Have a new Lamy 2000 on the way in a BB nib, will post it to Richard Binder straight away to have it re -tipped to a 1.0 mm stub. I think that I wish to start out with a dark ,dark ,dark green. Seems at least to me to be a fitting colour for the Lamy 2000.
The two colours that strike my fancy so far are Noodlers Zhivago Green and Private Reserve Avacado. Would love to hear any thoughts on these two inks , or on any others out there that might fill the bill. Would also be nice if any of you could post a colour comparison of these two greens.
As always , best regards,
Oberon

Zhivago is the ink I stopped at in my search for a really really dark green. It is a black ink with dark green highlights so that to most people it just looks like black ink but the highlights are still there. The avacado is a dark green but not as dark as Z.

T

Thanks, that's what I've been curious to know (I love avacado, wondered how it compared to Zhivago).

Private Reserve Sherwood Green is a beautiful color -- it's a very WET ink if that is of concern.

Noodler's Sequoia is also a aptly named ink -- dark green with yellow and red in it, just like summer Sequoia needles. Not an almost black like Zhivago.

I use both -- the black in the Zhivago is permanent. The Sequoia leaves a red trace, the rest washes off.

Peter

I have also considered the Noodlers sequoia for the dark green . also have some interest in Noodlers Red-Black.
Oberon

I have used Sherwood Green (PR) and do like it.

I find I get eventually do want to rotate it out, after about two weeks. Maybe I'm just going through a non-green-ink phase. I have a custom green ink on order that I'm quite excited to try that is lighter than Sherwood.

I agree that PR Sherwood Green is a lovely shade of green. The only drawback from my standpoint, as a left-handed overwriter, is that Sherwood Green is very slow drying.

Just a quick note to say that I've moved this to Inky Thoughts from Ink reviews. Hope you all find it OK.

Thanks,

Chris

A real nice dark green, is the Parker Penman Emerald, yes I know it is discontinued but you can find it on fleabay.

Cheers.

If you want the green to show a little (just a touch of green), mix the Noodler's Zhivago with a little of Waterman's South Sea Blue, in a 4:1 or 6:1 ratio. It writes dark green and dries with a hint of green.

PR Avacado

Have you tried the new fast dry version of Sherwood green? Same color with very quick dry times. The only potential problem I've seen is that it tends to feather on some papers. I picked some up from James at the Michigan Pen Show.

Larry

Zhivago will look almost black, but with a greenish tinge, but it it "near-bulletproof".

MB British Racing Green is not quite as dark. To me, it looks like it has some olive drab to
it.

Noodlers Verdun from Swisher Pens is dark and intensely green. If it weren't dark
enough for you, try a drop or two of Noodlers Black mixed with it.

I have both PR Avocado ( becasue Zhivago wqas sold out) and a few days ago I got some Zhivago. My preference is PR Avocado. It is a lovely dark green and in myDantrio Densho witht he vaklve opened wide ( flexy fine) it is gorgeous. I tried the Zhivago in a factory itlic Pelican 120 but it still looks mostly black to me. i was hoping the green would be a subtle highlight so that after looking at the ink fopr a time one would realize it was dark green. It has not worked out that way, it seems tha peoipole either see the green right away or not at all. Of course a different pen and nib will give different effects..

Havne't tried Zhivago. From what I've seen on paper, it's pretty much black that leans green. In a dry writer you see more green.

I like dark greens and PR Avacado is lovely. I love Penman Emerald but it is expensive and if you're hooked it can be hard to find a lifetime supply. Short of raiding my ink cabinet, that is. You don't want to put your life in jeopardy that way.

I did discover, rather by accident, that Diamine Woodland green with a "tetch" of Noodler's WP black looks remarkably like Penman Emerald. I couldn't tell the difference in color. I could tell the difference in feel. Penman has a lubrication that very few inks can match. But it was still an excellent replacement should I ever actually run out of Emerald or develop an allergy or something equally unpleasant.

