Private Reserve Midnight Blues

[Fountainbass]

Here's my handwritten review of my newly-purchased PR Midnight Blues ink. This is my first FPN review...go easy on me! I tried to match the color on the scans as closely as possible to the real sample. I typed my review below the images for anybody having trouble reading my chicken scratch handwriting!

 

http://www.billgrass.com/PRMB1.jpg

http://www.billgrass.com/PRMB2.jpg

 

Review date: May 3, 2008

Pen: Parker Duofold Senior, ~1924 (fine nib)

Ink: Private Reserve Midnight Blues

Paper: HP 32 lb Premium Choice LaserJet

 

I've been searching for the perfect blue ink for quite some time now. I discovered that most blue inks are a little lighter than what I had in mind. I then decided to concentrate on blue/black inks. I ordered a 4-ink sample from Pear Tree Pen Company (no affiliation), and one of those inks was Private Reserve Midnight Blues. I instantly fell in love with this ink, so I bought a bottle from Pear Tree.

 

I absolutely love the appearance of this ink on paper. It's a very deep, rich blue color with no hints of purple or green. I was a little concerned about drying time, but I had nothing to worry about. The ink dries in roughly 3 to 4 seconds (at least in this particular pen), and it doesn't smear when I touch it after it dries. There's no feathering on this paper, and the ink does not bleed through to the other side. Also, the ink remains the same color after it's been on the page for a while. In other words, there's no darkening or lightening after the ink dries.

 

The ink seems very well behaved in the pen, too. There's just a very minor amount of "nib creep," but nothing severe at all. The pen always starts right up immediately when I first start writing.

 

One other benefit of this ink is that it has just about cured my Duofold from some minor skipping problems. I had been using Waterman Black in this pen, and I would have intermittent skipping. No more with Private Reserve Midnight Blues!

 

In conclusion, I love this ink. I'll be buying a few more bottles of it in the next several days. I can see myself using this beautiful ink for a long time.

 

Pen comparison:

- Parker Duofold Senior, ~1924 (fine nib)

- Parker 51 Vacumatic, 1942 (fine/medium nib)

- Esterbrook LJ "Icicle," ~1960s (medium 9668 nib)

- Pelikan M200 (fine nib)

- Waterman Phileas (medium nib)

[CharlieB]

Private Reserve Midnight Blues is about the perfect color ink for me. Unfortunately, the 3-4 second drying time noted above is just not fast enough for a left-handed overwriter like me. I need inks that dry even faster than that.

 

Nice review. Thanks for doing it!

[Lloyd]

Could you please try washing this ink under water to see it's water-resistance?

[Ann Finley]

Bill,

 

Is your review by any chance that of the "quick dry / fast dry" version of PR Midnight Blues? I'm asking because our other review of this ink indicates that it wasn't dry even in 20 seconds! Of course a particular nib and paper choice make a difference--but this is a lot of difference, so I'm just wondering.

 

Best, Ann

[Martius]

Is there any substantive color difference between Midnight Blues and DC Electric Blue?

[Fountainbass]

Hi, Lloyd. I'll be glad to do that. I won't be able to get to it today, but maybe in the next day or so.

 

Ann, this is the standard Midnight Blues & not the fast dry version. I've heard that the quick-drying version tends to feather a lot, so I wasn't really interested in that. I was a little concerned about the drying time of the regular version because I'd read reviews that mention it takes a loooong time to dry. But I find that in my case, it dries just as quickly as the other inks I've used (Waterman Black, Florida Blue, & Skrip Black). I haven't noticed any smearing after rubbing my finger on the dried ink, either.

 

Martius, I don't know this because I've never tried DC Electric Blue. I'd like to see a comparison myself! Maybe there's one somewhere in the ink comparisons forum.

 

I'm still loving this ink!

[Fountainbass]

Hi, folks. Here's a scan of my water test with this ink. I wrote a few sentences on some Docket Gold Tops notepad & submerged it in water for a minute or so. Here's the result (scan matched as closely as possible to the actual sheet):

 

http://www.billgrass.com/PRMB3.jpg

 

Not too terrible. It's definitely still legible, but extremely washed out.

[ethernautrix]

I also like Midnight Blues a lot. I use it both as it is and also as the base for a mixture I call 3 A.M. Blues (add Visconti Blue and a bit of Noodler's Polar Blue, to increase the water resistance).

 

Very nice review, Bill - plus more testing (!). Thanks!

[Fountainbass]

Thanks! I hope this was helpful to anybody considering this ink. I like it so much I ordered 3 more bottles yesterday.

[pmormack]

Just wanted to add that this is such a nice ink that I'm using it in three pens. It has an incredible balance of flow, saturation, lubricity and character. In some pens it has nice shading and in others just leaves a nice solid dark dark blue stroke. Much more character IMO than Noodler's Blue Black and other BBs I've tried. It's also well behaved and following my recent issues with Bay State Blue a welcome respite from all the cleaning and staining drama.

