(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)
A few weeks ago I reviewed Colorverse Trailblazer in Space: Strelka and Pushinka ink. This week, I’m reviewing a different series of inks made to match the Opus 88 Picnic fountain pens. The ink I’m reviewing is Horizon, which complements the Opus 88 Picnic Blue fountain pen.
I tested the ink using my brand new Opus 88 Picnic Blue with a fine point (I mean, I /had/ to have the pen to go with the ink, am I right?) on Maruman Septcouleur paper. The ink is a light blue color with very little shading (in a fine point nib) and little color variation in the swab. The ink is fairly dry and is not waterproof.
On my Col-o-dex card, I used a Nikko G nib. With this nib I was able to get a little shading out of the ink.
Chromatography reveals that the ink has virtually no variation whatsoever. It is consistently light blue.
I also tested the ink with some wider nibs: a 2.4mm Pilot Parallel and my Handwritmic Brody Neuenschwander Ruling Pen. With wider nibs, this ink is much more exciting. It has nice shading and a tiny bit of sheen if you look closely.
Overall, I’m pretty disappointed with Colorverse Horizon. With a fine nib, it is so light as to be almost unreadable. In fact, in my Opus 88 Picnic Blue fountain pen--the very pen the ink is made for--it writes poorly on every kind of paper I tried (including Tomoe River Paper and William Hannah paper). If you want to use this ink, I suggest using it only with very broad nibs.
Tomoe River Paper
William Hannah paper
You can buy Colorverse X Opus 88 Horizon from Pen Chalet for $36.00, which includes a 65 ml bottle and a 15 ml bottle.
(Pen Chalet provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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