So - what I'm sayin' here in my round-about way is that I recommend trying something like Avacado or any other medium-to-dark green and seasoning to taste with a good black (Noodler's or Aurora.) Don't use Waterman black (aka, Waterman gray.) That way you get the hue you like, but darker. For example, if you start with Avacado, you'll get a yellower dark black. If you start with Woodland green, you'll get a green that leans neither yellow nor blue.

There's also Noodler's Aircorp Blue-Black, which is, as confirmed by me and other owners, actually a Green-Black.

Remember this too-your Lamy2000 is a wet writer, so it will put a lot of ink down, hence a slow drying ink, like PR sherwood forest is supposed to be, could cause smudging when you turn the page if you write fast. MB racing green is either a hate or love ink from what I can tell-however if you like it then it will work well in your Lamy as MB and Lamy ink is made at the same place (and apparently Lamy ink is 'specially' formulated to work well in L2K's-sounds like bollocks to me but that is what i have read-the MB boutique say the same stuff about MB's and their pens...).

Sequoia is a gorgeous ink -- complex, yet soothing.

For the green color alone, PR Sherwood is hard to beat, but I wouldn't call it a really dark green. For my taste, PR Avocado is dark and green, but it is a shade I don't find appealing. Zhivago is really, really dark, and often looks almost black at first glance.

I rarely use either of the PR inks because of smearing. Zhivago is nearly always loaded in at least a couple of pens.

I fell in love with the color of PR Sherwood Green when I first tried it. Then I realized that it dries at a glacial pace, and is a smearing nightmare for left handers like me. Now it sits on an isolated corner of my desk next to its smeary brother, PR Tanzanite.

Put it on filter paper...it is a "prime black" and a "prime bright blue"...NOTHING else....no yellow....no green.... The color can play tricks on the perception the eye believes is there...

It looks like a classic 1920s blue-black on some grades of paper...but change to a halogen bulb and the color seems to change as well - kerosene lamp changes it yet again...CF and incandescent...etc.... It is not a "constant" color ink. The variations based upon light and paper grade differences...even if the pen is a generous flowing broad or a stingy extra fine....can change the perceived color many times over. The paper towel or filter paper test won't lie....it is just "prime black" and "prime bright blue".....just as red-black seems to be brown with certain paper grades and light sources or a black tinged with red highlights...it is pure red and pure black, nothing else.

Yes, Nathan the components, (for me at least) are black and turquoise/cyan.
And I like the colour as an ink really.
But, IMHO, because the Noodler's Black is more to the yellow compared to other blacks, this mix (yellow-blue) makes it appear greenish as a result.
Anyway, I don't complain, because this tone is unique . Don't change it.

I don't see Noodler's Forest Green mentioned very often and it's one of my favorites. Leans a bit toward the blue, which I love about it.

have you tried to dilute it slightly? I find some of these inks to be so dye-dense that they can be diluted with water without altering the color. That might allow you to use it. My Sherwood and my Penman Emerald were getting a bit thicker and a drop of water in the converter with the ink resolved the problem but didn't impact color or flow.

So what is regular Blue-Black, then? How does it differ? And how does Ellis Island differ from either of those? They all seem very close to one another, yet distinct.

I just got a bottle of the Ellis Island Ink and will be reviewing it here soon. Since I don't have regular Blue-Black, I can't compare it to that one, but I did have a sample of the Air Corps Blue Black and my observation is that the Ellis Island is a much, much darker blue. I would go so far as to say that out of all the blue-black inks I have tried from Noodler's and Private Reserve, Ellis Island is the one that most reminds me of the blue-black ink I remember from grade school fifty years ago (which was Skrip, if I recall correctly). I'll have to try the filter paper on it. Unfortunately, all of the ACBB sample is gone, so I can't do a side-by-side.

I just got my bottle on Wednesday and I've only tried it in one pen, so it's early days for me. It certainly is dark. The blue seems to show through more on cream-colored paper; on white paper, the ink looks almost black. It held up well to a soaking. My guess is that this is FPH Old Manhattan Black with a little blue added. It's not quite as smooth as regular B-B, and seems to be a bit more prone to feathering. I wasn't crazy about Old Manhattan, and I can't say E.I. has really grabbed me, but I need to try it with some of my better nibs. Will look forward to your review.

