Diamine Prussian Blue

Diamine is one of the oldest ink producers, dating back to 1864, located in the UK. Diamine offers one of the largest colour ranges (over 100) with shimmer, archival and special edition inks in its repertoire. Not only this, Diamine inks are well priced and reliable and their “standard” inks come in two sizes (80mL and 30mL) and some colours come in international standard (short) cartridges as well. 

Diamine Prussian Blue is a dusky, muted gray leaning blue ink. In wider nibs, the blue comes out more and there is more depth of colour, while in finer nibs, it can be mistakened for a gray. Prussian Blue is easily work appropriate and inconspicuous, but I find it a soothing, comfortable and interesting colour.

The ink displays good shading, once again in wider nibs and some can be seen in finer nibs, particularly on Tomoe River paper, but its not as obvious on Rhodia. 

I feel like some sheening is trying to break through on Tomoe River Paper (particularly on the Y on the TWSBI Broad nib), but other than this, there is no obvious sheening for this ink. I did notice while I was writing the writing samples the ink dries lighter than it looks when wet. When wet, it looks like a dark grey – I like it much better when dried, in the lighter colour. 

One really great thing about this ink, if you hate cleaning your pens, this ink is really easy to clean out. I don’t mind cleaning my pens, it usually feels very satisfying, but I hate cleaning piston fillers that you can’t completely disassemble (Mont Blanc 146 – I’m looking at you!). This is one of the few inks that I would happily use in my Mont Blanc because it takes only a few flushes to clean out.

In my collection, the closest in colour I have to Diamine Prussian Blue is P.W. Akkerman Konninginne Nach-Blauw (#7). Lamy Blue Black is bluer and deeper, De Atramentis Benjamin Franklin is much darker and Iroshizuku Fuyu-Syogun is a light grey which, to my eye, leans the tiniest bit purple.

If you need a work appropriate, easy to clean ink that is reliable to use and reasonably priced, I definitely recommend looking into the Diamine range of inks.

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