Having used my Pelikan Edelstein Aventurine Green fountain pen ink for a while, I was itching to get my hands on one of their blues, and after a bit of research I decided on the Topaz color.  I decided on the Topaz because I felt that other than black, it was probably the most day-to-day business friendly color, that still has some character to it.

There are a few things to note about the Pelikan Edelstein Ink line, like that all of the inks are named after gemstones (“Edelstein” means “gemstone” in German), the ink has an ingredient in it to make it flow smoother and help care for your nib and feed, and each of the very nice looking glass bottles has its own slightly unique shape that you will see a picture of a little later in this review.  As I said before, my experience with the Jade color of this ink was so fantastic that I really couldn’t wait to try out the Topaz.  After ordering my bottle of Topaz from Goldspot, I began to question if I had picked the correct color ink because in all of the reviews and writing samples I had seen, the ink looked like a light royal blue, yet the official Pelikan description called it a “purple blue” which is different than what I was hoping for.  Since I had already placed my order, I figured I would just let things be and see how it looked when I used it.

Now when you look at this writing sample, I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t get any purple when looking at it, and if anything I actually get a slight green or aqua shade.  After my first few strokes I had to go back and check the Pelikan site again to see if I was remembering wrong, or if they really called this a purple blue?  Sure enough, I confirmed that I was correct, the Topaz was the one they called a purple blue, and even more curious, they call the Sapphire version “blue” and when I look at this review over at the Dizzy Pen, I certainly see more purple there than in my Topaz.  At this point I’m just confused and am honestly thinking that Pelikan has mixed something up on their site, or I’m slightly color blind and managed to take over 30 years of my life to realize this.

Regardless of the actual color vs. the described color by Pelikan, one thing is for sure, the Pelikan Edelstein Topaz certainly doesn’t disappoint.  Much like my other bottle, the ink writes incredibly smoothly, a shade on the dry side, but flows very consistently with almost no skipping at all.  The only skipping I’ve seen were some minor skips in my downstrokes on letters like “t” or “l” with long straight lines,but they were not major and I think some of it has more to do with my writing style than the ink, pen, or paper itself.  To date I’ve used the ink on both standard Levenger paper, and the Rhodia brand Levenger paper, as well as in an Ecosystem journal and the ink neither feathers, or shows through on any of these papers.  One really impressive characteristic of the ink is that it offers some very nice shading, even with the EF nib on my Pelikan M215 that I have been using this with.

None of the Edelstien line is waterproof, or even water resistant, so don’t plan on using this on something that you need to be permanent, and although I really love the color, I also wouldn’t classify this as a “bold” or “vivid” ink but I wouldn’t say its watered down of faded either.

Another one of the great things about the Edelstein line are the great looking and quite heavy glass bottles that it comes in.  As I said before, each of the bottles is unique, and in the two bottles I’ve collected, you can see those differences if you look closely.  The bottle on the left has a noticeable curve on the right side where the ink fills the bottle as compared to the more straight line in the same spot on the other bottle.  If you click on the photo above to see the larger version, and look closer, you will really see some of the differences which is pretty cool.

This is definitely an ink that I will be using for a while, and loving every minute of it while I do.  Considering this is a “premium” ink, it isn’t exactly cheap, but for the price you do get a really great looking bottle and an ink that in my opinion performs really well.  Again, you can check this ink out over at Goldspot, who was kind enough to extend a slight discount to me on my purchase of this bottle, although truth be told, I’d happily pay full price for it any day.

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