Nagasawa Kobe Ink Monogatari Nagata Pure-gold - 4ml Fountain Pen Ink Sample

Hue: Sold as gold, but on my swatches it reads as olive-khaki gold rather than a warm metallic gold. In writing it is a soft olive-gold. Where it pools heavily it deepens to a dark grey-green that is almost black.

Shading: Strong. Lines move from pale yellow-olive to deep khaki in a single stroke. The swabs also show chromatic separation, with a blue-grey core and olive-gold edges.

Sheen: Subtle, and only in heavy pools. It shows as a soft bronze lustre with dark edging, and is not visible in normal writing.

Shimmer: None.

Flow: Medium.

The interesting bit: No.88 in Nagasawa’s Kobe INK Monogatari (“Kobe Ink Story”), a series of colours that each portray a corner of Kobe. Nagata was one of the first parts of the city to be developed. It is home to Nagata Shrine, which is over 1,800 years old and one of Kobe’s three principal shrines. The “pure gold” is taken from the ornamental metal fittings on the doors of the shrine’s main hall. The series itself began in 2007, born out of the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake as a way of recording Kobe’s lost and rebuilt landscapes in ink.

This is a hand-decanted 4ml sample vial from my own bottle.
Photos are my own swatches on Tomoe River Paper.
I’m a collector and I’m always happy to talk ink, so please message me if you have any questions.