Birmingham Pen November 2018 Ink Subscription

Today we are looking at November's Pen Parcel, aka the Birmingham Pen ink subscription. Every month five new, 5ml samples hit my mailbox. Sometimes the inks become available as singles on the Birmingham website about a month after the subscription, sometimes they are just test colors. Lately they have been showing up toward the end of the month (December’s has not shipped yet).

This month’s inks are a range of brown, blue and purples.

Swabs:

Left to right, Fried Circuit, Blue Eyes, Cruising Altitude, Ringside Maroon and Framboise. Most of the inks had feathering on the Col-o-ring cards.

Writing samples:

Let's take a look at how the ink behaves on fountain pen friendly papers: Rhodia, Tomoe River, and Leuchtturm.

Dry time: 30-50 seconds

Water resistance: Low

Feathering: Low-there was just a bit of feathering on Rhodia and Leuchtturm, mainly in the flex nib.

Show through: Medium

Bleeding: Low-there was just a little bit of bleeding on Rhodia.

Other properties: no shading, no sheen, and no shimmer.

On Staples 24 lb copy paper there was lots of feathering in every nib size as well as quite a bit of bleeding, so I would not recommend these inks for cheap paper.

Comparison Swabs:

Fried Circuit is closest to Sailor Jentle Doyou, Blue Eyes is closest to Colorverse Proxima B, Cruising Altitude is closest to Lilac Night, Ringside Maroon is closest to Robert Oster Berry d’Ache, and Framboise is closest to Bungubox Sweet Potato Purple. Click here to see the Birmingham inks together.

I used medium Twsbi Eco’s on a Midori MD Notebook. All of the inks had an average flow.

Overall, I like that this month’s set has a nice winter theme and go well together. They are a bit better behaved than some of the other Birmingham inks I’ve tried.

Disclaimer: I purchased this ink myself, and all photos and opinions are my own. This page does not contain affiliate links, and is not sponsored in any way.