Better to be late to the party than to never show up, right? That’s how I feel about Birmingham Pen Company. Specifically, their inks.
For years, Birmingham worked with outside vendors to manufacture their products, including what seemed like 100’s of fountain pen inks. As the business grew, brothers Nick and Josh decided to forge their own path, bringing the manufacture of their inks completely ink house.
And the results are stunning.
As someone who loves ink and has (retracted)’s of ink bottles on hand, even I want to try every single formulation Birmingham offers. Just look at the colors!
I’m sure Birmingham would be happy for you to try them all as well. The colors are fun, have character, are packaged nicely, and come in at a more than reasonable price. They are functional in more ways than one, too, as Birmingham has created six different ink formulations to help narrow down your choice from “All of them!” to “Ok, maybe just a few.”
Antique Sepia is defined by Birmingham as a Crisp ink. What does that mean? I’ll let Birmingham explain:
“Crisp Formula inks are designed to maximize range and personality while minimizing characteristics such as feathering and bleeding on variety of premium, mid range, and discount papers.”
To me, that means Crisp inks are the best choice for all around usage. They perform well in all types of nibs and on all types of paper, while providing excellent character in your lines. Antique Sepia is the first Birmingham Ink I’ve tested, and I’d say it matches up to that description perfectly.
On the page, Antique Sepia has a good bit of mossy green mixed in with the traditional brown I’m used to in a sepia ink. In wetter nibs, or with heavier applications (I used a dip nib to color in my ink bottle stamp,) you get a huge range of those two colors, and see a decent amount of shading. The longer you look at it, the wilder it appears.
In the Jowo Extra Fine nib (yes, that’s the Leonardo Momento Zero Mango) I used for the writing sample and line art, you’ll see a smaller range of color, with only slight shading. Performance wise, the ink flowed well and dried quickly. I found it to be just as expected from the definition of the formula.
If there is one issue with Antique Sepia, I’ll refer you back to the beginning of this post: It makes me want to buy more Birmingham inks. I have a couple more in hand already - including an Everlasting formula, which is their pigmented/archival ink - to try out.
I’ll be testing that one out next, and then who knows? If Birmingham Pen Co. keeps making inks, I’ll never be lacking for choice.
(Birmingham Pen Co. provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
