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View Full Version : Diamine Ancient Copper Ink Review



milanjuza
August 12th, 2013, 01:56 PM
For high res photos, please visit my blog (http://verticalpaper.net/post/58048164949/ink-review-diamine-ancient-copper).

Diamine Ancient Copper is an unusual ink. In terms of colour richness/saturation, you are effectively presented with two very different experiences - all depends on the pen you are using. If you use a fine or medium nib, you get more or less a light brown, not very saturated and quite a bland colour that does not stand out much and may be difficult to read. However, the broader the nib, the more exciting it gets. With a broad or a stub nib (tried with Vintage Parker Duofold stub and TWSBI 580 1.1 italic) the ink really shines. The richness of the copper colour comes across very clearly, it is saturated, beautiful and fresh. Drying times are not very good (but that’s not unusual for Diamine inks), but it does not feather and there was hardly any bleedthrough at all which is always nice.

Overall summary: It’s a great, well behaved, but rather slow drying ink for people who write with broad(er) nibs, but you may be disappointed if you use M/F/EF nibs as it is not saturated enough to stand out.


Paper: Rhodia A4 notebook (90g)
Pens: Montblanc Boheme (M nib) and Pilot Parallel (6mm nib)
Water test: drops left on the paper for 1 minute


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southpaw52
August 12th, 2013, 02:18 PM
Nice review great to know that it would work best in a broad nib.

Jeph
August 12th, 2013, 02:18 PM
Thanks for the reivew. I love this color. I find that in my finer nibs I get a nice dark red on cheap paper.
I think seeing it on Rhodia with a broad nib has finally provided the last incentive I needed to break down and buy some proper paper. That is gorgeous.

milanjuza
August 12th, 2013, 02:21 PM
Thanks for the reivew. I love this color. I find that in my finer nibs I get a nice dark red on cheap paper.
I think seeing it on Rhodia with a broad nib has finally provided the last incentive I needed to break down and buy some proper paper. That is gorgeous.

Yes, it's a really really nice colour. I need to try it with a fine/medium nib or a "normal" paper - I think you are right that it will look great and nicely saturated as normal paper tends to be much more absorbent than Rhodia.

tandaina
August 12th, 2013, 02:21 PM
Interesting how much it can vary. I have a bottle I use with flex pens and it is much darker than that, not so bright. It honestly has a dried blood sort of look, a little brownish, dark, almost "rusty," I like it, but it doesn't look like your sample at all. Perhaps I need to try it in a pen that doesn't put quite so much ink on the page!

KrazyIvan
August 12th, 2013, 02:22 PM
I really like the look of this ink.

milanjuza
August 12th, 2013, 02:23 PM
Interesting how much it can vary. I have a bottle I use with flex pens and it is much darker than that, not so bright. It honestly has a dried blood sort of look, a little brownish, dark, almost "rusty," I like it, but it doesn't look like your sample at all. Perhaps I need to try it in a pen that doesn't put quite so much ink on the page!

Hmm, that's interesting! Can you share a picture?

KrazyIvan
August 12th, 2013, 02:24 PM
It also sometimes makes odd nib crud, according to some threads I have read. Not my picture but this is typically what I have seen people post when it gets really bad:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7183/7035921731_66e58ba006_k.jpg

tandaina
August 12th, 2013, 02:26 PM
I've never seen crud Ivan, but it did "creep" and leave a very thin layer of liquid ink across the whole face of the nib. No clue why, was sorta pretty to have a coppery/brown nib. ;)

Here's a picture. The Matador 334 1/2 is filled with Ancient Copper it is the second writing sample:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8524/8594376561_32ea0f7934_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/84377112@N05/8594376561/)
Untitled (http://www.flickr.com/photos/84377112@N05/8594376561/) by JoAndRoses (http://www.flickr.com/people/84377112@N05/), on Flickr

Jeph
August 12th, 2013, 02:54 PM
I do also get the ink crud on my (Stupid) fine Sheaffer nib, but none so far on my Pelikan M. But I use the Pelikan much less.

milanjuza
August 12th, 2013, 02:59 PM
Interesting. I never had problems any with Ancient Copper. Will look out for any signs of crud though...

cedargirl
August 12th, 2013, 08:31 PM
It's not unusual to get a bit of crusting on nibs that have red tones. But they usually have to sit for a while to make it happen.
I get it with Diamine Pumpkin. It makes me wonder whether Ancient Copper is a nicer derivative of Pumpkin.

