Ink #0046
Welcome to the second sample of my first foray in ordering from an online pen retailer outside of eBay in my baby Fountain pen user years. Circa mid 2018 or thereabouts. Here's the other ink sample that I really liked out of this new Copper shimmer experience. I give you
DE ATRAMENTIS VELVET BLACK - COPPER
Ooooo Now... normally I don't like being able to see through my black inks, but based on my experience with trying to add shimmer to my own inks, if the ink is too dark like Noodler's Heart of Darkness or J.Herbin's Perle Noire, it just coats the shimmer particles and you don't see much through it. So I can see right away why having a slightly see-through/watery black ink is necessary for this copper shimmer to work. And Boy does it!
In case it needs to be said again DeAtramentis puts a LOT of shimmer in their inks. Like Holy F, that's a lot of shimmer. It does seem to settle fast through so this is one those inks where you should probably fiddle spin your pen to keep it in suspension when you write. Not that it won't clog your feed if you have a fine nib and stingy pen, but it'll slow down that process so make like a snow globe and tip it around.
Back to the color. I do wish it was just a bit darker as a black. I don't really feel it's a good black ink. quite a lot of it seems to flee water and really, truly it seems more like a dark grey or maybe a cool black ink with all the ice melted in it and this is what was left over before they dumped a bunch of copper powder in. Still, I think with a bit of ink mixing this could be dark enough for my own personal tastes. The contrast with the copper as is really makes it stand out. Not joking. No really. That shimmer is like Brand New Copper Penny bright on that dark backdrop and while I wouldn't call it a velvet black it's really just there to show off how bright at copper is. I loved the idea of using this ink for Halloween, so I made sure to get myself a bottle as soon as I could.
Should YOU get this ink? Well, that depends on whether or not you think you have a pen that can handle it, and if you don't mind having a black ink being more watery dark grey. I think a demonstrator (clear) pen where you can fill the body with ink would be the best kind of pen for this kind of ink. Like a Noodler's Triple Tail (which didn't exist when this ink came out) or a Moonman (oops they're not called that anymore) MAJOHN M2, C1 or S5 would be good candidates for this ink. Though it might be tough finding them with nibs you can swap to broads. Making sure the feed can handle a wet ink flow will be the tricky part, but there's plenty of blogs and tube videos that explain how to modify pens so I'm not going to do so here.
All that said, there's pros and cons to this ink besides the pen needs of it. It's not going to be in any way water fast unless you modify it. Good news is, I've tried a few samples with a couple drops of Noodler's Heart of Darkness and that seems to help darken it and give it just a hint more sticking OOMPH than it had before without messing up the visibility of the copper shimmer and without causing some funky chemical sludge reaction (so far years later) as some incompatible inks can do. Your Mileage May Vary. However, if not Noodler's ink, maybe one of the other gentler archival inks like Perle Noir or Levenger Raven Black? Or if you have a darker DeAtramentis Black like Black (scented) Roses, you can pour off the black ink with the copper settled at the bottom and pour DeAtramentis Black Roses in and have Rose Scented copper shimmer ink. Formulas within brands tend to be compatible. I caution against using DeAtramentis Document Series Black ink though. that's a completely different beast in terms of formula and I have not had good experiences trying to mix DeAtramentis Document Series ink with anything unless it's another Document Series ink. and even then the results are.... ehhhh... Feel free to experiement with small samples in ink vials for best results, but I do think this would be a good ink to experiment with if nothing else!