Birmingham Pen Company's Oxidized Brass

[finnegans]

These Birmingham inks are of a piece - there's an aesthetic there (mostly a dark, brooding, industrial aesthetic), but if you like the palette, it's done very well. This Oxidized Brass is muted, subtle, very work-friendly without being boring - enough of a reason to get rid of those middle-of-the-road blue-blacks, maybe. On Tomoe River Paper its presentation depends quite a bit on the nib used; I found that a European fine showed enough of its gray-blue character to be interesting but wasn't so light that it lost its black tones.

 

 

 

On Rhodia it's pretty similar...

 

 

On absorbent paper it shades less (if at all) and spreads, but (at least on Staples Sustainable Earth) does not feather or bleed through (shows through about as much as any dark FP ink - visible but not too intrusive to use the back of the page).

[Pensei]

I love this ink.

[Jan2016]

Thanks for the review.

Interesting color!

[lapis]

Nice review of a nice colour although I'd never call it an oxidized brass. Of course there are a lot of possibilities due to the ratio of constituents but the more the copper, the greener the brass; the more the zinc, the more the brown even getting into some red. This ink is IMO a blue-black, so all the more reason to get it!

[inkstainedruth]

This must be one of Nick's newer concoctions, because I don't remember seeing it before. As if I needed another blue black....

Thanks for the review. And, well, not.... Maybe it's good that it's supposed to snow here in Pittsburgh this weekend, so I'm not trekking down to Shadyside.... I haven't had a chance to try the last *five* Birmingham inks I bought (Truss Blue, Waterfront Dusk, Schenley Park Thicket Green, USS Requin Navy, and Honus Wagner Infield Brown). And now I'm being tempted by yet another one....?

You're killing me here....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[finnegans]

Ruth - I hear you! We’re in the same boat - I thought I might have enough blue- blacks (if such a state of being exists, which is a matter of some debate in my house), but Birmingham’s palette has so much depth to it - my compromise was to get samples (for now). These inks are gorgeous.