Ink Review: Diamine Music Collection: Mozart

[Chrissy]

I have decided to review some of my favourite inks. These aren't necessarily in any particular order.

This one is from the Diamine Music Gift Set: Mozart. When first used, Diamine Mozart looks very like Diamine Bach from the same Music Collection. I did my reviews of Bach and Mozart with different pens and nib sizes, (sorry!) so I have done written comparisons of them both with the same pen. I knew having two Lamy Nexx pens with M nibs would come in useful! I think that Bach is slightly darker and contains slightly less red. It also seems to have a drier flow in the same type of pen that I used with Mozart. However, it's flow was excellent in the B nib pen that I originally reviewed it with. It just goes to show that some inks suit some pen/nib combinations better than others.


Bearing in mind the paper I use is very smooth, and the nib was a M steel nib, this ink took 10-12 secs to dry.
It flows quite wet, and lubricates the nib quite well. It is currently available in the Music Gift set of 10 x 30ml glass bottles and is also now available in 30ml plastic refill bottles from Diamine. The glass bottles are lovely, but are not available separately. The plastic bottles are less stable and fewer pens fit into them for filling.
Water test on the review form shows this isn't a waterproof ink.
Diamine (http://www.diamineinks.co.uk/) sell it directly to end-users on their web-site.
It's a reasonable price.


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[naimitsu]

Chrissy, thanks again for another great review! I was a little bummed when I saw that the ink color named after my favorite (and at times most hated) composer was brown... but I'm glad to see that it's not the "ordinary" brown as you've said.

Though I keep going back to the TR writing sample. That paper just makes every ink look awesome!
Have you tried this ink of Apica paper? In my limited experience, inks show up almost as well on Apica as it does on TR, and decidedly better than Rhodia and definitely better than Clairefontaine...

[Chrissy]

Chrissy, thanks again for another great review! I was a little bummed when I saw that the ink color named after my favorite (and at times most hated) composer was brown... but I'm glad to see that it's not the "ordinary" brown as you've said.

Though I keep going back to the TR writing sample. That paper just makes every ink look awesome!
Have you tried this ink of Apica paper? In my limited experience, inks show up almost as well on Apica as it does on TR, and decidedly better than Rhodia and definitely better than Clairefontaine...

Thanks for your comments. Sadly I don't have very many different papers. I have never seen Apica although I recently bought a writing pad of Clairefontaine Triomphe. Is Apica a brand that is more readily available in the US maybe?

[Laura N]

This is one of my favorite new inks, gift of some lovely friends. I adore it.

But it sometimes puzzles me how close my Mozart is to my Bach. You show the slight extra redness of Mozart, which I sometimes see myself, albeit not as clearly as on your photos. But if you showed me a line written with either in isolation, I doubt I'd be able to tell which ink it was. :)

ETA: I mostly use ordinary paper, Clairefontaine and Rhodia.

[Chrissy]

This is one of my favorite new inks, gift of some lovely friends. I adore it.

But it sometimes puzzles me how close my Mozart is to my Bach. You show the slight extra redness of Mozart, which I sometimes see myself, albeit not as clearly as on your photos. But if you showed me a line written with either in isolation, I doubt I'd be able to tell which ink it was. :)

ETA: I mostly use ordinary paper, Clairefontaine and Rhodia.

I agree with you that the difference is very subtle. I don't know why, in a set of 10, these 2 shades are so close.:noidea:

[naimitsu]

Thanks for your comments. Sadly I don't have very many different papers. I have never seen Apica although I recently bought a writing pad of Clairefontaine Triomphe. Is Apica a brand that is more readily available in the US maybe?

Apica is another Japanese paper brand, though significantly thicker than TR. I got a notebook from Goulet, and I managed to find a local retailer that carries them (though that might be because the neighborhood that the store is in has a decently large Japanese community due to Nissan's proximity).
It looks like Amazon UK has them, but it looks like shipping cost makes them overly pricey for what you get.

[Chrissy]

Thanks for your comments. Sadly I don't have very many different papers. I have never seen Apica although I recently bought a writing pad of Clairefontaine Triomphe. Is Apica a brand that is more readily available in the US maybe?

Apica is another Japanese paper brand, though significantly thicker than TR. I got a notebook from Goulet, and I managed to find a local retailer that carries them (though that might be because the neighborhood that the store is in has a decently large Japanese community due to Nissan's proximity).
It looks like Amazon UK has them, but it looks like shipping cost makes them overly pricey for what you get.

It looks like something that might go on my pre Florida holiday shopping list. :) I bought 300 sheets of Tomoe River back with me last year.