Columbus Arancione (Orange)

[Gazcom]

About a year ago I spent some time working in Turin and every day, along the usual journey from home to the workplace, I catched a glimpse to a stationery shop window which had this unknown brand of inks : Columbus.
Afterwards, I discovered that Columbus is an Italian pen manufacturer, part of the Santara group, which is also the Italian distributor for Ballograph and Sheaffer.
I was kinda attracted by the brand, because it’s actually one of the few that sells orange ink in a standard ink line (a Pelikan-ish 30ml bottle costs around 5€ ).

 

http://s11.postimg.org/5f2c5ye2b/OVERVIEW.jpg

 

Orange inks, and in general bright inks, have always been a little problematic. In my experience, especially cheap ones, tend to have really low saturation and to be quite watery, behaving poorly almost everytime.
When I first tried it I really didn’t know what to expect, but actually I’m quite pleased by this ink.
Columbus Orange has a very light tone that tends to become a little darker when it dries (especially on cheap copy paper) becoming a little more visible.
It has a good flow, doesn’t show any feathering (!!!), really really little bleedthrough and reasonable drying times (6 seconds on copy paper) Keep away from water! kinda dissolves if touched by liquids.
The real problem on this ink is the colour, it’s too light and even if it shows some shading, it seems to be impossible to darken it more than a certain amount, even layering on generous swabs of ink.

Is Columbus Orange a good ink?
The answer is quite simple: when you spend 5 euros for a bottle of ink, you surely do not expect to have the “Grail ink”, and this is just a pleasant one with good price/value.
Good for everyday use or for extensively writing? Not really, I think this might be put in good use for highlighting, taking some bright notes or drawing.

 

COPY PAPER

http://s14.postimg.org/qc0eg1fk1/COPYPAPER.jpg

 

SCHIZZA & STRAPPA PAPER

 

http://s14.postimg.org/sj4n3yku9/SCHIZZASTRAPPA.jpg

 

TRACING PAPER

 

http://s14.postimg.org/lty3nxzi9/TRACING_PAPER.jpg

 

CROMATOGRAPHY

 

http://s14.postimg.org/tk4vt31tt/CROMATOGRAPHY.jpg

 

INKDROP

 

http://s14.postimg.org/n3vx2zta9/BLOTCH.jpg

 

PS:

Keep in mind that this ink looks lighter than on monitor!

[visvamitra]

It's interesting, I always enjoy discovering new brands. Thanks for the review.

[Gazcom]

Hi Visvamitra!

 

Unfortunately it's a quite uncommon brand even in Italy. The store keeper that sold me the bottle said that the Columbus ink line looks mostly like Pelikan 4001, just a little bit lighter in colour.

 

Glad you liked my review!

[lapis]

Thanks for the review, especially -- as Visva says -- for the event of finding a hitherto unknown ink brand. Do you have a list of other colours they offer? Or do they make any other inks (other than for tattoos)?

 

Mike

[fabri00]

In the website they have 9 colors.

 

Www.columbuspenne.it

[Gazcom]

This is the actual line:

Yellow, Orange, Red, Brown, Green, Turquoise, Blue, BlueBlack (Violet?) and Black in bottles.

Pink, Red, Brown, Green, Turquoise, Blue, BlueBlack (Violet?), Black in cartridges.

If I have to say it's unlikely they produce their own ink, probably they get it manufactured from some other, and they just brand it Columbus and resell it. On Italian forums there are many saying that it's just a rebranded version of pelikan 4001 but somehow with lighter colours.

I don't think that this could be true for several reasons. For example is unlikely that Pelikan produces for someone else, at cheap prices, a wider range of standard inks than its own (columbus has for example pink cartridges and yellow and orange bottles, wich are not actually in the 4001 line).

Well the mistery behind the Columbus brand thickens...

 

http://s9.postimg.org/r2u8499tr/columbus_line.jpg