It would not surprise me if you’ve never heard of Rohrer & Klingner before. I only first found out about them when I received the samples. Rohrer & Klingner Leipzig-Co. is a German company founded in Leipzig in 1907 by Johann Adolf Rohrer and Felix Arthur Klingner. They have a long and well established history for creating inks and other products related to lithography. You can find out more about their history at their website: http://www.rohrer-klingner.de/en/sites/0.htm They currently produce 18 different colors available in 50ml glass bottles.

Fernambuk was the last of the Rohrer & Klingner samples I tried. It is a nice, bright red color that really pulls your eye towards it. It has a hint of orange in it on my monitor that shouldn’t be there and I hope it appears closer to its actual color for your sake. This is probably one of those inks where you just need to get a sample of it for yourself so you can experience its true color.

As with all the other Rohrer & Klingner inks Fernambuk flows well, lubricates the nib nicely, and resist shading on printer paper very well. The Pelikan M200 is what I reach for if I want to see how much shading an ink has. Fernambuk has very little if any. So, if you’re looking for an ink that dries quickly with lots of shading then you’ll want to look for something else. But, if you want to try some new colors and need a high quality, dependable ink, then this ink is well worth your money.

It would not surprise me if you’ve never heard of Rohrer & Klingner before. I only first found out about them when I received the samples. Rohrer & Klingner Leipzig-Co. is a German company founded in Leipzig in 1907 by Johann Adolf Rohrer and Felix Arthur Klingner. They have a long and well established history for creating inks and other products related to lithography. You can find out more about their history at their website: http://www.rohrer-klingner.de/en/sites/0.htm They currently produce 18 different colors available in 50ml glass bottles.

The ink I’m reviewing here is called Morinda and it is a color I’m having difficulty accurately representing. It is definitely a red with slight rust colored under-tones. It’s not a bright color but it is still saturated and very appealing. The sample written on the Rhodia paper is much closer to the actual color than the sample on the printer paper. This ink retains the qualities of the other R&K ink I’ve tried, even the slightly extended drying times when written with a wet nib.

Please forgive my mistake of calling the pen I used the “Lamy M200″ in the sample. It should be the Pelikan M200. I chose to do the writing sample with this particular pen because if an ink has any shading to it at all this pen will bring it out. It is somewhat of a wet writer so that will contribute to the longer drying times. You can see below that this ink resist feathering on printer paper, even when with the heavy flow of the M200.

This particular color of ink doesn’t appeal to me as much as the Solferino, but it’s still a good ink in and of itself. Like I said in the Solferino review, if you’re looking for new colors then you must give this ink a try.

It would not surprise me if you’ve never heard of Rohrer & Klingner before. I only first found out about them when I received the samples. Rohrer & Klingner Leipzig-Co. is a German company founded in Leipzig in 1907 by Johann Adolf Rohrer and Felix Arthur Klingner. They have a long and well established history for creating inks and other products related to lithography. You can find out more about their history at their website: http://www.rohrer-klingner.de/en/sites/0.htm They currently produce 18 different colors available in 50ml glass bottles.

If you’re looking for a black ink that doesn’t have to be the blackest of all blacks then you should give R&K Leipziger Shwarz a try. In addition to being a high quality ink it also has a slight bit of shading to make it more interesting. If used in a drier writing pen it would give a nice dark gray/charcoal color. Because of the quality of this ink and its’ shading I think it has the potential to stand with the best of the black inks available today, including Aurora Black.  The only thing holding it back is its delayed drying times when used in a wet writer.

Just like the other R&K inks this one does very well to resis feathering on printer paper. Where some inks are almost unusable because of how much they feather you will be able to rely on this ink to control itself.

It would not surprise me if you’ve never heard of Rohrer & Klingner before. I only first found out about them when I received the samples. Rohrer & Klingner Leipzig-Co. is a German company founded in Leipzig in 1907 by Johann Adolf Rohrer and Felix Arthur Klingner. They have a long and well established history for creating inks and other products related to lithography. You can find out more about their history at their website: http://www.rohrer-klingner.de/en/sites/0.htm They currently produce 18 different colors available in 50ml glass bottles.

