Birmingham – Allegheny River Twilight

[crahptacular]

The Birmingham Pen Co.’s line of inks (30 colors when I bought the sample pack, but I think they’re at 40+ and counting) feature various colors based on or inspired by notable locations or people associated with its home city of Pittsburgh, PA. I bought their sampler pack, and plan on slowly going through the whole line of inks, though I expect it will take me quite a while. For those interested, I posted some color swatches in a different topic (https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/328952-birmingham-pen-co-ink-swatches/) where you can get a quick idea of what the whole line looks like together.

 

Allegheny River Twilight is a dusty reddish purple with low saturation and darkness. It reminds me of a de-saturated Poussiere de Lune (comparison #3). They have a similar range, but PdL is a more intense color, whereas ART is more grey. PdL also tends to write more on the darker end of its color range while ART writes on the lighter end, only occasionally shading darker. It’s also similar to two other purple Birmingham inks: Raspberry Rain (which is more red, and more saturated), and Lilac Wind (which is darker and less red) but I already used up those samples, unfortunately, so they’re not in the comparisons. The ink can get quite dark when pooled (see the top edge of the doodle), but in my writing (with both F and B nibs) it rarely shaded that dark. It did have gradient shading, but mainly between the light and moderate tones; don’t expect to see dramatic contrast in everyday usage. The ink behaved nicely, with comfortable flow and better water resistance than expected. I somewhat liked this color in some cases (broad nib on TR), but found it too washed out in others (fine nib on all papers). Comparing its range of colors in the doodle to the range of colors in writing, I can’t help but feel disappointed, like the ink doesn’t live up to its potential. Personally, I thought it was one of Birmingham’s weaker purples.

 

Flow/Lubrication: Moderate

Shading: Moderate

Sheen: None

Water Resistance: Moderate-High

 

 

The following sample was done with a PenBBS 309 (F) and a Nemosine Singularity (Broad) on Tomoe River (68gsm, white, loose-leaf). Doodle was done with a size 0 liner. Flex writing was done with a Zebra G nib.

 

Inaccurate Image(s) Disclaimer: The scanner got this one completely wrong, so I had to do a huge amount of color correction for all of the scans. By the time I got the featured ink looking correct, the first comparison (BSIAR) was literally yellow on the screen. I ended up cutting the image in two and correcting the featured ink independently from the row of comparisons, so they should be usable now. The writing samples are not that great. Even though I got the ink color right, the Midori and FC scans came out with the paper having a slight reddish tint, so it's a little hard to tell what the ink actually looks like. Sorry about that!

 

Scan:

 

 

Comparison inks from left to right (big smear is the featured ink):

Noodler’s Black Swan in Australian Roses, Franklin Christoph Tenebris Purpuratum, J Herbin Poussiere de Lune, L’Artisan Callifolio Violet, Nemosine Alpha Centauri

 

Writing Samples (scans; some color correction), from Haruki Murakami’s “Samsa in Love”

 

Maruman Mnemosyne:

 

Midori MD:

 

Franklin-Christoph:

[ENewton]

It's a nice ink and gets darker and purpler over time in the pen, but I prefer both Waterfront Dusk and Lilac Wind.

[crahptacular]

It's definitely possible that I just got an unfortunate configuration for my testing (and the sample only lasted 1-2 weeks), because when I did the doodle I thought the ink looked completely different from whatever I was writing with. Especially comparing the Midori writing sample to the doodle... the difference is pretty dramatic. Either way, I think we're of the same opinion when it comes to Birmingham purples--I liked Waterfront Dusk a lot, and enjoyed Lilac Wind as well.

[Intensity]

Another fan of Waterfront Dusk here! This one is too red-purple for me.

 

Lovely review, as always! I really like the Midori cursive writing here, especially with the bold nib. I can’t make cursive look good with such thick round tipping myself—it looks clunky.

[namrehsnoom]

Super review, thanks! I’m not thrilled by this colour though ... for a purple this one leans too much towards the red-brown side for me.

[fireant]

Thank you for this review-I like the ink.

 

The main reason I clicked on this review is because I grew up in Pittsburgh and spent summers fishing on the river! Just the name reminds me of some happy times.