I bought some cartridges of all of the Penman inks right at the end of their production by Parker.
Penman Sapphire as-manufactured was a very intense blue - it was not a dark blue, but was instead an intense colour that ‘popped’ off the page. I had never seen anything like it. I was transfixed, and awed. I fell completely in love with it right away, even if I regretted its propensity to smear.
If I had to try to give a name to its colour, I would call it ‘Very Blue’ 😉 The ink’s ‘awesomeness’ was increased by the fact that it shaded and provided red sheen too.
I used-up all my Sapphire very quickly, and then went back to the store to buy a full bottle, only to find that the Penman inks had been discontinued 😢
Once I found that out, I bought the store’s last pack of cartridges of Emerald - and then hoarded them, along with my cartridges of the other colours. I used them only on ‘special occasions’, in the hope of preserving my access to these inks for as long as I could.
I still had cartridges of most of the other colours until very recently, but I am now down to maybe one or two of Emerald.
My experience with these old cartridges has, of course, been that the volume of ink has reduced in them as the gas-permeable plastic has allowed water - and other components - to evaporate out of them.
When I have had to ‘restore’ the ink in my Penman cartridges by adding water, I have found that the ink colours come as as less-vibrant than they were when new.
I assume that one of the components that has evaporated was a dye-stabiliser, or that oxygen has got-to the dyestuffs in the 20+ years that the cartridges have been waiting to be used.
@Bo Bo Olson I am shocked - shocked, I say! - by your impression of PPS. I had to clutch my pearls to my throat when I read it! 😉
Having had the ink when it was new, I wholeheartedly agree with Sandy1’s enthusiastic thoughts about Parker Penman Sapphire in her review of it. (I recently restored most of her photos to her text, in a post which can be found here. Please click the ‘Expand’ link to be able to see her photos restored to her review text.)
I am indebted to Beechwood, who pointed me towards a review that contains the best - i.e. most-representative of the ink’s capacity for sheen -photos of PPS that I have seen.
That review can be found here.
Nowadays there are many blue inks available that have heavy dye-loads, and several replicate the capacity of PPS to give sheen, and to shade too. But PPS was (as far as I know) the very first ink to offer this experience to users.
Those of use who were lucky enough to get it when it was new were wowed by this exciting new ink, and its disappearance from the market - long before any similar inks were available - made us lament its loss, and only increased its appeal.
Slàinte,
M.