Hi Everyone

Lots of people seem to do this - I'd like to find out just how many!

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Col

Wasn't there a thread similar to this? I think so, though I'm not 100% sure.

i'm getting less picky though.

No. Otherwise, a lot of people would be using only black and blue pens, I should think.

Ugh, I try REEALLLY hard not to... but the OCD in me always seems to pull me that way. Case in point. I have a Parker "51" aero in Midnight Blue, and I was trying out some PR Avacado...it drove me nuts, and I had to clean it out and refill it with... Watermans Blue Black. I now have a Hunter Green Parker "51" sitting in my case that I'm trying hard not to fill up with it, as I already have the Avacado in 2 pens. Oddly enough, it seems to depend on the pen though. I have no problem throwing whatever color I want in my Eversharp Skyline (see my avatar) or my Lamy Al-Star.... maybe it's an open nib thing?

What colour would I put in Chrome plated pens?

I like Noodler's Golden Brown to match the brown bits in my Pelikan White Tortoise, and I usually but not always have a green ink in the green Phileas, because it's easy to remember. Other than that I don't have the discipline. (Plus as Bradley says, I'd use a lot more black ink than I would like.)

I used to match ink color to pen color when I didn't use my pens at work as much as I do now. I only have a few favorite ink colors so I don't match so much anymore.

If the colour of the pen and the ink, that's a real bonus
However, my top priority is using an ink that works well in the pen.

Sometimes using the ink that is the same colour as the pen is not a good match

It's more like I avoid using colors in pens that don't agree with them. For example, blue ink in a green Phileas kind of bugs me, but blue ink in a black or steel pen does not. Black (ink or pen) goes with anything.

Heh - I did consider something like that as a choice:

• Your pens are all too shiny to care

I also considered...

• You believe fountain pens are a serious business, and deplore the gratuitous posting of frivolous polls

...but I thought maybe it was a bit too much of a mouthful.

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Col

Great thread. I can't HELP but try to match the colour. Its not always easy but if I pick up a blue pen I can't have it writing in any other colour.

Exceptions include my everyday pen, which is a vintage Conway Stewart 45 which is shiny black hard rubber, but filled with Penman Mocha. The excuse being that the pen has a sort of dark brown feel to it, even though it hasn't oxidised yet.

Also, in my everyday cigar case, is a maroon Skyliner with a very fine point filled with red Platignum (for notes on typed text) and an old 'The Burnham' which is marbled green and black (wonderful flexy nib) which ends up being used as a spare and is filled with - you've guessed, a green/black mixture of Lamy green and Quick black.

I have even bought pens of a particular colour to be able to use ink of that colour (although my yellow Herbin is used in a green Mabie Todd Swan. One day I will find a suitably yellow pen!).


Greg

For me, it all depends on the pen itself. When a pen comes up in rotation, I'll take it in my hands, look at it, then look at all my bottles of ink to find one that's "speaking" to me at the moment. I also do the reverse some times, deciding on an ink first before rummaging through my box of pens for one that's screaming out to be inked with the particular ink.

More often than not, I end up with pens inked with colours that are in the same region of the colour spectrum. However, there are pens that just scream for contrasting colours, like my dark blue lacquered dupont that would take nothing but vibrant red inks. 9 9 9

This question comes up every so often - for me ink color is generally determined by function. i.e. I have certain colors for editing documents (red and green primarily), use various blues for general note taking, and Noodlers black for signing checks and anything else where permanence is an issue. The particular functional task also determines the nib, which for me then drives the pen choice. EF nibs for document editing, Fine or medium for note taking. While I have pens that are stainless, red, green, blue, burgundy and black - they may or may not have the correct nib/barrel color to match up with the ink that is best suited for a particular purpose. My red and green pens, for example have fairly juicy fine to medium nibs, not the best for document editing. My EF nibs are on two black and one blue pen.

About the only pens that are currently loaded with ink that matches their barrel color are blue pens with blue ink, my cedar blue "51", and azure blue vacumatic and a slate blue Waterman Expert 2000.

For most of my pens I don't bother to match the ink colour to the pen, but there are a couple which just seem to want a nice match. My Conway Stewart Duro is the woodgrain ebonite one and so that pen just seemed to be shouting out for a matching ink and writes nicely when filled with PR Shoreline Gold. I also think that my Cedar Blue Vac 51 is particularly suited to Diamine Prussian Blue.

I like putting green, blue-black, or black in silver pens, but not a vibrant blue for some reason.

Stephen

I sometimes match inks, sometimes do not. I guess I match if the mood strikes me and it is convenient to do so. My Pel 805 blue/black stripe is matched most of the time just because I love blue ink. My Pel 400 tortoise will be matched after I get home tonight as it is just screaming out for some Noodler's Walnut However, I have it at work ATM filled with Florida Blue, and it doesn't bother me in the least. (Although, as you can see from my poll, the only reason it has blue in it is because I forgot to bring a pen to work today and this one just arrived before lunch, so I had no choice but to use the ink that came in the same order.)

