Birmingham Pen Parcel March April W/ Some Herbin To Compare

[radellaf]

Some Birmingham Pen Co and Herbin inks. The bottom row is the April 2018 Pen Parcel 5-ink set: South Side Market Boysenberry, Enterprise Tower Aluminum, Mary Lou Williams Piano Girl Pink, George Ferris Jr. Fair Wheel Blue, and Allegheny Courthouse Justice Blue. The top rows are March's set plus some others for comparison. The Herbins are just colors I wanted to try and finally bought 10mL bottles of, plus some comparison colors from 30mL ones I already had.

 

Halogen:

 

Daylight:

[inkstainedruth]

Oh, some of those Birmingham inks look like new ones. Are they part of the regular lineup, or LE inks?

Thanks for posting. And, well, possibly not....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[radellaf]

AFAIK, there are no LE Birmingham inks, though who knows if some might be discontinued at some point. I've come to kinda hate LE anything, but especially inks and notebooks. Anything where I feel like I'm being marketed to. 'course I'm always being sold things, but some subtlety is appreciated.

Pens only bother me when the edition is so small you can't get in on it like Retro 51, the Pelikan M200 colors where you can still get some years later are OK.

 

As for the Birmingham ink colors, how he's going to add 5 colors a month to an initial 40 (I forget exactly, but that's what's in the $50 sample set) and keep it all in stock I have no idea. The bottles are hand filled so if it's like my old printer cartridge refilling job, there are 5 gallon containers with pour spouts in the warehouse. Maybe 50 colors on a set of shelves? The supplier I guess can make them up as needed, I assume. IDK.

 

In any case, I appreciate the Diamine-like wide range of colors for $8 ea ($6 in the subscription), vs other popular inks these days north of $17 (Oster) or $36 (Bungbox/Edelstein/Colorverse/CdA/FaberC). The Birmingham line is made in Germany, so it's different from the Chesterfield (by Diamine0 that they used to carry when it was X FountainPens. I have to wonder if the German maker is the company behind Seitz Kreuznach's pretty wide range of in-house ink. Wouldn't mind if it was, as those seem to be really good, if rarely spoken about.

 

I enjoyed getting the new Diamine releases back when they were doing them, so this is kinda the same fun. I also joined Pipsticks subscription service to add some stickers as well as ink colors to my letters.

[radellaf]

The new inks for May:

Jonas Salk Serum Umber

Carrie Furnace Pig Iron

Railroad Strike Riot Ember

Gayety Theater Vaudeville Regalia

Rachel Carson Silent Spring

 

4300K Jaxman E2L triple-Nichia 219B high CRI LED

[radellaf]

New for June:

Liberty Tunnel Souther Portal

GC Murphy Tarnished Nickel

Josh Gibson Gibson Field

Pittsburgh Aviary Violet Starling

Highland Park Zoo Polar Bear

 

 

sorry for the uneven lighting, but should be good enough

[crahptacular]

Thanks for these pics--these inks are coming out faster than I can keep up with. Wonder how long he can maintain the 5 colors per month pace.

[radellaf]

Sport Donnelly Grass Stain

Ft. Duquesne Battle French Tricolor

Pittsburgh Bankers Ice Rink

Grant Street Weathered Brick

Frick Building Stained Glass

 

 

 

 

Here's another photo including the ones from his Massdrop release. Made in UK (like the Chesterfield ink from Diamine?) instead of Germany like the other colors.

I agree about the pace, how many good new colors can you have? RO has certainly been cranking them out, though in a totally different palette. I think I'm sticking with this subscription to avoid color-chasing $17-36 other brands (Colorverse, Sailor variants). $6 a bottle is nice. I did go for the 5 new Herbins, but those were $9 each, so worth it.

Edited July 11, 2018 by radellaf

[radellaf]

And the July ink arrived the next day.

Station Square South Shore (a luster ink, made in UK, others Germany)

Ebenezer Denny Carmine

Winky's Hamburgers Root Beer

John Arbuckle Coffee Bean

Schenley Casino Cornflower

 

Scan version:

 

Not sure why Winky's rootbeer is grey instead of brown, but hey, Birmingham Inks love greys.