Ortloffs Kölsche Tinte is made exclusively by Diamine Inks for Ortloff in Köln. In the UK we would call it Ortloff Red.
Ortloffs Kölsche Tinte is a saturated dark red ink that exhibits some very nice shading as well as some fabulous green sheen. It was a pleasure to write with, flowed well and lubricated the nib smoothly.
It’s a dark maroon red that leans slightly pinkish, so it instantly reminded me of Montblanc Hitchcock ink. Fortunately I had one of my pens filled with Hitchcock ink so I was able to compare the two closely. They are an excellent colour match, but Ortloff has the added advantage of it’s green sheen. Writing with Ortloff on Tomoe River paper really showed this sheen very well, even with the fine nib in my red Kaweco AC Sport.
For the record, I chroma tested all of the maroon inks that I had and asked my OH to select the one that he thought looked the closest to Montblanc Hitchcock. He selected Ortloff Red.
Ortloffs Kölsche Tinte is exclusively available in 80ml bottles from Orloffs in Köln Germany.
If you find it difficult to obtain there is a new Cult Pens Iridescink Tammy that is very similar to Ortloff and maybe more easily available.
- Start-up: Immediate.
- Flow Rate: Excellent - quite wet.
- Lubrication: Excellent - felt really smooth across the page.
- Saturation: Saturated with sheen, but not so much that it dried out on my nibs.
- Spread / Feathering / Woolly Line: Not seen on any paper I used.
- Show-Through/Bleed-through: A little seen on some of the papers I tried it on, but I could easily write on the reverse of all of them.
- Nib Dry-out: Not noticed.
- Clogging: Not seen.
- Nib Creep / “Crud”: Not seen, even after several days in the pen.
- Staining (pen): Didn’t stain the sections or the converters.
- Staining (hands): This doesn’t really stain hands but needed two washes before my fingers were perfectly clean.
- Water resistance: Not sold as waterproof, but shows a little water resistance.
Diamine Ortloff Red2.jpgDiamine Ortloff Red_0003.JPG
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