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Birmingham Pen Co. - Southside Park Fern Moss


Intensity

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Welcome to a mini review of a blue ink!



Birmingham Pen Company is a store in Pennsylvania with its own line of inks:


https://www.birmingh.../pages/about-us



I noted these inks in reviews for their interesting, unusual shades and great water resistance (not for all, but for many of their inks). Water resistance is a property I value, especially if a droplet does not result in an immediate dye-loaded smear and instead cleans up neatly with a paper towel dab.



During a recent sale on Birmingham Pen Co. inks, I was very excited to buy a bunch, and this one is my favorite of the lot. It has beautiful gentle-gradient shading and a really nice muted murky green-gray shade, especially nice on cream paper. It is a very relaxing shade to look at, with a soft vintage look.



There is a caveat to this ink: it's quite runny, akin to what I experienced with my sample of Iroshizuku Fuyu-Syogun. If you are a fan of Iroshizuku inks, you might like the flow of Birmingham inks. The problem with such high flow when combined with a wet writer is feathering. So as long as you either write on very non-absorbent paper or else have a pen that is not a fire hose (like Jinhao pens can be), or use a fine nib, you should be okay. This review was written with a commonly available cheap Jinhao X750 which many of you might be well familiar with. When combined with this ink, it resulted in Broad nib-level lines and a good deal of feathering. If I use my cursive italic Nakaya which is on the dry side, I don't get any feathering on the same paper, so if you do get this ink, try it in a few pens to see which one it works best with.



And finally, yes, it has wonderful water resistance. Barely any ink washes off.



Please note: for some reason my camera makes Papier Plume's Moss Green (another favorite) look more brown than it really looks in person. In person, Papier Plume's Moss Green is more similar to R&K's Alt Goldgrun, but a bit more "murky" and darker, more legible. My photos make it looks more like Sailor's Rikyu-Cha, for some reason. Oyster Grey is also difficult to photograph and is a bit more green in person.



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“I admit it, I'm surprised that fountain pens are a hobby. ... it's a bit like stumbling into a fork convention - when you've used a fork all your life.” 

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Interesting. I did notice that some of my Birmingham inks were "runny" in consistency (Riddle Green), and some were slightly more prone to feathering on absorptive papers (so far, Walnut St. Brown, Fountain Turquoise, and Steel Blue), but this ink wasn't one of them. Of course, I only get to use each sample in two pens, so I might've gotten lucky with a good ink-nib pairing. I know my Jinhao nibs are generally gushers, while my stubs and italics are drier, so that probably explains it.

 

I remember I liked the look of this one when wet, and felt sad when it greyed out as it dried.

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Interesting. I did notice that some of my Birmingham inks were "runny" in consistency (Riddle Green), and some were slightly more prone to feathering on absorptive papers (so far, Walnut St. Brown, Fountain Turquoise, and Steel Blue), but this ink wasn't one of them. Of course, I only get to use each sample in two pens, so I might've gotten lucky with a good ink-nib pairing. I know my Jinhao nibs are generally gushers, while my stubs and italics are drier, so that probably explains it.

 

I remember I liked the look of this one when wet, and felt sad when it greyed out as it dried.

Yes, Fountain Turquoise also feathers very readily with a dip pen or my Jinhao pens. I've not yet tried Walnut St. Brown and did not get Steel Blue. I've inked up a Lamy LX now with a medium-flow 1.1mm Lamy nib, and the combo is great, not even a hint of feathering. My Jinhao pens are very gushy and have a somewhat inconsistent ink flow. There are subtleties like whether ink flow is even and more measured out, and how a pen combines with a particular ink.

 

Thanks for the review! Tokiwa Matsu is one of my favorites. This is t interesting and " deep"

 

I too love Tokiwa Matsu. It's more saturated and less gray compared to Fern Moss. But Fern Moss has this beautiful gentle gradient matte shading that Tokiwa Matsu doesn't have (though TM has excellent copper sheen instead). I think Fern Moss is beautiful on ivory and cream paper.

Edited by Intensity

“I admit it, I'm surprised that fountain pens are a hobby. ... it's a bit like stumbling into a fork convention - when you've used a fork all your life.” 

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reminds me a lot of glare olive brown, another great ink with amazing water resistance.

Selling a boatload of restored, fairly rare, vintage Japanese gold nib pens, click here to see (more added as I finish restoring them)

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reminds me a lot of glare olive brown, another great ink with amazing water resistance.

Thanks for pointing out that ink--it's beautiful, and I didn't know about it until now. This ink is quite different in color. Olive brown is a more saturated, deeper olive brown. Fern moss is a grayed green with an olive tint.

“I admit it, I'm surprised that fountain pens are a hobby. ... it's a bit like stumbling into a fork convention - when you've used a fork all your life.” 

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I especially like the comparisons. Thank you.

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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