Pelikan recently released a new addition to its line of 4001 inks: Dunkelgrün (Dark Green). I've been on the hunt for a good green ink for a little while now. I had tried Montblanc Irish Green, but found it too bright for my tastes, and it only worked well on really good paper. Feathering and bleed through was bad on copier paper. Let's face it, we all like good writing paper, but many of us are occassionally forced to write on cheap copier paper.
Most of the standard greens made by ink makers I trust are generally too bright looking. When Pelikan announced this ink, I had to try it; it just took me until now to get around to actually getting a bottle. This ink is exactly what I hoped it would be, a nice, well behaved, dark green. It's not a green/black, or anything unusual, it's just plain old green. It flows well, dries pretty quickly on the page, and has a strong color with minimal shading.
My bottle arrived yesterday, and I still have both of my Pelikans inked, so until I run through the ink in those, I won't have a chance to try this ink in an actual Pelikan pen. However, my TWSBI had just run low enough on its fill of Aurora Blue that I didn't feel bad about rinsing the last few drops down the drain in order to refill it with my new green ink. My TWSBI is also the pen I take to work with me. If I drop it on a concrete floor and break it, it won't bother me too much. This also lets me give this ink a real torture test: writing on cheap copier paper.
The writing sample I've posted below is on a sheet of Rhodia, but I used this ink at work yesterday, and it performed very well on really cheap copy paper. It didn't feather at all, and bleed through was minimal to non-existent (every ink bleeds at least a little on the paper we have at work). On my printer paper here at home, it doesn't bleed through at all. The only paper I found it to be troublesome on is Moleskine, but then that's easily some of the worst paper I've ever come across.
If you want a good quality, no-nonsense, plain old green ink, give this new offering from Pelikan a try.
P.S. Oddly, I haven't found too many U.S. vendors that sell this ink. I found mine at Anderson Pens, but they only carried the small 30ml bottle. Hopefully, more vendors will start carrying this ink.
Most of the standard greens made by ink makers I trust are generally too bright looking. When Pelikan announced this ink, I had to try it; it just took me until now to get around to actually getting a bottle. This ink is exactly what I hoped it would be, a nice, well behaved, dark green. It's not a green/black, or anything unusual, it's just plain old green. It flows well, dries pretty quickly on the page, and has a strong color with minimal shading.
My bottle arrived yesterday, and I still have both of my Pelikans inked, so until I run through the ink in those, I won't have a chance to try this ink in an actual Pelikan pen. However, my TWSBI had just run low enough on its fill of Aurora Blue that I didn't feel bad about rinsing the last few drops down the drain in order to refill it with my new green ink. My TWSBI is also the pen I take to work with me. If I drop it on a concrete floor and break it, it won't bother me too much. This also lets me give this ink a real torture test: writing on cheap copier paper.
The writing sample I've posted below is on a sheet of Rhodia, but I used this ink at work yesterday, and it performed very well on really cheap copy paper. It didn't feather at all, and bleed through was minimal to non-existent (every ink bleeds at least a little on the paper we have at work). On my printer paper here at home, it doesn't bleed through at all. The only paper I found it to be troublesome on is Moleskine, but then that's easily some of the worst paper I've ever come across.
If you want a good quality, no-nonsense, plain old green ink, give this new offering from Pelikan a try.
P.S. Oddly, I haven't found too many U.S. vendors that sell this ink. I found mine at Anderson Pens, but they only carried the small 30ml bottle. Hopefully, more vendors will start carrying this ink.
