Goulet Pens Ink Drop March 2016 Subscription Review

Goulet Pen’s Ink Drop is a monthly fountain pen ink sampling subscription. Every month you’ll receive 5 new samples of fountain pen ink, usually themed in some interesting and unique way.

This month’s ink drop theme of Monarch Madness which clearly screams royalty.  Let’s take a look the ink offerings from Goulet Pens.

The box includes a sticker and a bookmark.

This will also be the second to the last of the ink drops offered by the Goulet Ink Company. You can read more about the retirement of this subscription here.

Everything in this box.

March 2016: Monarch Madness

• Diamine Imperial Purple
• Diamine Majestic Blue
• Diamine Regency Blue
• Diamine Tyrian Purple
• Noodler’s Kung Te-Cheng

In a play on the first thing that typically pops into people’s heads in the month of March, Goulet Pens offers up a selection of deep and regal inks in their Monarch Madness ink drop.  With the exception of a sample from Noodler’s, all of the offerings are from one of my favorite ink companies, Diamine.  

Ink samples were done on French ruled Clairefontaine paper and were produced with a titanium Zebra G nib. 

Noodler’s Kung Te-Cheng

 We might as well get the odd ink out first; ironically, this also happens to be the only ink that I had anything relatively bad to complain about- more on that later, though.  Kung Te-Cheng was, according to the Goulet site, Noodler’s attempt to recreate the original ink used exclusively by Chinese royalty.  The color is said to have been a dark blue tinged with purple, however I saw more of a lovely darker blue on my paper and almost no detectable purple.  For writing, the ink performed mostly well and makes a handsome showing for that end.  The only thing that I had questions about concerning the ink was the thickness of it.  I did my writing sample before I read Goulet’s comments about the ink and feel that their explanation answers my initial reserves about it.  The bottle for sale on their site comes with a free ‘Charlie’ pen and a warning to use only that pen with the ink since clogging issues may occur in others.  While making my writing sample, I often felt as though I was using more of a paint than an ink.  It coated my nib with a thick layer and covered the breather hole with a clear film (you can see this film a little at the very end of my continuous loops; my nib was technically railroading, however a very thin layer of ink was still able to be put down due to the nature of its thicker flow.  To sum up, this is a beautiful shade of blue, but I would caution you not to consider this ‘replica’ ink to be the same as others.  Its nature demands a more mindful usage limited to the provided pen, a dip nib, or other artistic instruments such as even a brush.  If you are not familiar with Noodler’s pens, then note that in keeping with the desire of the company to make pens that could be worked on easily at home, most of Noodler’s pens require a minimal amount of adjustment to get them writing well.  

Diamine Tyrian Purple

A royal ink indeed, this shade has a long history.  Possibly first used by the Phoenicians in in the late 1500’s , Tyrian Purple was made from predatory sea snails and was a rare and expensive commodity reserved for royalty.  You, however, can happily attain its more affordable and snail-friendly version from Diamine.  The company does a good job of getting close to the original with possibly a tad more red involved depending on how the light hits it.  It’s a lovely, strong ink and would do well in any nib size.

Diamine Imperial Purple

If you haven’t guessed yet- royals loved their purple.  Quite often, purple and blue coloring was difficult to source, making them at once highly desirable and obtainable only by those with the most money and likely, power.  This luxurious purple puts me in mind of a shade more frequently seen in Rome and England.  This eggplant shows up beautifully on paper and will go a long way to lending a regal touch to your missives.

Diamine Regency Blue

 This ink easily made my short list of ‘Inks to buy’.  This blue is so dark, it’s almost black.  There’s just enough blue in this deep navy, however, to firmly draw the line between the two and to give you a beautiful end product.  Probably my second favorite of this drop, this handsome blue yielded a little bit of coppery sheen for me, further adding to its intrigue.  Regency blue would do well for official uses when a stern black is too boring and yet it is still worthy of a place among those inks that are more playfully vibrant.  

Diamine Majestic Blue

 Majestic and Regency Blue are fairly close in color.  Both are dark navys with Majestic boasting a little more blue tone than the Regency, however, where Regency only hinted a bit of sheen, Majestic absolutely lets it rip!  The red glimmer of this ink showed up almost immediately after putting nib to paper and absolutely shimmers at almost any light angle.  This probably has to be my favorite of the drop as not only is the ink handsome, but the sheen adds a whole other personality to it.  

As a member you also receive access to a special discount page where you can purchase bottles of the sampled ink at a discount. I will be buying a few of the inks I’ve sampled before the program shuts down!

FYI – This box made our list of subscription boxes $10 and under every month!

Visit Ink Drop to subscribe or find out more!