The ink I’m reviewing here is called Solferino, a beautiful purple that has found its way to the top of my lists for purples. The ink itself has great qualities, which is consistent among the 4 colors I’ve used. The ink has good saturation which contributes to a drying time on par with Noodlers or Private Reserve. If you’re looking for a quick drying ink this probably isn’t going to suffice. I’ve provided a writing sample below with drying times marked in seconds:

Please forgive my mistake of calling the pen I used the “Lamy M200″ in the sample. It should be the Pelikan M200. I chose to do the writing sample with this particular pen because if an ink has any shading to it at all this pen will bring it out. It is somewhat of a wet writer so that will contribute to the longer drying times. You can see that in the first half of the stroke it is dry with no smearing. Only in the second, much wetter half of the stroke was smearing an issue.

I also did a sample on printer paper to see how much it would feather. Due to the wetness of the nib I would say it did pretty good.

If you’re looking for a great ink and some new colors then don’t hesitate to get a hold of some R&K samplers. I can’t wait to get a bottle of Solferino for myself.

I used the ink on three different papers: Clairefontain, Rhodia, and Piccadilly.  I used the same pens as I did with the Orange Indien review except for the Parker 51.

Click the images for a supersized scan. Warning, they’re large (~6MB).

As with every ink I’ve used on my Clairefontaine paper, this ink performed exceptionally well.  I noticed it doesn’t feel watered down and provides a very smooth writing experience, even with the italic nib in my Faber Castell Ambition.  The only thing to watch out for if using this ink on this paper is the drying time.  If you’re a lefty it’ll be problematic and you should try it on Rhodia paper.  If you’re a righty I don’t think you’ll have to worry about it.

The differences in the writing experiences between Rhodia and Clairefontaine are barely noticeable.  They’re both incredibly smooth, hold ink very well, and don’t feather or allow bleed through.  I think the drying time for the Rhodia paper is slightly quicker, I’m talking like a second or two.  But as I mentioned above, that may be a very important factor for the left handed writer.  Other than that they’re so similar I usually don’t have a preference unless I’m using an italic or cursive italic nib, but those details should be saved for a paper review.

My final test was on my Piccadilly pad.

As to be expected the ink feathered and bled through the page, just like nearly every other ink I’ve used in the Piccadilly.  Go here to see my review of the Piccadilly pad and what inks I recommend for it.  In the written portion on the Piccadilly pad I did comment on the color depth of the ink when used in pens that flow more or less than “standard” (if there is a standard flow).  After writing several sentences the color difference between the pens become harder to notice.  It’s more pronounced when you start writing after a slight pause.  I don’t consider this feature positive or negative, just that it should be noted.

The more I use J. Herbin inks the more I like them.  I really like the colors and the way the ink performs.  The Vert Empire, along with all other J. Herbin inks I’ve used, flows well in all my pens and exhibit little to no nib creep.  If you have a chance to try a sample I highly suggest you do.

I’ve only used one other J. Herbin ink before, Lierre Sauvage.  It is a beautiful green, one which I’m quite fond of and is of high quality.  I was not sure what to expect from the Orange Indien but after using for a few days in several pens I can say I’m very pleased with its performance and especially its color. The only thing I’m not happy about with this ink is that unless you clean the pen out VERY well it will take on the tint of the previous ink in your pen. I flush my pens several times, until the water comes out clear, before I put in a new ink and Orange Indien still changed colors on me. If this happens to you I would suggest only using this ink in a brand new pen and reserving that pen just for orange and yellow inks.

One thing I need to make a comment on is the bottle.  Not that it has any influence on the review of the ink itself, but it’s just such a nifty design.  I really like the integrated pen holder but I think the execution is poor. The seem in the middle doesn’t provide a stable rest and is barely large enough to suit a Parker “51″.  The other downside is that the bottle is a little shallow.  Trying to fill my Vanishing Point nibs will start to become a problem once the ink level has dropped just from 2-3 fills.  There are ways around this problem, but none of them are very convenient.

The first writing sample I conducted was on Clairefontaine paper.

