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20 March 2024 – Noodler’s Antietam Red

Recalling the bloodiest single day in American history, this ink honors those who gave the “last full measure” near Antietam Creek. Today, you can walk the Bloody Lane, see Burnside’s Bridge, or visit during the annual luminaria lighting. The ink is an orange-red, not terribly bold, but steady and well-behaved.
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19 March 2024 – Noodler’s 1984

Pray we begin a journey through 24 bottles of Noodler’s Ink. This one man shop in Massachusetts represents the whaling tradition, fierce independence, and the not-rare foray into controversial politics (yep, ink can be highly controversial). We start today with a clarion warning about the kind of society we might not actually want.
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18 March 2024 – Cocciniglia Musei Vaticani

Today’s ink is quite dear to me. It was a gift brought back from the Vatican Museum by our dear friends Suzanne and Jim Dabrowski. This handsome burgundy ink is as rich and luxurious-looking as I can imagine. Thanks, guys!
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17 March 2024 – Monteverde Tanzanite

Today is the fourteenth and final Monteverde ink, and this one may be the boldest of them all. Tanzanite is nicely saturated and solid with little to no shading. Just an all around great color.
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16 March 2024 – Monteverde Scotch Brown

Quite nice shading in this brown. Not sure what makes brown “scotch”, but I was prompted by my blogging platform with the question: if you had to wear one outfit over and over, what would it be. The answer is either a kilt or a toga, because pants are dumb. You?
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15 March 2024 – Monteverde Green

For green, this is pretty green-black. Which. I. Love. It does beg the kind of question Wittgenstein might ask about the “blueness of blue”. When someone says “green” to a roomful of people, could each be picturing a different color. Each person’s “Now THAT’S Green!” will be different. I wonder if ink companies are taking…
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14 March 2024 – Monteverde Sepia Joy

Sepia seems like a color that automatically makes one nostalgic. If that’s the metric, then this ink succeeds brilliantly. Average saturation (wouldn’t really want it to be any more saturated or it would be too intense for an old-times feel) and mild shading.
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13 March 2024 – Monteverde Iced Cookie

This is an amazingly fun, cool blue with terrific shading. Almost an “icy linen” look (whatever that means… speaking of which: do you ever find yourself laughing at descriptions of wine like I do? I’ve actually read “aftertaste of wallpaper paste” as a compliment, so if that’s a thing, surely icy linen can be, too!
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12 March 2024 – Monteverde Documental Permanent Black

I’m back! If everything goes according to schedule, you should see three posts a day until we’ve caught up with the blog posts (in the actual writing world, we just arrived at the end of “all the brands I own bottles of that aren’t Diamine” two days ago, and every single ink for the rest…
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11 March 2024 – Monteverde Copper Noir

Yet another stunner from Monteverde. They boast a patented ink technology that is supposed to improve flow and ink behavior and wear and tear on pens. I would say it does as advertised. Some might feel these inks are too wet on some papers.