When I was a kid, my mom bought me these plastic stick-on gems for me to do crafts with, and I am surprised by how often I’ve run into practical uses for them since then… like my first ink review!
As a relative newcomer to fountain pens, my ink collection is still pretty small. I started off with the standard colors: one black and one blue-black (reviews to come), and I was contemplating my next “fun color” purchase.
While I was browsing shelves at a thrift store, I was pretty happy to find two bottles of Levenger ink! I didn’t know if there was anything I needed to be cautious of in terms of buying used inks, but they were 50 cents each and a $1 risk purchase seemed reasonable to me.
Levenger Gemstone Green is a dark emerald ink that is primarily green, but with a slight turquoise hint to it. It is definitely a cool green, as opposed to a warm green, and made me think of spruce trees and other evergreens.
If you really layer it on, you can even get a bit of reddish purple sheen — kind of like the new Emerald of Chivor! (but sans the sparkle)
The ink writes nicely in a Lamy Safari with a fine nib, on Maruman Mnemosyne paper. However, I did notice a little bit of feathering and show-through, so if it feathers on Mnemosyne then I wouldn’t try my luck with cheaper paper.
It doesn’t shade very much in a fine nib– the color is pretty consistent throughout the words. However, put it in something like a Pilot Parallel and that’s when some real shading action comes out to play.
Unfortunately, it does not play nice with dip pens… at least, not straight from the bottle (not sure how it would be with a bit of gum arabic mixed in to thicken it).
As a mini experiment, I dropped it into a glass of water to see what it would look like! You can really see the teal color emerge as the ink begins to dissolve.
The full review!
Finally, just for fun, I made a collage inspired by Gemstone Green :)
Other recent emerald green ink reviews:
- Visconti Green, by Alt.Haven. This green is quite similar, and I always love her reviews!
- J. Herbin Emerald of Chivor, by Ed Jelley. Includes a stunning video! I’m lucky that I’ve gotten to play around with this ink, as a sample bottle was shipped to JetPens HQ. Can’t wait for more reviews on it!
I love that you found ink in a thrift store. Major score!
Yes! I totally wasn’t expecting it, but thrift stores really have hidden treasures sometimes!