Montegrappa - Salmon

Montegrappa Salmon - Ink drop

This is my first experience with a Montegrappa ink, and I chose a color that is difficult to get right. Montegrappa offer thirteen water-based, dye inks in the Signature series. The Harry Potter series includes another seven, and the new Smiley series has another three. All of their inks come in very nice, 50 ml bottles.

Montegrappa Salmon fountain pen ink color range

This is Salmon from the Signature series. I found a lot of variation in color based on the type of paper I tested. On uncoated papers. I found a soft, delicate, pink that reminded me of cherry blossom petals still on the branch. On papers with low-to-medium coating, orange influences emerged in a more coral pink. On these papers, it made me think of the classic off-pink of a ballerina’s pointe shoes. On heavily coated papers, it produced a darker, bubblegum pink. In all examples, it was undersaturated.

Ink Swatches on Cosmo Air Light and Tomoe River

There was some shading on all papers tested, but on uncoated papers like office copy paper I found the widest variation from light-to-dark. There was significant spreading on office copy, but on the other papers tested strokes were clean and sharp. On many, I found nice, darkened, stroke edges. Show-through was never an issue, but drying was a bit long on some coated papers.

Writing sample on Cosmo Air Snow paper

In writing experience, Montegrappa Salmon is not an unpleasant ink. If anything, it might be too wet, and I’d appreciate a little more substance in flow. For normal writing needs, it’s just too undersaturated to be practical, but then I don’t think many buy this for a daily writing ink. As a specialty color and for creative needs, I think Salmon is a nice ink, but for normal writing I’d choose one of their many other colors.

Montegrappa Salmon ink writing samples

Montegrappa Salmon - Swatch Card

Montegrappa Salmon - Comparisons

Montegrappa Salmon - 50 ml Ink Bottle