Rohrer & Klingner Solferino Ink Review

[dannzeman]

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.
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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.

[eriquito]

Ahoy Dannzeman!

Looking at your five Rohrer & Klingner ink reviews, I notice that none passed the "smudge test" after 14 seconds.

How long do they take to dry?

:-? Eric
Son of Ragnar

[dannzeman]

Not sure. Haven't tested that. Probably should, huh?

[bdpatton2]

This color is pretty.

[onedumbtrucker]

I was a big fan of Diamine Imperial Purple until one Saturday morning when someone in the London Pen Club brought the R&K Solferino to our weekly club meeting and it immediately became my favourite purple ink by far. It has such a rich purple color and while it is definitely thicker than the Diamine I have not had any flow problems in the Sheaffer 300 that is my daily writer and the color is so much more vibrant that I just love writing with it.

Dan