Jeph
August 13th, 2013, 01:19 AM
Already today using the Pelikan 150 with an M steel nib, after one steno book page of notes I am already getting ink boogers. My other Diamine inks do not make boogers on the same pens. For this color, I will accept ink boogers although it makes me sad.

velo
August 13th, 2013, 02:21 AM
I've got this ink in my TWSBI 1.1. No crud or boogers but it can be a little dry.

Jeph
August 13th, 2013, 09:47 AM
Ancient Copper Ink Booger Cause

I am pretty sure that I have figured this phenomenon out.

First it is clear to me that this ink and inks like it contain something that makes it predispositioned to booger formation. Whether this is due to a red component, or a yellow component as has been proposed, I will leave to the experts. The booger formation comes from extended contact with air. The boogers only form at the ink-air interface and it does not take long.

I knew that my (stupid) fine Sheaffer made boogers using Ancient Copper. I also remembered that my Pelikan 150 also has had Diamine Ancient Copper loaded almost for as long as I have owned the pen yet I do not remember ever seeing ink boogers on it.

Today I used the Pelikan as my only pen at work and kept the Sheaffer lying on the desk. Within the first steno pad sized page of notes I had ink boogers on the Pelikan. I kept using it and the boogers kept getting worse. Note that at work I leave my pens uncapped unless I am leaving my desk. It finally got to the point where the boogers had covered the tipping and my first word was overly broad, then reverted to normal. Other than that, there were no writing issues. I wiped off the nib at that point and checked the Sheaffer. There was nothing on the Sheaffer. I decided that it was the air contacting the ink, so I left it uncapped for the rest of the day. You can see from the pictures how that ended up. At the end of the day the Sheaffer still had nothing.

Tonight I will clean both nibs. Tomorrow I will only use the Sheaffer at work, uncapped, and leave the pelican on the desk capped. I am absolutely confident that the Sheaffer will grow boogers and the Pelikan will have none by the end of the day.

It is not some crazy fungus, or failing to keep your pens clean. It is just the way this ink reacts when exposed to air for prolonged periods. It comes off immediately and completely. I will post an update tomorrow.

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IT Note: In this forum the preview option works properly.

reprieve
August 13th, 2013, 10:34 AM
Yes, it does seem to be due to air exposure. I have found that this sort of nib crud is more likely to occur in slip-cap pens (as the caps aren't quite airtight) or in pens with a breather hole in the cap. Diamine Ancient Copper has been crudless for me in every pen except for a Parker 51 that has a slightly loose cap.

Mod_wolves
August 13th, 2013, 11:13 AM
I've found that I can't find a consistency towards the gunking up. I had diamine pumpkin in my lamy safari...gunked up every couple of days. In every other pen slip caps and screw caps nothing.

Now ancient copper in my parker IM it gunked up every couple of hours, put the ink in my safari, 2 weeks later and nothing, a completely clean nib. It is the ink but it appears to be only certain inks with certain pens and the severity depends on the pen. I just now know what ink I shouldn't put in certain pens.

fountainpenkid
August 13th, 2013, 11:49 AM
My Esterbrook j experienced the booger phenomenon while capped. My Pelikan m400 and manny's Swan I've been using have had no "booger" problems with the ink though, even though I've left them uncapped for good amounts of time. I don't think it is a problem with the Q.C of Diamine (i.e different batches have different performance), but something about the pen ink combinations. I'll ink some other pens with it and see what happens. Maybe it has something to do with the materials used in the nib and the feed?

cwent2
August 13th, 2013, 01:29 PM
My Esterbrook j experienced the booger phenomenon while capped. My Pelikan m400 and manny's Swan I've been using have had no "booger" problems with the ink though, even though I've left them uncapped for good amounts of time. I don't think it is a problem with the Q.C of Diamine (i.e different batches have different performance), but something about the pen ink combinations. I'll ink some other pens with it and see what happens. Maybe it has something to do with the materials used in the nib and the feed?

