A couple of months ago, I did a review of R&K Verdigris, and was pleasantly surprised by the ink’s colour and performance – it’s truly a classic. When looking at related inks, I noticed that L’Artisan Pastellier Callifolio Equinoxe(6) showed a similar vibe. Both are fabulous inks with great aesthetics and a solid presence on the page. This deserves a more in-depth comparison: I wonder if one of them outshines the other.
The morning sun rises above the desert, its first golden rays illuminating the central square of Bartertown. Despite the ungodly hour a large crowd has gathered, and bookmakers are already taking bets. A big fight is on its way. Today, fate and fighting skills will determine who gets to be the new sheriff in town. Two candidates remain: on the left side the giant from Leipzig – Hans “The Crusher” with his ball chain flail. On the right side, the muscleman from France – Jean-Paul “Bone Breaker” carrying his 2m steel pipe. Silence descends when Aunty Entity appears: “Today we choose our new champion, and the Thunderdome will decide. Two men enter, one man leaves!”
Enter… the Ink Shoot-Out. A brutal fight spanning five rounds, where two inks engage in fierce battle to determine who is the winner. Today’s fight is a gladiator spectacle: a brutal fight within the confines of the metal cage of the Thunderdome. A huge crowd clings to the dome’s bars… expectations are high for what promises to be a brutal and bone-breaking event. Aunty Entity drops her handkerchief, signaling the start of the first round. May the best ink win…
Round 1 – First Impressions
This first round is all about peacocking. The champions strut across the ring, impressing the public with their strength and showcasing their weapon mastery. Attacks are meant to explore weaknesses, and to express dominance over the opponent. It’s a superb display of battle skills!
Both inks show wonderful qualities. Their dark blue colours are simply amazing, with a solid presence on the page and showing lots of depth and character. Both are muted dark blues with good saturation and some lovely shading that is never overdone and always aesthetically pleasing. The force is strong in these two!
In this first round, both champions showcase their ability, and both throw serious punches, trying to impress their opponent and explore weaknesses. These champions are on fairly equal footing, but there are obvious differences:
- Verdigris is what I would call a teal dark-blue – it’s a blue-black by nature, that has strong teal influences. The resulting colour is simply beautiful and great-looking on paper.
- Equinoxe(6) is more of a dark-blue teal – first and foremost a teal colour, with strong dark-blue leaning undertones. A bit more heavy in the shading, and with a similarly strong presence on the paper.
- Verdigris is serious and business-like, while Equinoxe(6) expresses more emotion and playfulness. It’s Mr Spock vs Mc Coy … both equally valuable to Kirk, but having totally different characters.
This is a great first round, and both inks effortlessly impress the crowd. But neither one manages to outshine its opponent. Starting from wildly different backgrounds, both inks lean towards the dark-blue, showcasing mastery of the paper – saturation, wetness, shading, colour … all combine to make these great inks to use. But in the end, neither ink dominates. As such, this first round ends in a draw.
Round 2 – Writing Sample
The writing sample was done on a Rhodia N°16 Notepad with 80 gsm paper. Both inks behaved flawlessly, with no feathering and no show-through nor bleed-through. With the EF nib, Verdigris feels a bit wetter-writing, and looks just a little bit more solid on the page. With broad nibs, Verdigris tends to over-saturate – it’s a bit too wet-writing, and leaves a bit too wide a line. Equinoxe(6) is more consistent and shows a same level of wetness and saturation across the nib range. This is especially noticeable in broader nibs.
With the EF-nib, Hans The Crusher strikes a glancing blow on his opponent’s shoulder. The French champion stumbles a bit, but quickly recovers. With the broad nib, Equinoxe(6) swings his steel pipe at Verdigris’ legs, causing the German giant to fall. But Verdigris turns the fall into a roll, quickly regaining its footing before the French champion can press for an advantage. The crowd is going wild… the fight is getting serious. Hard blows are exchanged. A good thing these fighters are wearing armour, or bones would have been crushed.
Both inks work wonders with the paper, writing really well without any technical difficulties. Wetness, saturation, shading … all these are present and work nicely together to enhance your writing. I noticed no feathering, nor any hints of show-through or bleed-through on the Rhodia paper. As such, these inks really measure up to one another.
This was a satisfying round, where both champions clearly show what they can do. Either one would make an excellent sheriff, that single-handedly could control a crowd. And the public agrees… they roar their approval, with equal enthousiasm for both inks. Again, no clear winner emerges, and this round also ends in a draw.
