De Atramentis Ebony Ink

I saw this at Art Brown International Pen Shop and was really taken with the color. Ebony would normally be an intense black color; ebony wood is a dense black, one of the few woods that will sink rather than float. But this ebony is purple-black, with a definite brown tone to it. I've swatched it next to De Atramentis Bordeaux Red and J. Herbin Perle Noir to get a sense of the red and black in this ink. It's a regular ink, not bulletproof or waterproof and not one of the wine/whiskey/scented De Atramentis inks. Just color in a bottle. And I like the color mix of this Ebony, so I loaded up my new Pilot Namiki Falcon SF nib to try it out.

This particular fountain pen is very wet, so it's a good one to use to get a sense of the color and shading of De Atramentis Ebony. As the pen is so wet, I can't get a sens of how fast the ink dries, but it does take some seconds so this might not be a good choice for a left. The flow isn't as good as I'd like, but the pen's converter developed a vacuum that kept the ink from moving into the feed. Once that was taken care of, there was a lot of ink at a continuous flow. There is no feathering that I can see, no bleedthrough or shadow on the other side of the paper (Rhodia #16 pad with 90gsm paper), and good saturation. All in all, a very nice ink if you want a deep purple-black with dark brown shading.