[simonrob]

Bill,

 

Is your review by any chance that of the "quick dry / fast dry" version of PR Midnight Blues? I'm asking because our other review of this ink indicates that it wasn't dry even in 20 seconds! Of course a particular nib and paper choice make a difference--but this is a lot of difference, so I'm just wondering.

 

Best, Ann

 

I dilute regular Midnight Blues 3:1 ink:water. At least in a moderately wet nib, this makes the ink barely perceptibly paler, it shades a bit more, and of course it dries much faster and doesn't smear. I would also note that while both it and Supershow Blue are marvelous colours in their own right, a 50:50 mix (with both diluted 3:1) results in another marvelous colour (somewhere in between the two, unsurprisingly).

 

Simon

 

[mrjustice]

Oh I would love to see a scan of that!

[Viseguy]

Hi, folks. Here's a scan of my water test with this ink. I wrote a few sentences on some Docket Gold Tops notepad & submerged it in water for a minute or so. Here's the result ...

Not too terrible. It's definitely still legible, but extremely washed out.

It's actually pretty respectable. Here's what it looks like after an hour-long soak:

 

 

Here's the same sample, pre-soaking:

 

[Fountainbass]

Interesting results! Thanks for posting that.

[lovemy51]

great review Bill, i don't need to understand your hand writing to love that color! :roflmho:

 

... definitely one of my favorite inks!

[Fountainbass]

great review Bill, i don't need to understand your hand writing to love that color! :roflmho:

 

... definitely one of my favorite inks!

Thanks!

[pmsalty]

Private Reserve Midnight Blues is about the perfect color ink for me. Unfortunately, the 3-4 second drying time noted above is just not fast enough for a left-handed overwriter like me. I need inks that dry even faster than that.

 

Nice review. Thanks for doing it!

 

 

Thanks, for the review. I'm also left handed but I haven't had any problems with smearing. But being different is why we have so many options. One of my favorite inks.

PMS

[dsatco]

I use PR Midnight Blues in a Pilot Falcon medium nib. The shading with that nib is beautiful. Wonderful color. I'm going to mix it with Tanzanite to see what I get.

[cdvd]

Hi:

 

I too have used PR Midnight Blues and love the color, even though I do not particularly like blue-black.

 

There is one problem with this ink that I have not had with others from PR. After it sits for a while, even in a closed drawer, a thick residue develops at the bottom of the bottle. I've had to throw out several bottles of this ink for fear of getting the residue in my pens. I won't buy it any more; I've switched to Manhattan Blue, a good ink for a native New Yorker!

 

Hope this info helps, Chris

[JDlugosz]

 

I did my usual calibrated scans of PR Midnight Blues. The files I present have calibrated correct values in the file, with an embedded ICC profile for Adobe RGB. You should be able to compare any of my review scans side-by-side to see the difference, because the exposure and adjustment is exactly the same in each ink scan. To aid color perception on your monitor, there is a thin white border to show the paper color (the paper is faintly blue in sunlight) and a gray matte. The matte is perfectly neutral, so judge the color relative to that.

 

I've used it in two different pens, so I present two different writing samples:

 

http://www.dlugosz.com/Hosted/InkScans/Private%20Reserve/Midnight%20Blues/Sample1-text.jpg

 

http://www.dlugosz.com/Hosted/InkScans/Private%20Reserve/Midnight%20Blues/Sample2-text.jpg

 

The Macy's vintage pen is wetter. It doesn't show as much difference as it felt, but the difference in feathering (below) is much greater.

 

http://www.dlugosz.com/Hosted/InkScans/Private%20Reserve/Midnight%20Blues/Sample1-figure.jpg

 

The difference in feathering between the OK pen and the too-wet pen is dramatic.

 

http://www.dlugosz.com/Hosted/InkScans/Private%20Reserve/Midnight%20Blues/feather1.jpg

 

http://www.dlugosz.com/Hosted/InkScans/Private%20Reserve/Midnight%20Blues/feather2.jpg

 

Another interesting thing is the amount of variation. This is unusual for a deeply-saturated Private Reserve ink, and on this paper yet! But there is such a vast difference between the dark and light areas that I made two color charts. That gives an oppertunity for two different views, too, so I set them to show different things.

 

http://www.dlugosz.com/Hosted/InkScans/Private%20Reserve/Midnight%20Blues/ColorPicker-light.pnghttp://www.dlugosz.com/Hosted/InkScans/Private%20Reserve/Midnight%20Blues/ColorPicker-dark.png

 

The darker it gets, the less saturated it gets. That is, the black portions of the dye are more opaque and hide the blue portions. So it moves from a slate blue color to a true gray with very little color perception, within one stroke!

 

So, the color can be expected to vary depending on the pen and hand, and how it is taken up by the paper. The Hue ranges from 223° to 228° in the samples I took, but the saturation difference makes a bigger difference to the perception of the color, as it loses its blueness as more gray is mixed in.

 

--John

 

http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/88x31.png These images are hosted on my site, only to relieve the server burden. I specifically grant the right of FPN to re-host them, back them up, or otherwise to maintain continuity of this content, as they see fit.