EFNIR: Tintenlabor Iron Gall 1 Purple / Black

[LizEF]

Extra Fine Nib Ink Review: Tintenlabor Iron Gall 1 Purple / Black

This is review #336 in my series. Here's the YouTube video:

Post-recording notes: German name: Sondertinte: Eisengallustinte 1, purpur / schwarz

This and five other iron gall inks were kindly sent to me all the way from Switzerland by Tintenlabor for review. You can learn more at the Tintenlabor website.(Please check out the site for lots of good details about this ink - it's really interesting!) Also, christof shows these inks off more beautifully than I could with my Japanese EF.  Check it out here.

Cleaning was quick and easy with plain water.  The chroma showed only a pale grey line and single grey dye, so I didn't include it. The microscope slide was boring as well.

Zoomed in photo (On one screen it's a little too desaturated; on the other, it's too red. You can't win with purple. :))

Screenshot (Surprisingly close, but a little too dark and a little undersaturated.)

Scan of Completed Review (Almost perfect. Go by this one, though it could use a little more color saturation - just a little.)

Absorbent Paper Close-up (top is puzzle paper like thick newsprint, bottom is old 20lb copy paper) (Both are too blotchy (my eyes don't see that). Also like the zoom: too desaturated on one screen, too red on the other.)

Line width (The "I" in "Ink:". Magnification is 100x. The grid is 100x100µm. The scale is 330µm, with eleven divisions of 30µm each. The line width for this ink is roughly 311µm. With 336 inks measured, the average line width is 298µm.)

Water Test Results

Previous Review: Tintenlabor Gold / Black.

Images also available on Instagram: @zilxodarap.

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View a list of my inks, complete with review results in a google sheet.

Need to catch up on The Adventures of Quin and Makhabesh? Find the whole story here.

Hope you enjoy. Comments appreciated!

[yazeh]

Great review @LizEF 👍

This has easily become my favorite Purple ink. In my experience it has been quite well lubricated, but I was clever enough to go with a Pilot Elite Ef gold nib. Hopefully, I'll be posting my review this week, so people can see the color range of this one. Oxidation is surprisingly fastest on Iroful. Purple 2 results into darker, smokier purple. 

I'm sad to see that are heros couldn't get any cheeseburgers. I'm assuming fantasy lands are not immune to prejudice either.

 

Thanks again for bringing this happy purple on page ,🙏🙏🙏

[LizEF]

48 minutes ago, yazeh said:

Great review @LizEF 👍

Thanks!

 

49 minutes ago, yazeh said:

This has easily become my favorite Purple ink.

It is a lovely color.

 

50 minutes ago, yazeh said:

In my experience it has been quite well lubricated, but I was clever enough to go with a Pilot Elite Ef gold nib.

I'll try it in a wetter, smoother pen eventually and I'm sure it'll be fine.

 

51 minutes ago, yazeh said:

Hopefully, I'll be posting my review this week, so people can see the color range of this one. Oxidation is surprisingly fastest on Iroful. Purple 2 results into darker, smokier purple. 

I reviewed it between letters, so I haven't tried it on Iroful. I'll have to do that whenever I choose another pen to try it in.  Yes, I would expect Purple 2 to go darker and greyer faster.

 

52 minutes ago, yazeh said:

I'm sad to see that are heros couldn't get any cheeseburgers.

Well, they didn't actually want cheeseburgers, just an excuse to look for the men Makhabesh followed, so it's probably better that way.

 

53 minutes ago, yazeh said:

I'm assuming fantasy lands are not immune to prejudice either.

People can't seem to help themselves.

 

53 minutes ago, yazeh said:

Thanks again for bringing this happy purple on page ,🙏🙏🙏

You're most welcome!

[inkstainedruth]

Oh that does look like a nice ink!  Purple AND iron gall?  

My wallet, however does NOT thank you.... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[LizEF]

7 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

Oh that does look like a nice ink!  Purple AND iron gall?  

 

7 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

My wallet, however does NOT thank you.... 

[InesF]

It was this nameless person crouching behind the bar counter, a long, sharply looking knife pointed at the barman's knee, who made him say: “Sphinxes and snakes are not welcome here!” and let the two visitors leave the bar disappointed.

