Thursday, February 19, 2015

Diamine equivalents to the Conway Stewart fountain pen inks.

With the demise of Conway Stewart last year we have lost one of the few large British fountain pen manufacturers. Its possible that the brand may be relaunched at some point, but the company that existed since the 1990's is gone and the factory broken up and sold off.

Conway Stewart also marketed a range of inks in 80ml bottles, of which I have used Kingsand and Bodmin. These were manufactured by Diamine and there seems to be quite a lot of it still in stock at retailers. The price is only slightly higher than Diamine 80ml bottles. They will eventually run out and people will want replacements so this is what I think the Diamine equivalent colours are (CS = Conway Stewart):

CS Bodmin = Diamine Jet Black,
CS St. Blazey = Diamine Classic Red
CS Kingsand = Diamine Ochre
CS Tamar = Diamine Royal Blue
CS Tavy = Diamine Denim
CS Edgcumbe = Diamine Lavender

I can't guarantee they are exactly the same, but they are very close and might just be relabelled. I have CS Bodmin and Diamine Jet Black and can't tell the difference.