I’ve been thinking for some time about changing the way I record the details of my pens and inks, as discussed in this post. I love having lots of room to write about each pen or ink, but inevitably I found the binder too large and heavy to be practical and portable. So I’ve made the move to index cards.
I’ve made a list of all the pens I have, as well as a list of all the inks. I’ve noted down the colour of pen, the size of bottle, where each was purchased and when. Then each pen and each ink has it’s own index card under the corresponding letter (J for Jinhao and D for Diamine). It’s compact and alphabetical. It’s still a work in progress as I haven’t found a proper file drawer for it; I would love to purchase a real library file drawer (with the steel rod and everything!!) but my budget doesn’t allow it at this time. I plan on doing a full post on it when it is finished.
But in working on transferring the contents of the binder to the cards I have found gaps in my inventory, and one such obvious gap is a set of inks I bought after the binder was set up but still packed away: 8 of the Diamine 150 Anniversary Inks. To mark the 150th anniversary of its brand, Diamine released 16 40 ml bottles in a unique triangular shape that, when arranged, form a beautiful carousel of ink.
There are 16 colours in the anniversary line:
- Burgundy Royale
- Carnival
- Blood Orange
- Golden Honey
- Safari
- Tropical Green
- Dark Forest
- Blue Velvet
- Tudor Blue
- Lilac Night
- Regency Blue
- Purple Dream
- Terracotta
- Espresso
- Silver Fox
- 1864 Blue Black
I have eight of these, and I actually didn’t realize there were eight more until I did the research for this post. I bought the set from WonderPens.ca and they gave me a deal because I bought a set of eight. Now that I know there are eight more, I might ask them if they would offer me the deal again! When I have a few pennies to spare maybe. You can buy them on the Wonderpens site for $15 each.
The labels are very distinctive, with the swirly 150 and the vintage feel. And the inks themselves, as with all Diamine inks, are bright and eye catching.
Here is the Blue Velvet. The blue handwriting in the photo above is from my journal, made with a Jinhao 992 pen inked with Blue Velvet.
Here is Carnival, which is more of a true red than what is coming through in the photo.
Here the red writing is in Carnival.
Here is the 1864 Blue Black above with a writing sample below.
Above is the Safari green, with a writing sample below.
The next four inks.
Here is the Tropical Green with a writing sample below. Love this green.
Here is the Regency Blue followed by a writing sample. I like all three but this is my favourite of the blue inks in this set.
Here is the Silver Fox with a writing sample following. This is my least favourite of this set. I have never come across a grey ink that I like; they all seem to be too light. You can barely read this one.
And finally here is the Terracotta, with the writing sample following.
That’s it for the Diamine 150 inks, or at least half of them.
I also came across a few more new inks that need to be reviewed but this post is certainly long enough so I won’t inflict them on you. Yet.
Happy journaling.
