Rohrer & Klingner Helianthus 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.

I just got back from the Pear Tree Co.’s midwest office with a bottle of Solferino [sol-fuh-ree-noh] and a sample of Helianthus [hee-lee-an-thuhs]. I should note that R&K have redesigned the cap to the bottles and I like it much more than the older plastic cap. You can see to the left that they switched to an aluminum style cap, which to me is more visually appealing. Hopefully, this new cap will prevent a common problem associated with the older style cap where ink would find its way on the threads, dry out, and become crusty. This problem really bothers some people and it’s nice to see that R&K is paying attention to these little details. The only downside to this new cap design is some might think it will be harder to get the cap off because there’s not much to grip on to compared to the older plastic cap. But, I can assure that I haven’t had any problems getting a good grip on this cap.

Now, on to the review of the Helianthus ink. A good friend of mine likes to describe this ink as follows: “It’s like wringing out a school bus onto a piece of paper!” and I agree 100%. It’s a fantastic yellow ink that actually shows up well enough to be readable. If you’re using this in anything other than the driest of nibs you’ll get a saturated yellow with a slight hint of burnt orange, which contributes a lot to making the ink easy to read. The performance of this ink is on par with the other R&K inks I’ve reviewed so if you’ve read those then you know what I’m talking about. If not, I’ll give a brief synopsis. All the R&K inks I’ve sampled so far have performed great. Very little to no bleeding on regular printer paper and only a tiny bit of feathering. On Rhodia comparable quality papers there’s absolutely no feathering or bleed-through. This ink, like the others, does take a while to dry but certainly not longer than anything else I’ve used. Check the writing sample below:

I’m not sure if I’ll be buying a bottle or not, but that’s only because I don’t know how often I’ll use yellow ink. I can tell you that my Pelikan M200 will stay filled with it until I’ve emptied the sample. If you’re looking for a yellow ink or just a good ink in general be sure to check out Pear Tree’s supply. They have every color of R&K available so get ‘em while you can.

[eriquito]

Hey Dannzeman!

Thanks for the great review.

What a color. Looking at the larger sized image, I couldn't decide if it looked more like a lemon, an egg yolk or the sun.

The genus Helianthus is comprised mostly of various sunflowers, so I guess that's the color they were going for.

I don't know that I have a need for sunflower-color ink (stunning as it is), but I'll surely think about getting a sample. Seems like it would be fun to play with.

=) Eric
Son of Ragnar

[bdpatton2]

how well does this show up on white paper? is the photo an accurate representation of the ink under normal lighting (office lighting &/or sunlight)?

[dannzeman]

how well does this show up on white paper? is the photo an accurate representation of the ink under normal lighting (office lighting &/or sunlight)?

This ink shows up surprising well for a yellow. The scan is pretty accurate but like I said in the review it's as if you squeezed out the yellow from a school bus.
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