I did a little filter paper test last night, using a coffee filter. One drop of ink gave me a really big spread, but almost all of it is pure black,with the smallest fringe of a blue that looks a lot like Eel Blue.

I'm pooped from the amount of work I've done in the last week (actually, over the last five months), so it will be a day or two before I have the review done. I think I like Ellis Island Ink maybe a bit more than you do, but I still like Legal Lapis best for my everyday "Blue-Black" and probably like Ottoman Azure best for an everyday darker blue.

With the 1.0 stub, I would start with Zhivago. The dark green should peek through nicely because of the broader nib. With a narrower nib, I would start with Aircorp B-B or Green Marine. Or even MB Racing Green if you wanted it a bit lighter. In my experience, I find that Z often looks black with finer nibs. I like Avacado but it is definitely lighter than the others.

Bill

Ellis Island is a conventional ink...made to be modern, neutral average Ph, but as identical to the original government issue blue black in color used at Ellis Island about 100 years ago (though not properties...as the original was VERY acid - pH 1.2 - and had certain less desirable traits that have been completely avoided in the modern version) .

Regular Blue-Black has a darker blue component and lesser black component than Air-Corp blue-black. Regular was a vintage replica ink (about 30 years post Ellis Island on the timeline), whereas air-corp was based upon the army-air corp uniforms for officers (which were sometimes mixed British/American style at the time due to the influence of the European theatre).

Not to make ink complicated....but sometimes there exists a prime dye, say...purple wampum or tanager, shah's, saguaro, concord bream, Navajo, blue, etc....the list of Noodler's Inks tends to grow because when a unique component becomes available - if it makes a nice ink, it will be tried in the marketplace. Some inks may appear very similar/almost identical on one grade of paper when using a fine nib...but suddenly an artist using a brush pen or a calligrapher using an XBBB italic....will note dramatic differences between paper grades and even nib widths in terms of color, hue, effect, and shading. As Noodler's is such a small company, massive production runs of ink are not required to justify machinery use (certain Asian and European ink companies have production runs of over 10,000 bottles PER color run!). If it is nice enough, we'll make just two bottles...if that is all the material that is available world wide...but the ink is worthy of at least being born so that somebody can use it and enjoy it.

Somebody here proposed a shade of "napalm"....there is a dye that looks like a napalm explosion...might do it. The name alone would cause interesting discussions. ;-)

Who sells Ellis Island? I have not seen it on any of the websites I usually check.

Ellis Island Ink is an exclusive for Fountain Pen Hospital (http://www.fountainpenhospital.com). Same is true of Old Manhattan, which is a deeeeeep black.

Quite by accident, I found that mixing J Herbin Lie De The brown with some PR Lake Placid Blue (5:1.5 brown to blue ratio) gave me a nice dark olive green. Not sure if it'll do anything nasty to the pen but I really like the color.

Thanks, that helps put these inks in perspective. FWIW, last year I made a mix of equal parts bulletproof Black and Swishmix Tahitian Pearl that is pretty much a dead ringer for Ellis Island. I find either one to be a good ink for just about any purpose except signing documents, where I need a color that is more obviously not black. But I couldn't resist buying Ellis Island (the ink, that is ) because my dad entered the U.S. there in 1911 (spent a month there actually, in quarantine, due to an outbreak of some contagious disease or other on his ship). It's neat to be using the color that he probably used to "sign in". How did you match it? I suppose you looked at original documents.

P.S. While writing this post, I finally managed to locate the ship manifest showing my dad's arrival! I've been combing http://www.ellisisland.org for years, but was not hitting it because, as I discovered tonight, his name was misspelled on the database. It's kind of an oddball misspelling -- a transcription error; the handwriting on the manifest is a little hard to decipher. I've e-mailed them to request a correction. Who knows, I may never have taken another look had I not bought my bottle of Ellis Island at FPH last week! Thank you, Noodler's!