Sometime last year I purchased a fountain pen from Birmingham Pen Company. It came with a free bottle of ink and I selected Arugula to matched my pen color. It’s a beautiful olive green ink color.
Fast forward to last week, when I was at their website looking for a few bottles of ink to try out. I have noticed Birmingham’s pen have been sold out for awhile and they haven’t updated their website with new pens. They are probably very busy creating new inks and are inundated with ink orders.
I must have ordered the inks at the right time as I received the bottles within a week. They did an awesome job with the packaging. Once I opened the mailing box, I found another box inside with this cute label.
Opening the “box from this side” resulted in a lovely display of a note, my receipt, and post card clipped together. The fountain pen paper clip was a nice touch.
Underneath the brown paper were meticulously wrapped individual bottles of ink.
The ink boxes are simple and contain rose gold lettering with the company name.
I had to unbox the inks to see the names of the inks on the bottles. As you can see, the boxes and bottles are very simple and not elaborate. So are their ink prices.
Birmingham carries six different formulas of inks: Crisp, Swift, Rich, Everlasting, Twinkle, and Wishy-Washy. They have a formula guide at their website that describes the different handmade ink offerings.
It was hard to select a handful of colors from their array of offerings, but I managed to find some unique ones that peaked my interest.
I selected three Crisp inks represented with a (c) and two Swift inks represented with an (s) in the following picture. Overall, the inks are quite lovely and wet. The two ink colors that surprised me in a good way was Eroded Bronze and Antique Sepia. They both showed some wonderful ink personalities.
I did not have any empty TWSBI GO stub pens available and had to pull three pens from my currently inked art pen case and proceeded to dump their inks. One of my GOs had to stay in “spa” mode as the shimmering particles wanted to cling to my pen.
Here’s a writing sample with Eroded Bronze, Antique Sepia, and Glassmith.
Overall, I think the Birmingham inks are nice and appears to be well behaved in my pens so far. Antique Sepia, Eroded Bronze, and Glassmith turned out to be lovely inks with a lot of personality.
Note: I mentioned earlier that I had received a bottle of Arugula ink with my pen purchase last year. I decided to do another swatch of this ink and found this ink color to be a dry ink. I’m not sure if this ink color’s formula has changed within the last year. It’s beautiful to write with, but I have no plans on using it in my pen and ink artwork. Just a personal preference.
Pens: TWSBI GOs with Stub 1.1 nibs and Medium nib
Ink: Birmingham Pen Company Eroded Bronze, Antique Sepia, Glassmith, Canterbury Raisin, and Hall of Fame Riveria
Journal/Paper: Stalogy 365 B6 ink journal and Rhodia paper
SusieG Studio 
I’ve been disappointed with many of their inks, finding them either too dry or too pale for my liking. The Mulberry Silk and Cold Steel are keepers, as well as their other more darker inks like Dusky Twilight, etc. I just find these inks to be hit or miss, but I suppose if I stay in the ‘crisp’ line, I should be okay. Of the ones you show here the eroded bronze and the antique sepia are the most intriguing!
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I do agree some of the Birmingham inks are too pale and that’s why I did not select those colors. I’ve mostly selected inks from their Crisp line as those colors really appealed to me. I was worried they would be too dry based on their description. To me, they are not. I would say they are average inks. Not as wet as Diamine and Robert Oster.
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Hello, thank you for sharing, found your post through google photos haha
I notice a fountain pen in the first picture of your post, what pen is this? Is gorgeous, can’t stop looking at it! I also notice that you draw and color with FP inks, would love to learn how to do that, I like the idea of using inks for coloring, spend some time looking at your blog love what you create!
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Hi Karen! Glad you found me. My pen in the picture is a Birmingham Pen Co – Sixth Avenue model in Gold Seam color. I just looked at their website and I see they no longer carry that pen model nor that color. They might be doing small batches of pens throughout the year. I would check their IG page for when they release their new pens.
Thank you for your kind words in regards to my pen & ink wash artwork. It’s my favorite art medium to use for creating quick sketches. It’s a great way to use up my bottles of inky colors. I’m not sure where you are located, but I teach a few pen & ink wash workshops at the DC Pen Show.
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Oh, I am sorry I noticed the name in the picture, thank you! Well you do such a great job and I am from Massachusetts but I am planning on going to the DC pen show, it has been on my list for two years.
And this sounds awesome, how do you sign up for that?
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The pen show will be a fun event this year. Sign up information for my workshop will be available at the pen show website. It should be published sometime in another month or two.
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