 

"Thank you", @LizEF, for this ink review! 🙄 Now I know, even better than before, that I need the infini-drawer and the infini-wallet at a time, both, the Big River Shop and the Oriental Quick Shop ran out of stock of these! 😢 It feels jinxed 🧙‍♀️ - if not magical!  

 

Yes, this ink is extremely interesting and no scientist will be able to resist its magic!  

"Thank you" 😭 💰 😭

 

[Lithium466]

Thank you for your review! 
Below average lubrication, but that is still better than Poussière de lune, that made me chuckle 🤭 

Do you know how it compares to KWZ IG Gummiberry? It seems these inks produce surprisingly (to me) wide lines.

[LizEF]

7 hours ago, InesF said:

It was this nameless person crouching behind the bar counter, a long, sharply looking knife pointed at the barman's knee, who made him say: “Sphinxes and snakes are not welcome here!” and let the two visitors leave the bar disappointed.

Oh my.  You're sneaky, aren't you?    Tune in next week to learn whether @InesF read my mind!

 

7 hours ago, InesF said:

"Thank you", @LizEF, for this ink review!

You're most welcome!

 

7 hours ago, InesF said:

Now I know, even better than before, that I need the infini-drawer and the infini-wallet at a time, both, the Big River Shop and the Oriental Quick Shop ran out of stock of these! 😢 It feels jinxed 🧙‍♀️ - if not magical!  

If it helps, they're only 30mL bottles - and for at least some, you can get little 10mL bottles...

 

7 hours ago, InesF said:

Yes, this ink is extremely interesting and no scientist will be able to resist its magic!  

That whole, "stabilizes" and "slows oxidation" bit was most interesting!

 

7 hours ago, InesF said:

"Thank you" 😭 💰 😭

 

Happy to add to your list of things to want - goals and wishlists apparently help keep humans happy!  You just need to be like @yazeh and use up massive amounts of ink in washes and drawings.

[LizEF]

4 hours ago, Lithium466 said:

Thank you for your review! 

You're very welcome!

 

4 hours ago, Lithium466 said:

Below average lubrication, but that is still better than Poussière de lune, that made me chuckle 🤭 

  I reviewed Poussière de Lune early on.  I should review (or at least test) it again to see if my evaluation is the same - it was awful.  I thought my tines were misaligned, but they weren't.  (Really, it's a bad sign when an ink causes you to be disappointed that your tines are not misaligned! )

 

4 hours ago, Lithium466 said:

Do you know how it compares to KWZ IG Gummiberry?

Do I have Gummiberry....?  Oh, I do.  OK, this is me thinking I should skip the poll and review any unreviewed IG inks, just to ensure they don't "go bad" before I get to them...  [Please hold while we swatch....]  And no, as it turns out, I don't have Gummiberry - the sample had gone bad.  This is the second sample from the same gifter that has gone bad, so I'm going to query them all and inspect them.

 

[Hours later, because I forgot I hadn't posted this reply: I hope you're happy. I'm now querying, sorting, updating, rearranging... ]

 

6 hours ago, Lithium466 said:

It seems these inks produce surprisingly (to me) wide lines.

Yes. I mentioned that to the maker, and he thought it was because of the lubricant.

[yazeh]

@LizEF spot on. I actually eyedropped (is it actually a verb?)  an Ahab with purple 2 and a Kanwrite with Purple 1. For some reason the Kanwrite wasn't cooperating and I thought maybe I'm out of ink and as i was trying to see if there was any ink left in the barrel, when I poured quite a bit  of ink on my drawing. I think I'll still post the " ruined" drawing. That amount  of ink on paper is nirvana for ink nerds like us 😄

[LizEF]

5 minutes ago, yazeh said:

@LizEF spot on. I actually eyedropped (is it actually a verb?)  an Ahab with purple 2 and a Kanwrite with Purple 1. For some reason the Kanwrite wasn't cooperating and I thought maybe I'm out of ink and as i was trying to see if there was any ink left in the barrel, when I poured quite a bit  of ink on my drawing. I think I'll still post the " ruined" drawing. That amount  of ink on paper is nirvana for ink nerds like us 😄

This is one reason I like transparent pens - I really prefer to see what's in there rather than try to find out some other way. I look forward to the Purple Lake drawing.

