That and DC are two of the best blues going IMO. Ottoman Azure for character, and WM Florida Blue for conservative perfection. Top 4 blues.

Hi Leslie,

I wholeheartedly agree with you on 3 of these 4 colours, but that is only because I don't have American Blue (yet).

Regards, Wim

For a bright, vibrant, true-blue blue, it's really hard to beat American Blue. And the color handles a variety of paper well and has good readability. It was the ink I chose to use for scralling my copious notes when I was on federal jury duty in the fall.

Mark C.

The only Ink I like better than American Blue is DC Supershow Blue. IMO there is no better blue around. Very vibrant!! If I am doing reports at work that go to customers, I usually tone it down a notch with the American Blue

I still have a bottle of 2003 DC blue. Still looking for a high flow pen for it!

Question for us lefties - how's the dry time compared to WM Florida Blue? Does it have a high smear-factor (slow dry time)?

Hi Southpaw,

If DC SS 2003 blue is anything to go by, I would say yes, high smear factor. Looking at the sample, there is a lot of shading, so I would expect this ink to be very saturated and concentrated. Therefore, it very likely smears. And there are very few inks that dry as quickly as WM Florida Blue. Of course, I don't know the Swisher's inks yet.

HTH, warm regards, Wim

It smears a lot - write with a wet medium + nib and you are looking for trouble in many papers. The picture below shows several inks including Americal Blue on a Ampad engineering pad. Scroll down to see PR American Blue from a Wet Parker 51 that smeared almost 1 hour after writing

ALMOST ONE HOUR LATER!!!! Forgive my ignorance, but what's the point in having an ink like that. Even if you blotted it, I would think what remained would still stay wet for quite some time.

For info / reference, is this typical performance of PR inks? If I recall correctly, I was told PR inks are slow drying and a general taboo for lefties - correct?

THANKS for the info, and as a former engineer, I appreciate your approach Antoniosz.

Well I am not dumping all my PR and Noodlers yet

These are inks that I enjoy in some of my pens - fine nibs especially.
For example, I am using Noodler's blue black from a Parker 51 Special XF on Molescine sketch with excellent performance. I had American Blue in a XF modern crest with great results for marginalia in common copy paper.

Therefore the performance varies from paper to paper.
Some papers that absorb the ink enough may show less smearing that the specific paper shown above.

Southpaw, AZ is exactly right....As a leftie overwriter I can successfully use these inks on cheap tablet paper. I cannot use them for snailing on better paper. I love the Noodler's colors and the American & DC blues, but don't plan to buy anymore Noodler's regular ink or PR just to use on tablet paper!

NS, thanks for the American Blue review--I missed it earlier, and ink reviews are among my favorite posts to read--even when I can't use the ink!

Best, Ann

Wow, I'm surprised at the results for Noodlers. I don't have a problem with smearing with mine. Maybe it's the paper I'm using.

An important point about smearing. If it still smears after a long time, we're not talking about drying time. The problem at this point is high saturation. What smears is the dry stuff (I'm not the scientist here!) left after the water evaporates. In these cases the ink will smear days/weeks/months/years after you write, especially if you swipe them with very slightly moist hands. This is the problem that I've seen with PR inks.

Elaine you are correct. What smears is indeed the "dry stuff".
In fact I notived the problem because I had all the notes of my class with Noodlers Azure Blue (I had prepared them over Christmas).
By simply handling the notes several weeks later I was causing smearing. Also the paper type plays a bid role.

a-HA!

Thank you, Elaine, for explaining this. I found that Private Reserve Sherwood Green could smear days later, and couldn't explain it to people in any way that they could comprehend.

Ahhh . . . the paper. I have several Noodler's inks and haven't had any problems to date with smearing, but then again, I've only been using for a couple of months.

THANKS for all the info. What a great place to learn, and I have so much to learn!

Here's another way to think of the interaction between ink and paper.

Ink is made up of lots of tiny dye molecules floating around in water.

When you write with a pen, the nib makes a line of this colored water onto a spongy substance called paper.

The spongy paper absorbs the water. As it sucks in the water, it also sucks the dye molecules into its innards.

The water evaporates and the dye molecules remain entrapped in the physical structure of the sponge. They're not chemically fixed in there. There's no "glue" to hold them in place. (I'm talking about regular inks, btw, not waterproof ones.) But they're deep enough in the structure of the sponge to resist being dislodged. And when you rub your finger across the surface of the paper, they stay in place for the most part.

Now, there are a couple of variables that come into play: the number of dye molecules and the absorbancy of the spongy paper.

Paper can be made from all sorts of cellulose fibers, some of which are more absorbent than others. Paper can be left with a very loose, open finish (which we interpret as rough) or it can be polished with heat and pressure to make a compacted, smooth finish. Compacting the paper essentially reduces the size of the holes in the sponge. So when it absorbs watery ink, the fluid won't spread around so quickly in all directions (which we interpret as feathering).

The second variable, the number of dye molecules becomes especially important when writing on these smoothed papers. Because the holes in the sponge are smaller, there isn't as much room for the dye molecules in the structure of the paper itself. This means fewer dye molecules can be embedded in the sponge. All the extras will be left just sitting on the surface.

And when you use inks with highly concentrated inks on these smoothed papers, then you can end up with a real glut of dye on the surface, just waiting for the slightest amount of moisture to dislodge them. Hence, you get smeary ink lines that can be a problem weeks or months down the line.

