This ink battle is between Pelikan Edelstein Golden Lapis and De Atramentis Cyan Blue Gold with a guest appearance by Wearingeul 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Golden Lapis and Cyan Blue Gold are both in a Benu Talisman fitted with an F nib. The ink splat battle is on Canson recycled bristol, the written battle is on Maruman Giuris Loose Leaf Paper.
Today’s ink battle is another bout of bottle versus sample(s), but there’s a twist. I received Golden Lapis at the annual Pelikan Hub. When I used it, I found that it wasn’t a particularly well-behaved ink, feathering and bleeding through Tomoe River paper. But, the color is pretty, and when I got samples that looked like they’d be similar, I decided to square them off against each other. Because of this, I’m also tagging this battle as an Ink Dupe.
For those unfamiliar with these inks, Golden Lapis is Pelikan’s 2024 ink of the year. Cyan Blue Gold is part of the Pearlescent line and is also available with copper, bronze, or silver shimmer. All three inks used for this post contain gold shimmer.
Reminder: You can find all of the ink battle posts on the tag page.
It became apparent — as soon as the inks dried — that 20K Leagues is significantly darker than the other two, so I didn’t bother to include it in the written battle. Treat it like it’s making a guest appearance in the splat battle.
Cyan Blue Gold and Golden Lapis are roughly the same saturation and lightness, but Cyan Blue Gold leans heavily toward turquoise. The difference in color is less noticeable the more ink you lay down, but there is a difference. I like both colors, but the slightly bluer Golden Lapis just edges out Cyan Blue Gold for me.
Both inks have LOTS of shimmer, to the point that it overwhelms the base color. Golden Lapis seems to settle more, as I was better able to get some writing for it without shimmer in the writing test.
I wasn’t particularly interested in complexity for this battle, focusing more on performance. Giuris paper is great, not top-of-the-line, but really good. As you can see, Golden Lapis has more bleed-through points than Cyan Blue Gold. Keep in mind that this is the performance in a fine Schmidt nib. I definitely wouldn’t use Golden Lapis in anything broader.
To try to better show off each ink’s color, I took photos at two different angles, focusing on the base color, and how the base color looks through the shimmer.
If you’re interested in a bright blue ink with gold shimmer, I’d suggest Cyan Blue Gold over Golden Lapis, mainly for the differences in performance. If you prefer a darker ink, 20K Leagues is a lovely color.
Honestly, I think I need to use Cyan Blue Gold some more before I decide if I want to buy a bottle. But, I’ll definitely leave it in my “for use” category. I don’t, however, feel the need to continue using Golden Lapis. Three pen fills is enough for me to decide I don’t want to keep it.
Scorecard
While Golden Lapis edges out Cyan Blue Gold on hue, I docked it a bonus point for poor performance, which zeroed out with the point for shimmer. So the two are, technically, tied. But, as I said before, I’d recommend Cyan Blue Gold over Golden Lapis.
| Trait | Pelikan Edelstein Golden Lapis | De Atramentis Cyan Blue Gold |
|---|---|---|
| Hue | 10 | 9 |
| Saturation | 10 | 10 |
| Lightness | 10 | 10 |
| Complexity | — | — |
| Bonus Points | 0 | 1 |
What do you think? Which one do you prefer? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.
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Very strange, I also received a bottle at the Pelikan Hub but haven’t had any problems whatsoever apart from some slight feathering. I tried the ink on Midori, Leuchtturm, Clairefontaine and Pineider Air Mail paper and it performed fine on all of them.
That is interesting. I wonder if I somehow got a bad bottle.