The War of the Roses

[Univer]

Hi All,

 

Before posting an ink swatch off to Phil and Diamine (per this thread), it occurred to me that I ought to scan and post a portion of it.

 

Herewith: a side-by-side scan of the legendary Skrip Persian Rose and one of the current inks intended to emulate it: Private Reserve Arabian Rose. On my monitor the colors are dead on, but, of course, your mileage may vary.

 

Clearly, the Arabian Rose is a very different color from the Persian Rose. Bear in mind, though, that there is apparently some controversy about the "true" color of the Skrip - surviving samples seem to vary somewhat. If that variation is a function of batch-to-batch inconsistencies, then the Private Reserve ink may very well be a perfect match for some other, darker bottle of the Skrip. On the other hand, if the variation is a function of deterioration over time, then this particular bottle of Persian Rose may be as good as it gets: when I received it, the inner paper liner had actually adhered itself to the glass mouth, creating an airtight seal.

 

To my eye, the biggest single difference - apart from the dissimilarity in color - is the clarity and "translucency" of the Skrip, as against the opacity of the Private Reserve.

 

 

 

Please note that this image is an amalgam of two portions of a single scan; that is to say, irrelevant sections of the scan were deleted. It's not a patchwork of two separate scans. (The paper is Black n' Red; the pen is a NOS reservoir dip pen.)

 

Sorry that I don't have bottles of Shah's Rose and Ottoman Rose available to complete the head-to-head comparison. I no longer use Noodler's, so I will have to leave that endeavor to some other enterprising soul.

 

Cheers,

 

Jon

Edited March 1, 2008 by Univer

[lefty928]

Thank you for this scan of such a rare color -- and a lovely one. The sample in my copy of Greg Clark's Ink Sampler is completely different, although also not like Arabian Rose. I think your scan shows the translucency you speak of very well.

[AndrewW]

That's interesting - and really nice to have.

 

The only other example of genuine Persian Rose that I have seen was a very dark aubergine colour.

 

If my screen colours are accurate (and the PR Arabian Rose doesn't look too far off my bottle), I'd say that the existing Diamine Crimson is almost a dead ringer for the Skrip Persian Rose. Certainly very close.

 

[Univer]

Hi Andrew,

 

Thanks for your post. Very interesting - I've seen other references to Persian Rose as a dark aubergine. And I've noted that Michael Richter's review of Caran d'Ache Storm calls that purple/burgundy shade "the closest modern match" for the Skrip - also supporting the aubergine characterization.

 

Maybe the Skrip really was a horribly unstable brew, and there's no single "true" color. I do have to say, though, that I've always had trouble reconciling the ink's name with an aubergine color. I mean, with apologies to Gertrude Stein, a rose is a rose is a rose...but a rose is not an eggplant. Then too, I've seen print ads from the Persian Rose era featuring little dots representing all of the available Skrip colors, and I seem to recall that there was a "rose" among them; and I can't imagine what other Skrip color that could have been. So I tend to think, maybe self-servingly, that my bottle represents a reasonably accurate color sample.

 

In any event: if Persian Rose were nothing more than an interesting enigma, then this would all be of academic interest only. But the color - this color, at least - is truly beautiful. So I continue to hope that some ink company can do a better job of recreating it (hence my letter to Diamine).

 

Cheers,

 

Jon

Edited March 3, 2008 by Univer

[Ann Finley]

That's interesting - and really nice to have.

 

The only other example of genuine Persian Rose that I have seen was a very dark aubergine colour.

 

If my screen colours are accurate (and the PR Arabian Rose doesn't look too far off my bottle), I'd say that the existing Diamine Crimson is almost a dead ringer for the Skrip Persian Rose. Certainly very close.

 

I have a sample of Diamine Crimson & a bottle of Herbin Rose Cyclamen, another case of almost dead ringers for one another.

 

In each of my 2 copies of Greg Clark's Ink Sampler, Persian Rose looks like a deep purplish burgundy, with one swatch having a tiny greyish tone to it. The color from Jon's bottle certainly looks more like what I envision as rose!