For what it is worth I have had Ancient Copper in a Noodlers Konrad Ebonite for two weeks now with no Issues.

Carole
August 13th, 2013, 03:39 PM
Great discussion--I use this ink a lot and find that the color and flow varies with each and every nib and pen. Which does keep things interesting.

I'm wondering, though, if I should continue to use it in this vintage Ajax pen--it's my favorite combo but, like tandaina, I often see that veil of ink over the face of this nib. The feed on this pen is amazing and even writing with no pressure, the fine line is pretty saturated and shaded.
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Marsilius
August 13th, 2013, 10:22 PM
I love this color, but have found the crud (I like that terms boogers, too) to be disconnecting. My favorite pen tends to skip a bit or be a bit dry, so this ink seems to be tricky in it. Oh well. Maybe I'll try again, after looking at these great pictures.

tandaina
August 14th, 2013, 08:11 AM
Yeah I think this ink really THRIVES in a wet pen with an old ebonite feed that just pours buckets of ink down the nibs.

Jeph
August 14th, 2013, 08:56 AM
OK, so now an update after day 2 of experiments.

Last night I rinsed both the Pelikan and Sheaffer nibs with water.
This morning when I got to work, I made the fox jump twice with the Pelikan to make sure that plenty of ink was available at the feed, then capped it and laid it down. I then proceeded to use the Sheaffer uncapped. It took about an hour for the boogers to form. After 3 hours, unlike the M nib on the Pelikan, my (stupid) fine nib on the Sheaffer was complaining. When I was not writing something between a medium and broad line, it was skipping and dragging. So I took a picture and rinsed off the Sheaffer nib. For the rest of the day I continued to use the Sheaffer, but I replaced the cap after every use. After 5 hours of use this way, and about twice the amount of notes written, there was not an ink booger to be found on the Sheaffer. As expected, there was also not an ink booger to be found on the Pelikan.

I should note that although my Sheaffer does have 2 air holes in the cap, they are below the inner cap and the inner cap is in good shape so very little air actually gets to the nib.

As a parallel experiment, before I went to bed last night I took a clean, loose SS nib and dipped in the Ancient Copper and then laid it on a paper towel. When I got home from work this evening, the ink had simply dried. There were no boogers. So it looks like the phenomenon requires something less than an hour exposed to air AND a very narrow contact surface, such as along the feed slot, air hole and nib edges. I might should also mention that I have no air conditioning either at home or at work.

I do not think that I have the knowledge or equipment to take this any farther so as suggested I will contact Diamine and see what they have to say about the matter.

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KrazyIvan
August 14th, 2013, 08:59 AM
What about placing a small amount of ink in a vial and leave it open to the elements?

MyDarnSnakeLegs
August 14th, 2013, 09:27 AM
I love this ink. I didn't have much crud, but I was using it as a sample in a Rotring 600, and there's not much exposed feed on those pens. I have had Diamine Meadow funk up a Wing Sung with an exposed feed and an inlaid nib. Thanks for doing the science for us, Jeph.

snedwos
August 17th, 2013, 06:12 AM
I think it's not so much a thin contact surface, as well as time, so much as a constant supply of ink. The ink dries slowly, so instead of clogging the pen completely (as other inks would), the thickened, partially dry ink continues to ooze out as wet ink from the reservoir replaces it and pushes it out. This makes bubbles/droplets that eventually dry into those magnificent stalactitic and stalagmitic formations.

This is why the film on the loose nib dried flat, because that was all the ink that was available to it.

Clearly this ink doesn't go straight from wet to dry, but goes through an extended sticky phase. Do we see this effect with other slow-drying inks?

Jeph
August 21st, 2013, 08:49 AM
First, I very much agree with everything that snedwos described. That perfecly matches what I saw.

Second, it has now been a week and no response from Diamine. That is disappointing.

Third, last weekend I flushed out the Sheaffer and a blob of pre-boogers (ink snot?) did dump out of the barrel. There was also a slight amount of ink in the cap (slight=on third capfull of water the water dumped out clear) but not much. The barrel did rinse completely.