 

In other news, only one other sample was iffy (I just looked through them all), and the only un-reviewed IG inks I have are Anderson Pens Oshkosh Denim (which I'm not convinced is IG, and it's unobtainium anyway) and KWZ #27 (which wasn't ever manufactured - it was a "test" ink - and thus I'm not sure how reviewing it will do anyone any good - if I wait long enough, it might "go bad" and I won't have to review it ).

 

Meanwhile, a robin is outside my back window singing his little heart out!

[yazeh]

13 hours ago, LizEF said:

This is one reason I like transparent pens - I really prefer to see what's in there rather than try to find out some other way. I look forward to the Purple Lake drawing.

I managed to salvage another inblot, more like a Rorschach test  Today is one of those days, I wish I were a cat and my cat me, so I could have a long nap 😼

13 hours ago, LizEF said:

 

In other news, only one other sample was iffy (I just looked through them all), and the only un-reviewed IG inks I have are Anderson Pens Oshkosh Denim (which I'm not convinced is IG, and it's unobtainium anyway) and KWZ #27 (which wasn't ever manufactured - it was a "test" ink - and thus I'm not sure how reviewing it will do anyone any good - if I wait long enough, it might "go bad" and I won't have to review it ).

 

 

13 hours ago, LizEF said:

Meanwhile, a robin is outside my back window singing his little heart out!

I love the robins. They have a unique song. Ours is singing too. How, I love spring  

[LizEF]

30 minutes ago, yazeh said:

Today is one of those days, I wish I were a cat and my cat me, so I could have a long nap 😼

This is a simple solution - recline in some spot, drape an old shirt with your scent all over it across your lap, wait for kitty to join you, kitty will emit "sleepy vibes" that will soon have you slumbering peacefully.

 

32 minutes ago, yazeh said:

I love the robins. They have a unique song. Ours is singing too. How, I love spring  

When I first moved in here, the neighborhood was new (I had this house built, and it was the last on the street to be finished).  That meant there really weren't any trees - just young ones, recently planted.  Which also meant there really weren't any birds. One year I went to my parents house (much older, and in a greener part of the country), and was shocked by how many birds would sing in the morning, and how loudly (and not in harmony, either ). That was when I realized there were no birds around my home. But eventually the trees grew, and the birds came, and I realized how much I love hearing cheepies and tweeties in the morning.   (It took me a while to get used to the mourning dove cooing from atop my house, but once I learned that the song I was hearing was that of a poor lonely male seeking a mate, my heart softened and I grew to like his cooing and cheered his efforts.   I'm hoping it hasn't been the same mourning dove all these years - that would just be sad.)

[yazeh]

15 minutes ago, LizEF said:

This is a simple solution - recline in some spot, drape an old shirt with your scent all over it across your lap, wait for kitty to join you, kitty will emit "sleepy vibes" that will soon have you slumbering peacefully.

I wish. I have to go out soon.

15 minutes ago, LizEF said:

 

When I first moved in here, the neighborhood was new (I had this house built, and it was the last on the street to be finished).  That meant there really weren't any trees - just young ones, recently planted.  Which also meant there really weren't any birds. One year I went to my parents house (much older, and in a greener part of the country), and was shocked by how many birds would sing in the morning, and how loudly (and not in harmony, either ). That was when I realized there were no birds around my home. But eventually the trees grew, and the birds came, and I realized how much I love hearing cheepies and tweeties in the morning.   (It took me a while to get used to the mourning dove cooing from atop my house, but once I learned that the song I was hearing was that of a poor lonely male seeking a mate, my heart softened and I grew to like his cooing and cheered his efforts.   I'm hoping it hasn't been the same mourning dove all these years - that would just be sad.)

Lovely story, thanks for sharing. I'm lucky to be in a neighbourhood with a lot of trees. The most prominent sound is that of the cardinal, declaring its territory and, of course, its distinct song. I prefer them to their namesake.   I also love the sound of chickadees, their vocalizations, and how they zoom in and out,  mocking the cats. Robins announce the spring and summer. I like crows too, though once we had a murder of crows covering all the trees in the park, which was frightening. I felt we were in Hitchcock's Birds  

 

On an inky note, @Lithium466 I was surprised when I compared the oxidation of my Purple swabs. The before and afer all almost identical on swatch cards, so I made a mistake. However, one should note that Col-O-ring papers are different than paper used daily...

