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Zafferano (Saffron) - Stipula Calamo Ink


visvamitra

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Stipula Pen Company originates from Florentine, Italy and was established in 1973. Stipula is a historic term used by the ancient Romans to indicate faithfulness to an obligation. Stipula’s has accepted the obligation to its customers to produce quality pens utilizing ancient themes, designs, techniques and traditions. It sounds nice but from my limited experience with their pens it seems they doesn't really deliver what they promise.

 

Happily Stipula pens come with a limited lifetime warranty so the buyers are covered in case the pen fails.

 

Additionally there are rumors that Stipula has some problems and may cease operations. I'm not sure if it's the case but it seems their products availablility on the market (especially european) is limited and only few retailers carry their pens and inks. If anyone has some news / insights about Stipula situation I would appreciate the insights so that this review provides sound informations.

 

Stipula offers a line of eight inks sold in nice glass 2.4 oz bottles. Interesting feature of the bottles is the fact they have light polyethylene seal pushed in the neck of the bottle, visible when you unscrew the cap. The seal (is it correcy english term?) is rather hard to remove without splashing some of ink onto desk, wall, closest entourage. I'll add photo of the bottle in Stipula Nero ink review.

 

The colors are:

  1. Blu della Robbia (Blue)
  2. Borgogna (Red)
  3. Nero (Black)
  4. Rosso Fiorentino (Florentine Red)
  5. Terra di Siena (Brown)
  6. Verde Muschiato (Musk Green)
  7. Violet (Violet)
  8. Zafferano (Saffron)

Zafferano is rather pleasant ink. Of course a lot depends on pen, paper, nib combo you use. I'm not sure if it's kind of ink you would enjoy while using dry fine nibs. Ijn wet and broad nibs it offers nice shading and very good flow. In Waterman hemisphere fine nib the flow was good but not exceptional and the shading was also visible but, obviously, not as dramatic as in Kaweco broad nib.

 

I believe this ink can considered as safe and easy to clean. I haven't observed feathering or bleedthrough.

 

Personally I enjoy Zafferano a lot but I limit my use of this ink to gushers.

 

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Drops of ink on kitchen towel

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Software ID

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Tomoe River, Kaweco Classic Sport, broad nib

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Leuchtturm 1917, Kaweco Classic Sport, broad nib

zafferano_stipula_l_1.jpg

zafferano_stipula_l_2.jpg

zafferano_stipula_l_4.jpg

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Thank you for this flattering review of the first ink I tried from Stipula. I love my later purchase of Verde Muschiato MORE, but have never been sorry I first ordered this ink. It has it's place for me.

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Nice review of a good ink (I find it one of the better ones in this series) but where did you find a Stipula (Calamo) Violet? Never heard of that one here before! (There also used to be a Gray in 2012.)

 

Mike

Life is too short to drink bad wine (Goethe)

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Ahh, thanks, Vis. Will take a closer look at that....

 

Mike

Life is too short to drink bad wine (Goethe)

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I know I've enjoyed the Stipula Sepia ink that I bought. FPH lists a few of their pens online, but not their inks, which I thought they used to do. I'll have to check out the stock status at FPH when I visit the city Tuesday. It would be sad if they stopped production, as it would be the second Italian pen maker to close up shop recently (Omas was the other, but perhaps that was just their inks).

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Like Jack (Barkingpig)...no regrets. This is the only Stipula ink I own currently and, as Vis implied, it is pretty well behaved. Here is a photo of the bottle Stipula uses for their inks.

 

I notice Vanness lists a Dark Red and Deep Blue in the Stipula line they carry.

post-36725-0-33516400-1471717424_thumb.jpeg

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Looking at that scan tells me that there is a problem to be dealt with when buying these inks. The only thing to be seen for sure on that label is a lowsy dab of ink. Of course, that is supposed to represent the ink inside the bottle but that's often far off. Likely a smudge of any ol' ink they had lying around somewhere in the ballpark. I noticed when I bought mine that two different bottles of the blue (ordered on the same day) had two completely different hues: one more like a turquoise-blue and one more like a violet-blue. In any case by no means similar to the actual blue inside the bottle which I bought. Sure, blue is blue but the two reds aren't all that easy to tell apart without opening the bottle first.