Fourth, I finally got some real (Rhodia, Leuchtturm) paper and this ink looks even better. I am not going to stop using it.

Fifth, I got my bottle of Diamine Red Dragon today, so that is going into the Sheaffer to test if another Diamine red will do the same thing.

There is no 6.

KrazyIvan
August 21st, 2013, 11:10 AM
Thank you Jeph and snedwos. That is encouraging at least to me. I have been holding back purchasing a bottle even though I really like the color. I think I can deal with oozing ink. I was just concerned it might have been some sort of contamination.

Jon Szanto
August 21st, 2013, 11:21 AM
When I used a sample of Ancient Copper, in at least two pens it developed not just nib creep, but it actually grew crystalline structures all over the feed and nib. It was cool to look at through the loupe, not so much for the writing! I ended up not purchasing.

No other Diamine inks have done this for me, and I have been using Red Dragon in many pens for a good two years without a single problem. It is my go-to red ink.

Newjelan
August 26th, 2013, 12:48 AM
Thanks Jeph, for making me laugh out loud several times when reading your posts.

BTW, I also have ancient Copper and have used it in several pens with no boogers, crud or snot - but then I always cap my pen as soon as I stop writing.

KrazyIvan
August 26th, 2013, 10:29 AM
Thanks Jeph, for making me laugh out loud several times when reading your posts.

BTW, I also have ancient Copper and have used it in several pens with no boogers, crud or snot - but then I always cap my pen as soon as I stop writing.

That is also very encouraging as I also cap my pens in a similar manner.

Jon Szanto
August 26th, 2013, 10:41 AM
That is also very encouraging as I also cap my pens in a similar manner.
As do I. In my case, it didn't change the fact that the ink behaved oddly. Mind you, it was nothing that damaged the pen, as BSB can do, but it was a nuisance, and caused me to stop putting AC in my pens. Best to try a sample...

Jeph
August 26th, 2013, 10:47 AM
I put some ancient copper in my TWSBI 580 for a couple of days so I could see what was going on inside the barrel. There was booger growth, although very slowly. When I left it upcapped and nib up for about 4 hours there were some small red dots clinging to the sides of the barrel, but when I turned the pen over and back they went away. One difference here is that although the growth was relatively small, it did appear to interfere with the flow of this pen. I did have the 1.5mm nib installed, which has flow problems anyway, but if I rinsed the nib it flowed normally again.

I have Red Dragon installed in 3 different pens and so far there have been no ink boogers. Not only did I leave the pens uncapped, but one of them I even shook to force some ink splatter onto the nib. The splatters just dried normally.

Carole
August 26th, 2013, 06:13 PM
I was inspired to try some tests with vintage pens after reading this thread. With all of the pens, if I capped them soon after writing, no problems at all except some ink on the nib. Uncapped, different story.

Here's what happened with Ancient Copper in a Moore L-72. Photo #1 is after leaving it uncapped for 20 minutes, then writing with it for 10 minutes. Photo #2 is after leaving it uncapped on the desk for about 30 minutes. Sorry the bad focus but hope you can see the build-up of sludge along the nib. However, there was no problem writing with it even after photo #2: no skips or flow issues.

This isn't even close to the science performed by Jeph and everyone, but after I spilled ink on the table it looked so much like arterial blood spatter I had to take a picture of it. (Didn't Eric once say there was a Scientific Institute of Nib Science located somewhere near JPL? If so, I bet they'd be interested in consulting with you, Jeph, even if Diamine isn't talking.)

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Jeph
October 22nd, 2013, 01:52 AM
I thought that it would be good to do an update. I have now had Diamine Ancinet Copper in my TWSBI 580 (so I can see the guts) for 2 solid months without maintenance. Once a week I would make the fox jump one time and then put it away until the next week. There are no boogers on the feed, there are no boogers or separation of colors within the barrel and there is no discoloration within the pen. I think that I have confirmed snedwos' assertion about it being a drying phenomenon. In my mind, I have also confimed that the ink itself is not dangerous to my pens. The caveat is that pens that are prone to be left uncapped, or that do not cap reasonably sealed should avoid this ink due to the annoyance of booger formation.