De Atramentis

Mahatma Gandhi ink

3 Comments / De Atramentis, Inks, Montblanc / / ,

If you are interested in fountain pens you probably came across Montblanc’s Mahatma Gandhi fountain pen. Keeping  in mind that Gandhi led a simple lifestyle, gave up unnecessary expenditure and promoted Indian-made goods there is a huge discrepancy between what he represented and what Montblanc’s Mahatma Gandhi pen stands for. No wonder this pen made headlines in several newspapers, including USA Today and The Guardian.

More affordable was Montblanc’s saffron coloured Mahatma Gandhi ink, which was released around the same time but sold out very soon. De Atramentis started selling an ink with the same colour and the same name. Even though there is a chance that Montblanc’s Gandhi ink was manufactured by De Atramentis I wouldn’t bet on it. Old Montblanc ink and De Atramentis inks are made in Germany, but as far as I know Montblanc’s old inks were made by Gutenberg [1]previously mentioned in this article – not by De Atramentis. Montblanc’s new inks are made in Austria.

De Atramentis’ Mahatma Gandhi ink is probably a copy of Montblanc’s ink, but it might be worth a try if you were keen on getting Montblanc’s Gandhi ink and missed your chance when it was first released. Unfortunately, De Atramentis’ shipping costs outside Germany are quite steep.

References

References
↑1 previously mentioned in this article

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Montblanc Christmas Ink

2 Comments / Inks, Montblanc / / , , , , ,

Montblanc did not release a new Christmas Ink this year, as I discovered when I went to the Montblanc Boutique in Manchester last week. Instead last year’s ink White Forest has been released again. It is a shame as I was looking forward to a new, scented Christmas ink. As far as I know there have been four different Montblanc Christmas inks until now:

  • The brown ink from 2005, also called Cookies and Spices
  • The ink from 2006. Same colour, spicier cinnamon smell
  • The red ink from 2007 with a vanilla smell
  • The green ink from 2008, with a pinewood smell. The first one with an official name: White Forest

Unfortunately many cleaning products have a pinewood smell, not making this smell a good choice in my opinion. The 2009 ink has the same name, packing, colour and I couldn’t notice a different scent when I was in the Montblanc Boutique.

According to messages on the Fountain Pen Network the re-release of the same ink might be because of problems with last year’s Christmas ink. I remember that the bottle I bought back then was difficult to open, as if there was a vacuum inside. It even kept the white foamy insert of the lid on the bottle, separating the insert from the lid even though it had been glued on in the factory. When I moved this foam disc away you could hear the air being sucked in and there was this something mould-like floating on the surface.

Montblanc Christmas Ink
Montblanc Christmas Ink: 2005, 2007, 2008

Well.. If I feel very christmasy I might order some Christmas scented inks from De Atramentis instead, but postage to the UK is not cheap and when I ordered from them before there were some unidentifyable “things” in the package, including lots of hair, which put me off.

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