Some of the boxes have a white lable pasted onto the red box, again with a swab but plus the name in Italian and the name in English. But that is only what I see in three of the seven boxes I bought years ago. I hope they now do that on all boxes today.

 

Mike

Life is too short to drink bad wine (Goethe)

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Much like the Sailor inks I own, nowhere on the bottle, cap or label do they list the color of the ink. The smudge on the Stipula bottle gives an indication, however, with Sailor inks it's a crapshoot (unless , of course, you read Japanese).

post-36725-0-09000900-1471722577_thumb.jpeg

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There is, however, on the label and box of Sailor inks both the name (yes, in Japanese, which a few of us can read and translate here on the forum) as well as a number (like 13-1000-260 [which coughs out Epinard] and that is documented all over, thank G.).

Life is too short to drink bad wine (Goethe)

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The only way I have been able to keep up with the colors of the Kobe inks is to attach my own color swab, with the ink's identifying #, atop the bottle top.

 

My separate purchase of Atsu's wonderful notebook, listing the first 50 colors, provided the only realistic color swatch I could use, the pale small lines representing the ink's color on Ebay were a sad depiction of the ink's color for me. And I haven't really worried about those inks following the first 50, so I "muddle along, with all the help I can muster!"

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Nice review of a good ink (I find it one of the better ones in this series) but where did you find a Stipula (Calamo) Violet? Never heard of that one here before! (There also used to be a Gray in 2012.)

 

Mike

 

I believe the Stipula Purple is relatively new in the line, @ least for the US. I believe I saw it "introduced" @ Anderson Pens; it was listed for sale there @ $ 25.00. I asked Pen Chalet if they could possibly get the ink, @ that time they had 7 colors stocked & offered them @ sale price of $17.10; I was delighted they were willing to "order in a color they did not have in stock, & further amazed to receive a bottle @ the listed sale price of $17.10, including a coupon for discount on my next order on February 18, 2016.

 

I just checked & it remains listed as available for shipment & all their Stipula inks are"sale" priced @ $17.10, with suggested retail price of $19.00. Just an option for another source of a very nice, generously sized, (in brown glass for light protection,) bottle of ink. I am afraid the problem of color identification is still a remaining design flaw, but one I can live with since I only have purple, yellow & green Stipula ink.

 

I

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Well the swab and writing sample for Stipula Purple at Anderson Pens doesn't make it that appealing to me as it looks more like magenta.

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I believe the Stipula Purple is relatively new in the line, @ least for the US. I believe I saw it "introduced" @ Anderson Pens; it was listed for sale there @ $ 25.00. I asked Pen Chalet if they could possibly get the ink, @ that time they had 7 colors stocked & offered them @ sale price of $17.10; I was delighted they were willing to "order in a color they did not have in stock, & further amazed to receive a bottle @ the listed sale price of $17.10, including a coupon for discount on my next order on February 18, 2016.

 

I just checked & it remains listed as available for shipment & all their Stipula inks are"sale" priced @ $17.10, with suggested retail price of $19.00. Just an option for another source of a very nice, generously sized, (in brown glass for light protection,) bottle of ink. I am afraid the problem of color identification is still a remaining design flaw, but one I can live with since I only have purple, yellow & green Stipula ink.

 

I

 

Lest this give anyone the idea we are price gouging on Stipula ink, the actual MSRP is indeed $25. I'm not sure where they got $19 for their retail price.

www.esterbrook.net All Esterbrook, All the Time.
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I actually hated this ink and found it very dry and non-lubricated, the bottle has sat in the box since trying it a Shaeffer modded Javelin. Maybe I will try it in a different pen and on Tomoe River.

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