Please excuse the horrendous hand writing.

I really enjoy this colour and will keep it loaded in my Hero.

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Standard disclaimer about monitor colour. I tried to correct the colours in photoshop, and they were accurate on my monitor (Samsung 226BW 22" widescreen LCD).

I do like that color. Hmmm, a mature red, ok. Seems to take a bit to dry though. j

On regular quality copy paper it dries in under five seconds using my hero. Clairfontaine Triumphe isn't *that* absorbent, and as a result most inks take a while to dry.

Check out my comparison with Djinn of the Eternal Flame...

Djinn has better flow properties and is VERY similar, but Empire has a bit of pink in it (it's still a red, don't worry). I really like both inks and can't pick a favorite, but Empire is better in mixes because the pinkish cast keeps the color on the red side, if you mix with an off-red (like Antietam for instance).

It surprises me that you have not mentioned the starting-up problems most people (including me) experience with this ink.

Some people seem to have given up on it. Personally, I find it irritating, but tolerable. I allways have to start the day with a drop of water on a nib with this ink. It then works ok throughout the day.

I've only experienced hard starting with a few pens, which tend to have hard starting with other inks too. As with any ink that seems to have a problem, I've always found that if you rotate the ink through enough different pens, you're bound to find one that it behaves very nicely in.

But if this concern of hard-starting (reported by many, but not all) bothers you, again I recommend checking out Swisher's Djinn of the Eternal Flame. The colors are VERY similar, and the flow is GREAT, as with all the Swisher Eternal inks I've tried or heard about.

Thanks for the tip. Liked your page with all those reds.

What starting up problems?

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That was done with the Hero 616 I had used for the original review. After I used it to address some packages Monday afternoon, it has been sitting on my desk horizontally for at least half a day (untouched). And I must say, the 616 is a very dry writer. Needless to say, my much wetter Waterman 52 has absolutely no problems starting up.

Could it be that that certain pens perform poorly with this ink?