Paper: Rhodia Dot Pad

Pen: Platinum 3776 Shoji M

Ink: Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuyu Kusa

Diamine is one of the oldest ink producers, dating back to 1864, located in the UK. Diamine offers one of the largest colour ranges (over 100) with shimmer and archival ink in its repertoire. Not only this, Diamine inks are well priced and reliable.

Diamine Damson is a dusky, muted purple that leans a bit on the blue side. Unlike other purples, Damson can easily be considered work appropriate in a boardroom and still create interest in your workday. The ink is darker and richer in colour when wet, but dries to the greyish muted shade you see here. It is leans a bit dark, which makes it inconspicuous in the work environment, it is not until you lean closer than you realize it is purple.

There is a small amount of shading seen in wider nibs, but because the ink is so dark and grey toned, once again, its not noticeable unless you are close up to the ink. The flexy pen doesn’t show quite as much shading, so it wasn’t that exciting for flex nib writing. From a cleaning point of view, it is reasonably easy to clean considering it is a dark purple ink. It only took a quick soak in pen flush (force of habit) and a few flushes with water to clean it out of the pen altogether. This is reasonably consistent with the Diamine performance that I have experienced so far.

I don’t own any other inks that come even close to the colour of Diamine Damson, however, looking at the Goulet Pens Swab Shop, it looks like J. Herbin Poussiere de Lune or Kaweco Summer Purple might come pretty close.

Swab Shop image, courtesy Goulet Pen Company

Overall Diamine Damson is a reliable, well performing ink that is fantastic value for money. I really like Diamine inks because they perform so consistently and reliably and they are available in so many colours. Available in both 30mL (US$7.50) and 80mL (US$14.95) bottles.

The Retro 51 is often considered to be a gateway pen into the “higher end pen industry” (if there is such a thing). I did it a bit backwards and purchased my first Retro 51 well after I had gotten into other higher end pens, such as fountain pens – mostly because Retro 51’s don’t seem to be very common in Australia.

I was very tempted by the beautiful Christmas edition – the Twinkle – released in 2015, with its etched body and rose gold accents and the pen certainly lived up to the hype. It is truly beautiful in person.

I find the body itself to be a bit top heavy during very long writing sessions, however, for quick notes or normal writing, it wasn’t an issue at all.

There is a lot of hype surrounding the Retro 51 refill (which comes with a 0.7mm black refill as standard) and I have to say it is actually very good. Unlike other more expensive rollerballs, like the Lamy Tipo, the Retro 51 refill does not skip or go dry. It really is a very good, smooth and dark rollerball refill and all the more so on high end paper such as Clairefontaine, Rhodia or Maruman.

At US$45 it is a bit pricey (especially considering exchange rates at the moment), however, it really is a beautiful pen. On top of that, it performs very very well, I think it was worth every penny.