So the trick is to balance the dye concentration of the inks with (1) a pen nib that lays down the right number of dye molecules (2) on paper that is capable of absorbing it. Everyone will have their own solutions to this ink/paper/pen equation, depending on their handwriting style, the speed that they write, how broad a nib is used, how quickly the ink flows onto the paper, etc.

I think this is why people can have such different experiences with the same ink. I personally find that almost every color of Noodlers and PR smear badly for me. I know others can work with these inks just fine. Such are the inequities of life, I guess!

ElaineB

Well done explanation! I, too, find that most every color of Noodler's & PR inks smear on the papers I want to use---but in my case they smear both because they don't dry quickly enough for a leftie overwriter AND because the ink hasn't absorbed into the paper and can smear later on.

Ann

If you would like to see a detailed view of what paper looks like go to this link: http://www.cnr.umn.edu/bp/faculty/kraft.avi
This is a 30MB movie from a synchrotron x-ray tomography of a piece of paper, which shows essentially what ElaineB said that paper consists of a network of compressed fibers with significant amount of empty space in it. By the way each fiber itself is porous (the movie shows it but not clearly).
Here is another picture:

For an idea of the scale in these pictures, fiber diameters are usually 20-40 microns (about 1/4-1/2 of the diameter of the human hair.

_________________________________________________
Sorry Noble Savage for highjacking the thread

I'm a lefty overwriter using a fairly wet Pelikan 600 mp and even writing fast I love how quickly American Blue dries. Zero smudges ever.

I really want to buy some of this ink, but I have been torn between this and the DC SS Blue... I have not seen either of them in person, and that is what would make my mind up. Since that is unlikely, is there a sample anywhere on this network (or could somebody possibly create one) of American Blue and DC SS Blue side-by-side? Or if you are really feeling your Wheaties, could you snail me a scribbling of one or the other? I really want to get a nice vibrant blue to add to my already-too-big ink pile.

Marina.


Argh!! Edited because I forgot my manners...

THANKS for the review Noble Savage!! Even if it is a year later...

Hi Marina,

You can compare here, no connection, just a satisfied customer, of both TWD and PR DC SS

Jim

The Writing Desk UK

Marina, my vote would be for the American Blue. It writes very crisply in my italic pen and dries quicker than SSB.

Stephen

I just rinsed and flushed my "51" flighter (what a nuisance - the price you pay for all that ink in the section that helps it write so well is ... about a zillion rinses) which has a fairly wet fine/medium nib with PR American Blue and boy is it a pretty color! Just outstanding - crisp and vibrant. I use cheap copy paper and Office Depot economy pads at work and no smearing problems or drying issues.

Just an awesome color, and my new favorite ink - jumping ahead of Waterman Florida Blue in fact. If it were water resistant it would be nearly perfect ...

Another great deep blue ink is Diamine Prussian Blue. I equally like both, American Blue and Prussian Blue. Difference between is that American Blue has violet inside. Good thing about Prussian Blue is that it is not smearing.

PR American doesn't have nearly the smearing problems of DC Supershow, I have found. They are my two favorite blue inks, and I like the color of the DCSS better, but it really is a wet, smeary ink.

But until it smears, it's gorgeous.

DC and American Blue are gorgoues colors, but I had so much smearing with them, and even with Midnight Blues, that I've stopped buying PR inks. Most of my writing is on cheap, no-name, recycled paper, extremely variable in quality -- and on that I find that Noodler's, both regular and waterproof, performs very well. But even on this absorbent paper, the PR inks -- at least, the ones I've tried -- smear long after the ink has dried. Too bad.

I really liked the bottle of 2003 Supershow Blue that I had, even better than the American Blue. I had no unusual smearing problems.

I needed more ink, and heard that the 2004 and 2005 SSB were actually LIGHTER than American Blue, while my impression of the 2003 was that it was a little darker and more intense.

I wouldn't mind some other opinions here, and I'd like to get my hands on more of that 2003 stuff, if it is indeed darker than American Blue.

Anyone want to swap, I have some other good stuff.

Meanwhile, my favorite blue is Omas Roma 2000.
I would rate American Blue and DC SuperShow Blue with Penman Sapphire.
The third on my list is tied between PR Black Magic Blue and Tibaldi Blue-Black (very similar colors, except the Tibaldi is a little bit thinner and therefore has better shading. I use it in a very wet Delta Venezia with B nib.

But my Pelikan Concerto (B nib) is always filled with the PR, and I love that silky, effortless combination![B]

Eric, have you tried Omas royal blue? If so, can you tell us what it looks like? Thanks.

Stephen

The DC SS Blue 2003-2005 are all the same formula. I have several bottles and American Blue, DC SS Blue and Noodlers Black are my Everyday inks and I have seen nothing but consistancy with the American Blue and DC SS Blue. I also throughly flush and clean my pens when they run dry, I guess thats why I bring so many to work with me!!


TNS

You need to take a look at Michael Richter's site, where you can see all three Omas blue inks in comparison.
http://people.freenet.de/pensninks/Start.html

Thanks Eric. The old blue looks nice; too bad it was discontinued.

Stephen

If I had to pick one (1) desert island blue ink it would be Roma 2000 Blue.
For me it has the ideal color balance, flow and shading.
Penman Sapphire and the PR AM/DCSS blue inks (which seem identical to Sapphire) are wonderful inks, but are more like concentrated turquoise.
Aurora, Black Magic Blue, et al are great inks, but have obvious purple tendencies.
Tanzanite isn't even blue.
Omas Roma 2000 manages to tread the fine line.
I'll be very happy to find another ink like that.