountain pens happy and minimize cleaning time.
Avoiding the pit of politics wasn’t easy this week, but there were a few bright spots on other subjects…
Playing with your food ain’t what it used to be:
Montblanc is expanding its ink offering to more permanent colors with the addition of a blue and a black that are iron gall based. Given the new ink is intended for use in MB pens, these inks ought to be relatively safe in any fountain pen.
Midnight Blue is being reformulated to a less permanent version. If you like the current Midnight Blue, stock up now. Inventory is already running low at many stores. Expect the new inks to be on the shelves in the next month or so.
For those who are not familiar with iron gall, read So What’s The Deal With Iron Gall Ink? Montblanc has a good record of producing trouble-free ink and the new releases are not likely to disappoint. Especially where Noodler’s is not readily available, the new MB inks could be just the thing when permanence is critical.
By number of page views, these posts were voted favorites for 2012:
Note that my favorite inks, fountain pens, stationery, and matches lists were updated today.
According to WordPress,
Crunchy numbers
19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 160,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
In 2012, there were 119 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 506 posts.
The busiest day of the year was December 15th with 838 views. The most popular post that day was Best Fountain Pen Product You Don’t Own.
The top referring sites were
Most active commenters were
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BT Irwin 46 comments
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justdaveyb 14 comments
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kp 12 comments
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Bruno Taut 8 comments
A huge thank you to all who visited, linked to, or commented at An Inkophile’s Blog. You are THE BEST!