 

Best, Ann

[AndrewW]

I have a sample of Diamine Crimson & a bottle of Herbin Rose Cyclamen, another case of almost dead ringers for one another.

 

You can also add YOL Claret to the list! It is very similar to the Diamine Crimson - the difference is very slight, in that the Crimson has a slightly more blueish tone to it.

 

On the Persian Rose matter: My own guess is that the Noodlers Ottoman Rose may be the closest to what it looked like originally. When I've seen pots and the like described as "Persian Rose" on ebay and the internet, they have tended to be a dark, slightly pinkish red, which is what Ottoman Rose is. There may be some support for this theory in that Sanford's were making a ink called "Dubonnet Red" at around the same time as Skrip PR. From what I can tell, this was also fairly similar to the Ottoman Rose. Since ink manufacturers back then often had very similar colour ranges, this could suggest that they were similar.

 

Incidentally, the people at Private Reserve told me a while back that their Arabian Rose was actually based on a sample of the genuine Persian Rose.

Edited March 5, 2008 by AndrewW

[penmanila]

i got lucky (or half-lucky) a few months ago when i landed a couple of bottles of persian rose in an ebay lot ($15 for the bundle). i never got around to testing the bottles until recently. one of the bottles turned out to be spoiled--the "persian rose" became a weak sepia. but the other bottle had apparently never been opened; there was still some resistance when i uncapped it--and the ink was nice and fresh:

 

 

i tested it with the big, wet 1.3 stub on my visconti wall street, the better to see the ink running on the paper.

 

here's another look:

 

[penmanila]

while i was at it, i did a quick-and-dirty comparison of four reddish/purplish inks i had, making sure, of course, to flush and dry the nib before every dipping.) here they are:

i think the R&K alt-bordeaux surprisingly comes closest to persian rose in these samples.

[slippery when wet]

Penmanila, beautiful presentation/writing of some great looking inks

Edited May 31, 2014 by slippery when wet

[eharriett]

Thought I would revive this thread for a bit and see, a few years later, if anyone has more reliably gotten either an alternative match for this color or has created a recipe that’s pretty accurate for it (with scans).

 

The only bottle of it I have ever seen was at the dc show this year and the person was selling it for $105! I have a bunch of vintage inks I’m trying to trade, but my hopes for trading for a bottle of that seem pretty close to zilch, so I’m trying to do the next best thing and see if anyone has ideas for its recreation.

[Chrissy]

I have a bottle of Sheaffer Skrip Persian Rose, and it's the original pink shade.

 

I also have Private Reserve Arabian Rose, but it isn't particularly close to my Sheaffer Persian Rose. However, some of my P.R. inks may have spoiled.

 

If you want to match Sheaffer Persian Rose, do you want to match the pink shade or the very dark purplish/burgundy shade that it changes to over a long time in the bottle?

 

Both of them are already in this thread.

 

[Chrissy]

I've added a couple more pinkish inks to my list. When I get a chance to use the scanner, I will reload the Pink Inks page.

 

Meanwhile, I was looking through all of my chroma test strips. If I wanted to make Sheaffer Persian Rose I would start with Diamine Amaranth or Pelikan Edelstein Turmaline and add a drop or two of Sheaffer Skrip Red. It looks like the easiest way forward to me.

 

Sheaffer Persian Rose has a purplish dye (like Diamine Amaranth) at the bottom plus a straight red at the top. It can't be that difficult to reproduce. At the moment I'm afraid I don't have enough experimentation time to do it.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

Is this the right thread to ask if anyone has pink inks from J. Herbin, R&K Morinda and Fernambuk, and Sailor Sakura-Mori? Sakura-Mori especially, I've found mostly reviews in Japanese.

[displacermoose]

Is this the right thread to ask if anyone has pink inks from J. Herbin, R&K Morinda and Fernambuk, and Sailor Sakura-Mori? Sakura-Mori especially, I've found mostly reviews in Japanese.

Check the index of ink reviews and have a look at the pink topic of the day (tod) thread. They are pretty comprehensive.