Elo,

Would it be unprofessional, if one just says he loves an ink, and then ends the review? I guess so.

Well, thanks to FPN for introducing me to the diverse world of inks, I wanted to try different inks. So I tried the Pelikan Brilliant Green that I have reviewed recently. I wanted to try another color. The options were very limited, and all I could find was the Pelikan 4001 Violet.

The violet – naturally – differs nothing from the other ones I've used, Blue-Black, and Brilliant Green.

Ink: Pelikan 4001 Violet.
Ink bottle. No inkwell. 30 ml.

Pen: Durabrite pen nibs (the kind you fix to a wooden quill/holder)
Wooden calligraphy pens of different sizes.
I had a bit of a hard time writing with them, so my handwriting is more terrible than usual.

Paper: Talens Sketch book; 120 gm paper.
Printer paper; 70 gm.

Drying: the drying is ok. As I said before, I'd like to call it Three Words Later. When I tried it on ordinary printer paper, it took longer than three words. When the calligraphy wooden pens were a little heavily dipped in the ink, it used to take longer to dry. Logical. On the sketching paper, things were ok.

Flow: the flow was good actually. I never really use those nibs or the calligraphy pens. But the ink behaved well with them. So I can imagine it would behave well with a normal fountain pen.

Smudging: on the sketching paper it doesn't smudge. On the printer paper, it smudged a little, only when I vigoursly wiped the letters with my finger, which is something we don't normally do, so I guess this is no problem. The ink doesn't bleed through either kind of paper.

Color: I hadn't tried it before. I was afraid it would turn out some kind of flashy bright violet. It suits my Deep Purple enthusiasm. It's dark, warm, and somehow intimate; this is why I felt I had to write a bossa nova love song with it. Too bad my handwriting isn't as romantic. It has interesting shading qualities evident especially when the nib is heavily dipped.

Now, I want to buy a new fountain pen, fill it up and use this ink!

End of line.

Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment

Ozzy, thanks for the review. This was one of the first bottled inks I ever bought (after finding the cartridge version running so very smooth in my dry writing Sensa Meridian), and I really enjoy the color. It looks like the perfect violet you would imagine a standard violet to have. Unfortunately, my bottle got contaminated and now it has this weird film on the surface. Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I need to get this color back into my rotation.

Superb color and great ink! It, along with Waterman Purple and Diamine Imperial Purple, are some of my favorites. Thanks for the great review.

Elo,

Thanks guys. : ) well, i loaded some of it in a parker 51. and i'll translate my hand-writing:

"Elo, thanks for reading.
I loaded some of it in a Parker 51.
It's doing ok, so far. I have a feeling that I want to use a wider nib.
Then again, the somewhat fine nib of the 51 keeps the color subtle.
What do you think?! : )"

End of line.

Thank you, I like this color, I've never seen an example of it before, at least not one as nice as yours. It seems to me a bit "bluer" than Waterman Purple and therefore I may be able to use it as an alternative to my regular blues. The Waterman Purple is a bit too brash for that. Thanks again!

Elo, thanks for reading : )

Well, i can see that you think its "bluer". well maybe. the colors in the scan do seem bluer than the actual paper. but this ink is cheap. so go ahead, buy it and try it out. i'm not familiar with the other inks. we don't have much option around here.

Thanks : )

Ozzy, thanks for doing this review. It was on my list of reviews to do, but now I can put the time into some other inks that have had no review and maybe do another of this one later on sometime. You have covered everything well. My ink looks like the color of ink showing at the top of your bottle in the photo. Sometimes scans can be very hard to adjust to look like the ink does on your paper.

Best, Ann

Does anyone happen to know how this ink acts in a Moleskine?

It's fine, Biffy. I use it a lot in both the Reporter and the Cahier models.