Sample of Blue and Blue-Black ink swatches

I was recently asked for a sample of some of the more popular, at least in my view, blue and blue-black inks so I thought I would share them with you.  I hope you find these interesting and helpful to your search for the ultimate blue and blue-black ink:

 

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Valentine’s Day 2015 with the LPC

We were reminded that we adopted a Red and White theme last year for the Olympics; so why not a Pink, Red and White theme (pink, red or white coloured pens, inks, and whatever else in your collection that qualifies) in honour of St. Valentine ?  After all, it will be another 11 years (that’s 2026!) before Valentine’s Day falls on Saturday again (but who is counting)!!

As always, thanks go to our official club photographer, Rick!!

Another great turnout for February 14, 2015, in spite of the snow, wind and bitter cold!

Who would have guessed at the variety of pens in pink, red and white – quite surprising really!

And the inks as well!

Who knew that G. Lalo made ink – and that’s quite a bottle!

Let’s check out a couple of labelled scans of all that red and reddish inks:

Quite a variety indeed!

Maybe some day we will have the technology whereby you can touch the screen and smell the De Atramentis Lotus (scented) ink!

Now, let’s check out the pens – some Esterbrooks, a Parker Duofold, and a couple of Sheaffers;

to the white pens in the group – Sailor Sapporo, Pelikan M400 , Kaweco Student Pen and Lamy Safari;

a whole crew of Lamys – some Safaris and a Studio; and

finally, check out the cool clips on these pens!

 

Fooling around with ink and paper

I recently received a truckload of ink from our friends at Swisher Pens.  I also decided to buy a few pads of the Staples Bagasse paper – made from sugarcane – which seems to be the rage on pen-related discussion boards.

One of the things that I had noticed was the significant drying time for ink used on the Bagasse paper – it just seemed to stay wet forever (imho).  So with Rick ready with his Timex, we compared two inks (Noodler’s Dark Matter and Private Reserve Fast Dry Midnight Blues) on Staples bagasse paper and Rhodia graph paper (from a notebook).  You can see that the Dark Matter took quite a bit longer to dry on the bagasse paper – over 1 minute – compared to just over 15 seconds on the Rhodia paper.  Interestingly, the Fast Dry Midnight Blues lived up to its billing – it dried very quickly on the bagasse paper – less than 15 seconds – and almost immediately on the Rhodia paper.  I should also note that the PR Fast Dry ink was laid down on the paper with a Sheaffer’s Legacy medium nib that has flow like a firehose so we were most impressed with the fast dry qualities of this ink – it was really quite amazing!

One of the other items that has come up for discussion is the apparent difference in the colour of Pilot blue ink – from the bottle and in their V pens.  The proof is in the pudding – as you can see below, the Pilot blue bottled ink appears to be much lighter in comparison to that used in the V pens. 

Finally, I was asked to do a comparison of light blue/turquoise coloured inks for someone on the FPN – here are some of the main brands and the colours on Staples bagasse paper.  I tried to use a blotter on the Dark Matter ink used to label the various blues – you can see that there is a faint line running down the right hand side of the page (yet more proof of the slow drying time of this paper!).

Matching Ink Colour to Pen Colour – Conclusion

First things first. Here are the names of the ink swatches in the scan:

1. Diamine Tropical Blue
2. Diamine Royal Blue
3. Diamine New Century Sapphire
4. Herbin Eclat de Saphir
5. Herbin Blue Pervenche
6. Noodler’s Ottoman Azure
7. Private Reserve Lake Placid Blue
8. Waterman South Seas Blue

Montegrappa considers my new pen to be turquoise. While turquoise is not included in the actual name of any of these inks, The Writing Desk includes two of these eight inks in its Turquoise Col-o-rama, namely #5 Herbin Blue Pervenche and #8 Waterman South Seas Blue.

Using a picture of the pen as well as a scan of the ink swatches obviously makes it difficult to match the two for a variety of reasons. IMHO, the biggest problem is the 2-dimensional picture cannot possibly show the depth and variation of the colour of the pen.

While I have not made my final decision, I have reduced the possible choices to three, listed below in the order of my likely preference:
1. Diamine Tropical Blue
5. Herbin Blue Pervenche
8. Waterman South Seas Blue

I like the Diamine Tropical Blue because it appears, to me at least, to include a few more darker shades of blue than either of the Blue Pervenche or South Seas Blue. Whether I choose one of these three, the remaining five or one of your other suggestions, I don’t think I could go wrong because they are all wonderful colours of ink, IMHO.  For example, I know that some suggested #6 Noodler’s Ottoman Azure, which has been a long-time favourite of mine.

Thanks again to all of you for your suggestions and comments.

Black and Sorta Black Inks

LPC member Kathryn R. from Calgary has provided us with two pages (see the bottom of this post) with some interesting pictures and entertaining comments on a number of black and sorta black inks.

My personal favourite is the Aurora Black which Kathryn seems to like as well.  I find her comments on the Private Reserve Ultra Black interesting and quite humorous.  I also note that Greg Clark found similar drying issues with this ink as noted in a recent Stylus Magazine article.

The Noodler’s Ellis Island Blue shown in the scan is a very attractive blue-black, at least to me, and she has also scanned Noodler’s Zhivago which is also a very popular black that has dark green undertones.

I must admit, while not an expert on black ink (blue is more my style), I was quite surprised at Kathryn’s positive remarks on Montblanc Black.  I have never really heard anyone speak about this ink, let alone make positive comments.  Perhaps I associate with people in “lighter” circles?

Black page 1 Black page 2