Round 3 – Pen on Paper
This round allows the battling inks to show how they behave on a range of fine writing papers. From top to bottom, we have: Midori notebook paper, Tomoe River 52 gsm, Original Crown Mill cotton paper, Clairefontaine Triomphe 90 gsm and Paperblanks 120 gsm journal paper. All scribbling and writing was done with a Lamy Safari B-nib.
Both champions did well, with no show-through nor bleed-through. But this round is not about technicalities, it is about aesthetics and beauty. Are the fighters able to make the paper shine?
One thing is immediately apparent: these inks work well with both white and creamy paper. A slight advantage goes to Verdigris: on creamy paper, it just looks a bit more solid. The Callifolio ink feels a bit more playful, more suited for personal journaling. When seriousness is needed, Verdigris seems the obvious choice to me.
I also tested the inks on crappy Moleskine paper. Both inks handle that paper really well, with only a tiny amount of feathering. But there is quite some bleed-through – for both inks. I would say that they handle lousy paper equally well: really good behaviour in the writing department, but you will not be able to use the backside of the paper.
With that creamy paper, the Rohrer & Klinger ink manages to swing its flail under Equinoxe(6)’s defenses, delivering a bone-crushing blow to the left leg. That clearly hurts! The public groans in empathy. But the French fighter ignores the pain, and continues to nimbly dance around his opponent, using blindingly fast strikes with its steel pipe to explore for weaknesses, which Verdigris masterfully evades. When the bell sounds the end of this round, it’s still clear that both champions have some fight left in them. But in this round, there was that slight breakthrough for Verdigris on the creamy paper. Not a huge thing, but enough for Aunty Entity to grant this round to Verdigris on points.
Round 4 – Ink Properties
Both inks have fairly long drying times, but for the first time we see a real difference: 20 seconds for the Callifolio ink, but a really long 30 seconds for Verdigris (with M-nib on Rhodia N°16 80 gsm paper). That difference is significant!
From the chroma, it’s also obvious that Verdigris has less water resistance. To test this, I dripped water on the grid and let it sit there for 15 minutes, after which I removed the water with a paper towel. In reality, the difference turns out to be less prominent than the chroma suggests. Equinoxe(6) is definitely NOT a water-resistant ink, but there remains a faint grey residue that allows you to reconstruct your writing. With Verdigris, all dyes are flushed away with the water, leaving nothing readable on the page.
During this round, the French fighter is in the lead, with solid strikes from his steel pipe that Verdigris can barely avoid. Drying times… bang! The steel pipe connects with Verdigris’ shoulder armour. That hurts! Water resistance… klaboom! The German barely manages to parry a solid steel pipe blow with his flail. He’s clearly on the defensive, and Callifolio Equinoxe(6) totally has the initiative. When the bell sounds, both inks remain standing. But this round is without any doubt a clear win for the French fighter. No bone-breaking hits, but Verdigris has certainly felt the pain. The crowd is going wild… at last the fight is becoming serious. Which ink will remain standing in the end?
Round 5 – The Fun Factor
Welcome to the final round. Here I give you a purely personal impression of both inks, where I judge which of them I like most when doing some fun stuff like doodling and drawing. And for this round, both inks are simply amazing. I did the drawing on HP Permium Plus Photo paper. The background uses heavily water-diluted ink, applied with a Q-tip. I then painted in the trees, adding more and more ink for the trees in the foreground. For the details in the first row of trees, I used pure ink in a B-nib Safari.
The photo paper tends to enhance the ink’s characteristics, and this shows. Verdigris displays a more strongly present blue-black vibe. With Equinoxe(6), the green influence comes to the surface and the ink looks definitely more like a teal. Both inks are lovely to draw with, but the Verdigris side of the painting simply looks more beautiful and balanced. At the end of this fifth round, Verdigris’ steel-ball flail extends with tremendous force, hitting the Frenchman squarely on the breastplate. Equinoxe(6) staggers to his knees, clearly suffering from this tremendous blow. The bell sounds, saving the Frenchman from certain defeat. This round is a solid win for Verdigris, and Aunty Entity agrees.
The Verdict
Both inks are great-looking dark blues, which work well with any type of paper: saturated, wet-writing, lovely shading, beautiful looks. Totally different characters, but true champions each. You can’t go wrong with either of these. But that final round really sealed the deal … Verdigris will be the new sheriff in town and is the winner of this exciting shoot-out. And Equinoxe(6) … well, Aunty Entity decides to be merciful. The Frenchman can live: you should never waste a good ink!
[Originally published on the Fountain Pen Network, on 16 January 2024]
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