Does spending about 30 minutes with Sam at Pendemonium at the Philly Show trying to decide on just the right color for my new Burgundy Vacumatic count as a YES
BTW, the color ended up being Visconti Burgundy... and I am real happy with it even though I am not a big fan of reds...

Ooh, nice!

Depends on whether you were looking for a nicely contrasting colour, or for one in the same tonal range...


...gotcha!

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Col

I never used to match ink color to pen color (though my pens were all black or stainless steel or silver). Now that I have a Pelikan 400 in tortoise (with brown cap and knob), I have only had Watermans Havana Brown in it. I tried some nice old Quink black, and the color just seemed... wrong. I put Havana back in and... everything is right again.

Could this be the beginning of a compulsive obsession?

Hmmm, Havana brown, eh? I'm still looking for the perfect marriage for my Pel 400 tortie. You may just have started me off again...

I voted "sometimes" because there are some pens where it just doesn't seem to matter and others where I am ridiculously pernickety (like the Pel).

I nipped out at lunchtime (well, earlier, this is still lunchtime) and bought a bottle of Herbin's Poussiere de Lune, ostensibly for a charcoal Safari, as I couldn't lay my hands on the grey ink which I liked. I think it'll be fine but I can't help thinking I now need a pen which exactly fits this new ink...

The ink, as described elsewhere, is grey-ish purple (aubergine) (sorry, eggplant). That pursuit should keep me quiet for while...



edited for idiom

Yea, right, every chance I get............................

You just can’t have matching ink with fountain pens with these colours or finishes:

• Chrome
• Stainless steel
• Gold
• Silver
• White
• Demonstrator

Therefore, you must have some exceptions for your matching rules. I put black ink to those pens of five first colours. I fill demonstrators with some very excotic colours with no matching pen. For example it is hard to find turquoise pens. Therefore I put turquoise ink to my Lamy Vista.

I would put brown ink to that fourth pen and green or turquoise ink to that eighth pen. I would fill that Lamy Vista with some exotic ink with no matching pen. Other pens would be filled with black ink.

I guess I am a fuddy duddy, I use Black and Blue in 90% of my pens. My calligraphy pens on the other hand are all colors.

One exception, my purply Wality 69L ED has PR Tanzanite in it and always will.

For a long time I used only Quink Blue then I bought a black Parker 45 for form filling and kept black in that pen. When, I was given a green / black marbled Phileas and decided to use only green or black ink in it. Having recently acquired a Teal Parker 51, I bought some Diamine Steel Blue to use in it when I read that this ink looked like teal. When I tried it, it looked too green so I kept adding more blue to a sample till it just about matches. Has anyone else found a Teal ink?

I don't know if you want to use Noodler's eternal in P51, but have you tried Legal Lapis? It's a nice greenish blue.

I do not so much match inks as much as try to aviod creating ink/pen combinations that clash. My Mento Punpkin Seed pen is not very tolorent of this...

Joe

I tried matching inks to the colour of the pen to simplify things but some inks just do not work well in certain pens. Now I just grab the pen I feel like using & hope that the ink is a suitable colour for what I'm writing (or to whom). Someone here said they keep a log. Maybe I should try that.
Jazz

I just did, unintentionally. Got a new (for me) colour and decided to test it out and see something other than the Aurora black that I have been using. It was the gf that noticed that the ink and the pen were very similar in colour.

MB 144 classic in burgundy with Private Reserve Black Cherry.

All my pens are black (well, almost all...) and I write exclusively with black ink.

... I wonder what that says about me...

That your future looks black...

That would be past, present AND future then!

I've managed to accumulate 3 burgundy-colored pens, so I bought a bottle of Noodler's Red-Black just for them!

Some of my pens have "picked" a color. For example I have a Copper Estie J that will not allow me to put anything in it except Private Reserve Copper Burst; I have a Green Parker 45 that absolutely insists on Noodlers Gruenne Cactus; and last but not least I have a Parker 25 with a broad cursive nib that only likes Private Reserve Gray Flannel. The last one is an interesting combination, as I have not found any other color that looks good with that pen, and when I have tried the Gray Flannel in other pens it looks like a poor quality black ink. But, together I get some amazing shadding and a definite gray.

Not so much the color but the style. If I am using an older vintage-type pen with a flex nib then I look for a vintage-looking ink that offers some shading. In situations I typically go with Waterman blue-black

As long as it doesn't clash too bad, like purple in a red pen, any colour will do in any pen. I don't mind a nice match, but next fill can be another colour.