The line of premium Pelikan Edelstein inks have always been a favorite of mine, so I’ve been wanting to grab some of the Smoky Quartz for a while and havn’t had a chance, until I recently saw it over at JetPens.  This 50mL glass bottle of Pelikan Edelstein Smoky Quartz also happens to be the 2017 Ink of the Year.  You can buy some for yourself right here at JetPens, but lets take a look at how it performs.

THe Smoky Quartz color is a dark brown that reminds me a little bit of a sepia tone.  It is a little less red than what I think of as sepia but it still has that almost vintage look to it, and I think maybe its a little more of a tan or goldish haze that gives it that look in my eyes.  As always though, and quite obviously it has a much darker look inside the bottle.  You can however see some of the more goldish tones if you look at the inside of the cap or the walls of the neck of the bottle.

Pelikan Edelstein Smoky Quartz Writing Sample:

Writing with the Pelikan Edelstien Smoky Quartz is no different than any of the other inks in the Edelstein line from Pelikan.  Its an incredibly smooth flowing and well behaved ink.  I used it on some Clairefontaine paper above and there was zero feathering to be found in the end results.  I also got no nib creep with this ink in either a Sailor Professional Gear Fine nib or the TWSBI 1.1mm stub nib that I used it with.  In the writing samples with the stub nib I got a much darker brown tone with limited shading.  On the other hand, when using it in the fine nib I feel like the shading and change in tones really stands out more and the overall color was lighter.

The next picture of the Pelikan Edelstien Smoky Quartz is unfortunately kind of ugly.  It shows two tests.  One dry time test to show that the ink dries on this paper at around 3-4 seconds and a second to show that it doesn’t really hold up well to water.  The water tests came out quite ugly and look like someone spit chewing tobacco on the paper, so apologies for that ugly look.  I was pretty surprised how much ink came off though on that test to the right.  Definitely not a great choice for anything permanent.

The Pelikan Edelstein Smoky Quartz isn’t a color that does much for me, and I think unless you have a particular affinity for brown inks this won’t be a real awe inspiring color for you either.  Rest assured though, you can rely on one awesome looking bottle with some incredibly high quality ink stored inside of it.  As always, thanks to our friends at Jetpens where you can pick up a bottle of your own right here.

©2017, Brian Greene. All rights reserved.