Coming Soon: De Atramentis Inks
I never made it through September’s #30inks30days…
But I have special plans coming up, an ocean of De Atramentis ink!
I have been a fan of De Atramentis inks for some time. There are soo many colors available and I never seem to see very many ink reviews of this brand. It motivated me to get in touch with De Atramentis and they graciously sent samples from their standard ink line. Since then I have spent the last couple of months writing with these inks; I am in love!
I’ve also been doing some research into the history of De Atramentis. Here are some links to some history and even a 1660’s book about inks (unfortunately it is only in Latin).
link - Fountain Pen Network Post #1
link - Fountain Pen Network Post #2
link - The Book!
pdf link - Here you can view the digital scans of the book pages. It takes some time to load as it is a large file. I ended up downloading the PDF for easier viewing on my PC.
From my communications with a representative of De Atramentis, I’ll share some information and background they have provided for me:
“The Ink Manufacturer Jansen
DE ATRAMENTIS
The Ink Manufacturer DE ATRAMENTIS has been producing inks for 26 years, some of them according to historical specifications. We do this with the utmost care, naturally in compliance with legal requirements and DIN standards.
The idea of producing inks came about after several attempts to write poems on special paper with standard inks and the results were unsatisfactory. Since ink itself does not have to be reinvented, but Schiller and Goethe also used it to write high-quality documents, we researched antiquarian writings and initially found recipes using gall apples. Various attempts finally led to success.
Franz-Josef Jansen sent some samples to a stationer for testing purposes and with a request for feedback. This came in the form of an order for 100 inks.
The joy of writing with ink and the numerous writing instruments, including the design of colorful image creations, have always been incentive for further developments and the design of inks for a wide range of requirements.
The trigger to bring fragrances to into the ink came, for example, from a remark made by a visitor at an exhibition who said to her partner: “Look, there are colorful scented oils on offer here.” At that time, in the early days of our manufacture, the ink bottles were still quite small and inconspicuous, so that the observer could come to such an assumption.
Franz-Josef Jansen, the founder of the manufacture, immediately took this remark as inspiration and made his first attempts to add fragrance to the inks.
Most of our inks have their origin in the suggestions of our customers.
Ideas such as salami fragrance for a butcher’s anniversary or grass fragrance for a golf ink with a glass nib in the look of a golf club came about thanks to our customers and ultimately led to a wide range of different inks.
Such handmade creations are only possible in a small manufacture without machine production, and this make up our company philosophy.”
Stay tuned for reviews of these wonderful inks. Do you have a favorite De Atramentis ink? Let me know here!
Cheers!
