Visconti ink

Last night I finally used the gift vouchers I received for my recent birthday. I’ve had these vouchers for some weeks, but I kept leaving them at home every time I went in to the city.

The first voucher was from tfp and Jac, for Perth’s pen shop, T. Sharp & Co! I knew immediately what I was going to buy – a bottle of Visconti ink.

The box is a thick reinforced cardboard with information in Italian, French, German and English: Visconti fountain pen ink patented inkwell. Visconti is an Italian pen company. (Picture by M.)

Their ink bottle is distinctive.

They have two varieties of blue: turquoise and indigo. I settled on the indigo, which is closer to the ‘regular’ blue. I tend to be quite boring conservative in my ink preference, my favourite blue being Parker Quink Royal Blue (which pen aficionados would probably scoff at). I have a variety of less-than-usual inks, like violet, green, gold, red and so on, but I have to be in the mood to use these.

I haven’t filled any pen with the Visconti ink yet, but have of course tested it using my glass pen.

The glass pen is perfect for testing inks. Inks wash off very easily, which makes it great for playing with a variety of colours. The Visconti indigo blue is a deep rich blue.

Wrote a couple of phrases in Jawi, the old traditional Malay script derived from the Arabic script. I learned Jawi in primary school but have gotten completely rusty now. (I cheated and copied the phrases from a Jawi website). The sentences say “Jawi is not a backward or religious script” and “Towards the survival and perfection of Jawi script”.

Thanks, tfp and Jac! I’m going to enjoy my Visconti ink!

Off to a second hand booksale now…