African Gold Robert Oster Signature Sample(4ml) Fountain Pen Ink

I ordered several of these: Chocolate, Copper, Smokescreen, Dusky Pink, Blue Black, and Charcoal. None of my samples leaked during shipping and they were all in tightly sealed vials. I absolutely love Robert Oster as a brand, so I was super excited to finally get a chance to try out their inks. I will definitely be buying full bottles of Chocolate, Copper, and Blue Black when I can.

My favorite out of the bunch was Chocolate. I loved that it is a dark brown color with a tint of red. I was using it in a TWSBI ECO Medium and so the red wasn't as pronounced as it looks on the swatch. This ink wrote really well, it was super consistent and it wrote fairly wet but it still dried fast. I am left handed, so dry time is something that is really important to me. I found that with this ink I didn't have to worry about how fast I was writing or what position my wrist was in when I was writing (overhang/sidewriting). There were some exceptions though, like if my hands were clammy, but that is to be expected. Using this ink felt so natural to me and it was an absolutely wonderful writing experience. I am really glad that the ink samples from Pen Chalet are 4ml because that meant I was able to ink up my pen twice and use it for much longer than I can with the 2ml samples available elsewhere. It also means there is enough to easily ink up multiple pens with it to see how it writes in other pens.

I also loved Copper. Chocolate is a brown ink with red undertones, but this is a red ink with brown undertones. It's also a much lighter color than Chocolate. These inks worked so well together! I would use them while working on homework assignments and class notes (I am in highschool) and it was really handy to be able to write out the problems or headers with Chocolate and do the work with Copper. These inks worked perfectly together. I had Copper in my TWSBI ECO Broad. And if I had a fine nib pen, I would have loved to grade my worksheets with Santa's Hangover. I think a lot of the reason to why I loved this ink so much was just because of how well I was able to use it with both Chocolate and Santa's Hangover. In a lot of reviews and photos, it looks a lot more pink or purple-y then brown and I definitely agree with that. It is a bit of a pinkish-purple-brown color and when using it on its own (the only ink present on a page of notes or a journal entry) it feels a lot more like a dark pink then a red brown color. When the ink is used on the same page as other brown inks, it can feel a lot more brown, and same with pink and red. I really loved this ink, but not as much as a stand alone color since it works so well with my other inks. That's just me though. I also noticed that this ink writes drier then Chocolate and some of the other inks I tried, but I never had any problems with hard stops and starts. This ink was also great in terms of dry time and I found myself barely thinking about it.

Smokescreen was my least favorite of the samples I got. I love the color and the quality of the ink, but it writes extremely wet. I could not write with it at any reasonable pace and the ink was smearing absolutely everywhere. It was such a mess and this ink is definitely not for me. I also want to note that because it wrote so wet, even in my TWSBI ECO Medium it wrote very thick lines and wrote thicker lines then most inks in my Broad.

Dusky Pink was basically the opposite of Smokescreen. I wanted so badly to love this think because I just adored the color. But the ink wrote incredibly dry and was very inconsistent. I often had hard stops and starts when using this ink and because of how inconsistently and dry it wrote much of my writing with it was illegible or annoying to read. There were some periods where this ink wrote really well and was incredible and I thought it could be redeemed, but then it would just stop working and become incredibly annoying again. This ink was so frustrating. I used it in both my Broad and Medium TWSBI ECOs and it was having the same problems in both.

I really enjoyed the Blue Black ink. I like that it's a dark blue, which is perfect for school assignments and writing, since some teachers require things to be in blue or black pen. This ink writes really well and I haven't had any problems with it. I think the color is really pretty, it does write a brighter blue than it dries. The swatch color makes it seem like it's more of a purple but I didn't really notice that too much. This is a perfect school or work ink.

Charcoal is basically Blue Black with slightly less shading and a slightly longer dry time. I did use this ink in my Medium and the Blue Black in my Broad, but I feel like if I switched which ink was in which pen I would barely notice. There is not a lot of contrast between these colors at all. I tried to use them the same way I used Chocolate and Copper for homework, and it didn't really work because it looked like it was all done with one ink. I think b

Some inks don't bring the sample option but Pen Chalet has always had those that I want to try first before getting a full ink bottle. Always screwed tightly so I never receive them with leaks instead perfectly secure, clean, well packed and fast delivery from Pen Chalet!

nice color

Love this color.

I really enjoyed this color and will probably be buying a bigger bottle of it soon.

I love this color, which reminds me of rain, somehow. It is very much a watery shade, with some hints of green. Lots of beautiful shading. Will be buying a full bottle.

Love getting samples to test out various inks. This is a nice size vial and can get about two fills out of it.

The Direct Sunlight is a little dry

Excellent color, beautiful flow

i love trying new inks and any time I can get a Robert Oster Signature ink, i am excited