[yazeh]

@LizEF & @Lithium466 Check the oxidation of different IG inks on cheap paper:

Note how concentrated Purple is different from fude Purple. 

Note the Gold on Day 1

 

Day 1:

Day 2

Day 4

 

[LizEF]

51 minutes ago, yazeh said:

I felt we were in Hitchcock's Birds  

It is eerie when a massive number of birds show up all at once. We occasionally get a murmuration of European starlings.

 

11 minutes ago, yazeh said:

@LizEF & @Lithium466 Check the oxidation of different IG inks on cheap paper:

Note how concentrated Purple is different from fude Purple. 

Note the Gold on Day 1

Thanks!  Fabulous demonstration of the oxidation process!   (And I love the look of the gold on day 1.)

[yazeh]

45 minutes ago, LizEF said:

It is eerie when a massive number of birds show up all at once. We occasionally get a murmuration of European starlings.

That must be lovely ☺️

45 minutes ago, LizEF said:

 

Thanks!  Fabulous demonstration of the oxidation process!   (And I love the look of the gold on day 1.)

Gold looks very Goldie

When one adds the Gold in generous quantities it transforms into a textured black. I'm still at my initial testings, which is mostly washes and hatching, so I have someway to go ☺️

[Mercian]

On 5/6/2025 at 2:26 PM, yazeh said:

This has easily become my favorite Purple ink.

 

On 5/6/2025 at 3:47 PM, LizEF said:

It is a lovely color.

 

To my eye, this ink looks like a slightly more-'purple' (or less-'red') R&K Scabiosa

Then again, I am basing that impression on the initial colour of Scabiosa on the page; as it darkens it turns to a lovely (IMO) shade of purple
And then starts to turn (slowly) more-grey.

 

I would be interested to see a sequence of 'time lapse' (for want of a better description) pictures of writing samples done with this ink.
At e.g. 'just-written'; one-day old; three-days old; and at one week old; two weeks old; and three weeks old.

But who the ecky-thump would have the time to keep on revisiting old writing samples to re-scan them?
I know that e.g. both of you who I have quoted here already have more-than-enough to do with your schedule of creating reviews of other inks.
So I am not asking that either of you do this!

Methinks that I may just have to buy a bottle....
After all, I haven't yet (quite) got so many purple inks that I cannot list them from memory!
(As long as I concentrate )

<sigh>

[Mercian]

7 hours ago, LizEF said:

We occasionally get a murmuration of European starlings.

 

I hope that your car is kept under cover!

 

When you get a large 'murmuration' roosting near you, the dinosaurs in it can all decide to 'bomb' all the cars in the neighbourhood.

Guano can rot through car paint.

 

A few years ago there was a persistent murmuration that roosted in a village a few miles from me.
The effects on the locals' cars and houses (and washing drying on lines) were enough that it even made the regional (six English counties) TV news show.

[LizEF]

1 hour ago, Mercian said:

To my eye, this ink looks like a slightly more-'purple' (or less-'red') R&K Scabiosa

Then again, I am basing that impression on the initial colour of Scabiosa on the page; as it darkens it turns to a lovely (IMO) shade of purple
And then starts to turn (slowly) more-grey.

Must have been another site.  Someone else asked me to compare, and Scabiosa looks burgundy in comparison - it only goes back to purple when you take the Tintenlabor ink away.

 

1 hour ago, Mercian said:

I would be interested to see a sequence of 'time lapse' (for want of a better description) pictures of writing samples done with this ink.
At e.g. 'just-written'; one-day old; three-days old; and at one week old; two weeks old; and three weeks old.

I have the review page in front of me as I type. It's 4 weeks old (+2 days). Maybe it's a little darker.  Not much. One problem is that I had a hard time getting the images to match what my eyes see - purples are often difficult.  But here's a new scan...  On one monitor, it's very close.  On the other, it's over-saturated (needs a bit of greying / muting):

 

FWIW.