A rim like this on your ink bottle neck surely looks promising! P.W. Akkerman’s #5 ink, Shocking Blue, is the most loved and best known of the Akkerman inks. A deep, bright blue you just cannot go wrong with. Before we take a look at the writing samples, let me tell you about the name of this ink. Perhaps you are already aware of this fact, or it is new to you, but P.W. Akkerman is one of Holland’s oldest fountain pen stores, located in The Hague in one of Holland’s very first “malls”. Akkerman uses names for their inks that are all associated with the town’s phenomena. The Hague was Holland’s birth ground of quite a number of blues bands in the 60s. The Golden Earring for example, who you may know from their song Radar Love, Brainbox who covered Summertime in a bluesy-funky way and Shocking Blue, who had a hit in 1968 with Venus. Some of you may know the Bananarama cover version of that song. I used a couple of lines in my writing samples. Enough of that, on to the ink!

Shocking Blue is a classic, intensely deep royal blue with its renowned red sheen. As you can see above, it almost pops of the page! The ink behaved decently in all nibs sizes and has relatively quick drying time, especially in finer nibs. My husband is a lefty overwriter and always has his TWSBI Eco inked up with Shocking Blue. Another reason he loves this ink is a matter of ritual. The Akkerman inks all come in that very distinctive marble-in-the-bottleneck ink bottle. You tip the capped bottle upside down so that some ink gathers in the top part of the bottle from where you fill your pen. This was the ink his parents used many years ago, so refilling the pen from the bottle brings back memories for him.

Let’s look at the writing up close to find that illustrious sheen!

Yes, a wonderful deep deep blue ink, really vibrant with a lovely red sheen and outline. It pops up in every nib, especially on more absorbing paper. I made a rim stamp in my Leuchtturm journal to show the ink’s sheening capacity.

Oh yes, here we see that the ink is so intense that it leans towards a purple. The sheen is nice and thick, almost oily. The chromatography shows the purple aspects in the lavender hue in the base. The ink trail develops into a bright blue and ends in a dark blue outer line where the pigments are deposited.

This ink is usable in most situations -apart from those where you want your ink to be waterproof, it isn’t- school, university, the office, personal use, correspondence that doesn’t require bulletproofness. It is a crowd pleaser! And I can see why. It is blue without being run-of-the-mill.

How about you, do you have a deep royal blue with a red sheen of choice? Let me know, so I can do a side-by-side at some point.

Thank you as ever for reading and until the next post!

All pictures taken in natural light, no filters used.

Disclaimer: I bought this ink wit my own money for my own use. No affiliate links.

Tools used:

• Leuchtturm A5 blank notebook;
• Akkerman Shocking Blue ink;
• Platinum Preppies EF, F, M;
• Lamy Vista B, 1.1, 1.5, 1,9;
• Kaweco Classic Sport BB architect grind;
• a strip of paper kitchen towel;
• Samsung S7 phone camera.