Kaweco Red (now with video)

This cartridge was on its last legs. (And I think it was my last one.)

Kaweco's Red is an ink that will be going in my red-rotation. My family is full of teachers, and we've all got to have a solid red to grade papers with. A year or so ago I got my mother a Kaweco Sport with some Red carts as a birthday gift, and she really liked the combo. Students usually use whatever paper is cheapest to print out their papers (as well they should, really), and a lot of fountain pen inks aren't all that great for writing small notes on bad paper. Anyway, Kaweco Red is. It's excellent.

This ink is most widely available in cartridge-form. They've recently released it in bottles over here in the US, but it's pretty pricey. The carts go for $3 per box of 6. The bottles are $14 for a 30ml bottle. I haven't sprung for a whole bottle yet, but the cartridges are a good enough deal for me.

Pre-water-test photo in natural light outside. 

The pen that I had this in was a Colibri that I got in an estate auction. It's got a fine, reliable nib in it, and it loved this Kaweco ink. In fact, I almost forgot to write a review of this ink before it was all gone. That's why you'll see a little bit of skipping in the text above (especially at the very top of the page). The ink was so good that I just kept using it. That's an oddity for me.

The dry-times were great on all of the papers that I tried it on, and that's ranging from filler paper, cheap copy papers, Rhodia pads, and Fabriano papers. It did smear in a couple of places above. I'm pretty sure that a cat jumped on the desk and stepped right on the words as I finished writing them. No problems, otherwise.

The red of this ink is really red. It's not orange-y or too dark. It's not as bright as some other reds, but it's a really solid color. I'm kinda glad that they didn't give it a fancy name. It's a straight-up red.

 I liked the Kaweco Red so much better than the Omas Red. The Omas was just pale and weak-sauce next to the Kaweco version. This is a shorter comparison section than usual. I just didn't have many reds inked up at the time.

Water-resistance video:

(I'll have the video up on Saturday at some point.)