P.W. Akkerman was founded in 1910 and in 2010, to celebrate the 100th Anniversary, they issued a line of inks and a classic ink bottle.
This is no ordinary ink bottle in terms of style or size. It holds 150 ml of ink, the quantity of three standard sized 50 ml bottles.
The ink bottle uses a fills by the ink flowing from the large bottom section, into a small upper section. A small "marble" rests to divide the two sections. This is a method first developed by Jif-Waterman, the French subsidiary of Waterman at the time.
There are thirty colours to choose, each one named for a location in The Hague.
The Akkerman has produced a colour chart of the inks. Below is the colour chart and following that, Peter Notenbomer was kind enough to send me some scans of a test he completed of one of the inks. The colour chart is most likely made with a swab, and I find those to never truly show the colour tones of the ink. Note, for example, Voorhout Violet (third down, far right) and then look at the colour of that ink when used in a fountain pen shown in the scans that follow.
Voorhout Violet, tested with Parker Vacumatic, Medium Nib.
Thanks to Peter Notenbomer from the Netherlands for testing Voorhout Violet and providing photos of the ink tests and the remarkable ink bottle. He tried the ink in a number of different pens, and found the performance to vary. This ink seemed to just flow out of his Visconti Rembrandt, too much ink in the ink section and this ink flows. He worked fine in some of his other pens. It was not a pen issue, as other inks are working just fine in that pen.
The test above is with a Pelikan M200, medium nib.
Positive Aspects:
Negative Aspects:
Thanks Peter, appreciate the scans of your test and your comments.
The comment about the time it takes to dry is consistent with the comments that I have received from others. This is consistent with comments from others who have told me that in general the Akkerman ink is very wet and takes time to dry.