De Artramentis - Silver Grey

​De Artramentis inks have been handmade in Germany since 1995.  I first came across them in 2010 when I stumbled across the excellent but now sadly closed Art Browns pen shop in mid-town Manhattan, New York.  I regret not buying some inks then but I was travelling so didn’t want to carry bottles of ink.  I have bought a few De Artramentis inks  since and think they are very good, surprisingly they don’t seem to be shown much love amongst the FP community on IG, maybe its just the people I follow ro the fact they are not the cheapest of inks (approx NZ$1 per ml).  The only bottle of ink I have ever emptied was a bottle of De Artramentis aubergine. 

All De Artramentis inks come in the same shaped 35ml bottles.  Like many inks you can buy the bottles look great but they are not the best for refilling pens when the level drops.  

I have written before that I am not a great fan of grey inks but out of all I have this would be my favourite.  When you google silver grey a lot comes up e.g. cars claiming to be a silver grey colour but like grey itself there is no consistency in what is offered, there are many silver greys out there.
Chromatography offers nothing – it is grey.

Colo-o-ring and Tomoe again grey but somewhat darker on Tomoe.

Col-o-ring

Tomoe

For the writing I started with cheap paper from work approximately 80gm weight.  It behaved well, had some shading and was slower to dry than I expected.

Midori was next, dry time even slower and again I was surprised.  There was some shading but I think it was better on the cheaper paper

Last Tomoe.  Im going to ahve to find an alternative to this soon since it no longer being made.  There really is no other paper that brings out the sheen and shade in some inks like this does.  Dry time was veeeerrrry slow, some shade but as wth Midori the cheap paper looks better.

​This has to be one of the shortest reviews I’ve done, work has been crazy and there really isn’t much to say about the background of this ink.  The first De Artramentis inks I bought, I bought directly from Germany now they are available everywhere (Penclassics in NZ $30 for 35ml, not cheap).  Where ever you find them you may not be able to buy the full range and  if you like a colour you may want to stockpile as some inks do go out of production, I guard my lotus ink very closely.   
​For similar greys I direct you to my Diamine graphite review - the photo at the end of the review shows the range of grey coloured inks available.
In summary -
Saturation – medium-high
Shading – some and seems to be better on cheaper paper
Sheen – no
Shimmer - no
Flow –good
Nib dry-out - none
Nib creep – no
Start-up – excellent 
Feathering – no, not even on cheap paper
Drying – slooooow
Cleaning - good
Water resistance – actually very impressed as this is not marketed as water proof.  I hold the swatches under a cold water tap that is running - minimal run off here.