Inktend / Ink library / Crystal - Ruby
Crystal - Ruby
Lamy's bottled inks are the standard companion to its Safari and AL-Star pens: reliable, well-behaved, and widely available.
Paper & pairing
Reds and pinks show the most dramatic shading of any color family: expect real variation between the edges and center of each letter. This ink will behave predictably on most fountain-pen-friendly paper. Cheap, highly absorbent paper (standard copier paper) will dull any ink's saturation and can cause feathering or bleed-through with wetter nibs.
About Lamy
Founded in Heidelberg in 1930, Lamy became known from the 1960s onward for pairing German industrial design with accessible fountain pens: the Lamy 2000 (1966) and Safari (1980) are two of the most recognized pen silhouettes in the world.
Storing and using the bottle
Bottled fountain pen ink has an effectively long shelf life when kept capped and out of direct sunlight: most inks remain usable for years. The main risk isn't the ink spoiling, it's a pen sitting inked and unused for weeks: that's what causes clogs, not the ink's age.
Frequently asked questions
Similar shades By colour distance
Color shown is a close digital approximation of a typical swatch, not a calibrated color match.