Next is a writing sample on Rhoida.

As was expected, the ink performed about the same on both papers, which is to say very well. And just for fun I decided to see how the ink performed on a Piccadilly pad, which can have a problem with feathering. Unfortunately, Orange Indien feathered too, which isn’t all that surprising as I’ve only been able to find one ink that didn’t feather on Piccadilly and I can’t remember what it was.

Click on any of the pics for very large resolution scans.

If you like using Moleskine notebooks you’ll probably really like what Piccadilly has to offer.  The Piccadilly is a hard cover notebook, has an expandable pocket in the back, a bookmark ribbon, and an elastic closure.  Throw in some rounded corners, a cheap price tag (I paid $5.99 for each of mine) and you’ve got yourself a solid notebook for less than half the price of a Moleskine.

There are some downsides to this notebook that may keep some people from buying it.  A little annoyance that is immediately noticable is the weak elasticity of the closure.  It has just enough tension to keep the book closed.  It does its job just fine, it just feels weak.  That certainly wouldn’t keep me from buying it again.  What will keep me from buying another one is the way ink feathers on this paper.  Depending on what ink you use this notebook may be unusable.

Below you’ll see an example of the Piccadilly compared to a Rhodia pad.  The Rhodia pad is the second line of writing on the bright white paper.  Some inks behave themselves better than others with Noodlers performing the best in my experience.

Below is the full list of inks I experimented with.  It is in the same format as above, the Piccadilly sample is first, then the Rhodia sample directly underneith.  Click the image for a larger resolution file that is 50% the size of the original scan.  The original scan is available for download, but please note it is about 30MB.

Piccadilly vs Rhodia, full resolution scan.

If you didn’t look at either of the scans I’ll do a quick summary of the worst feathering offenders and the most well behaved.  Taking top honors for the worst feathing ink is a toss between Walt Disney Signature Black by Monteverde and Diamine Imperial Blue.  Fighting for third place is a Levenger trio: Always Greener, Amethyst, and Skies of Blue.

I don’t think I can honestly say that there was a single ink that didn’t feather.  But, the inks with the least amount of feathering were J. Herbin Violette Pensée, Noodlers’ Tiananmen, Levenger Raven Black, and Private Reserve Dakota Red.

For the price of this notebook I’m not making any complaints, even though it probably sounds like I am.  I won’t buy another one, but I will use the two I have until they’re filled.  I just won’t get to use all the inks in my collection.  On Piccadilly’s website they state “Piccadilly Journals, Best value journals in the world”.  I don’t disagree.

This is the A5 size, 14.8 X 21 cm. It contains 48, 80g sheets of lined paper. My only problem with Rhodia’s lined paper is the spacing of their lines.  I write with fine, and extra fine nib fountain pens most of the time so I feel like I’m just wasting space with these extra wide lines.  I think it is somewhere around 8mm and I prefer a 5mm spacing similar to what is found in Piccadilly notebooks.  As you can see from the photo the corners are rounded, which is a huge plus in my book.

The paper is smooth, but not Clairefontaine smooth, at least in my experiences.  It has a little texture to it that you can feel through the pen, but it is not a fibrous texture like that of the Piccadilly paper.  I never feel that any of my fountain pens are going to catch on the paper and tear up fibers, even my custom ground cursive italics.

When I use Rhodia paper I don’t have to worry about feathering or ink bleeding through the page.  You can see the writing from the other side but that has never stopped me from using both sides of the sheet.  The paper isn’t transparent enough to make the visible text on the opposite side an annoyance.

The only problems I have with this specific notebook is its smallish 48 sheet capacity and no vertical lines for marking margins.  But, the small sheet size does keep the thickness down so when you get to the edge or bottom of the page and your hand sits below the page level down on the desk the height difference is minimal.  I find writing in that fashion very uncomfortable and usually prefer wire bound notebooks so I can fold all the pages back out of the way except for a few pages that I can use as a bit of a cushion.

If you’ve never used any of Rhodia’s pads I highly suggest you check out Rhodia’s website and find your nearest supply store.  If you don’t like it then post a comment and I’ll relieve it from your possession.