There are five pages in total.

• The ones that should display here are the low res versions
• The links for the high res versions will be below (each 150 DPI scan is 3.5 MB; no sense in making you download 20-30 MB just to see the preview of the graphic...)

I used two pens:

1. Sheaffer Javelin Fine (ie. the same nib as the Sheaffer Prelude, though without gold plating)
2. J. Herbin twirled glass dip pen.

Paper is HP Color Laser paper.

The pens were thoroughly cleaned & dried after each ink was used. (Obviously, the glass dip pen was easiest to clean...)

Black Inks tested (in no particular order):

1. J. Herbin Perle Noire
2. Visconti Black
3. Omas Black
4. Caran D'Ache Carbon
5. PR Velvet Black
6. Waterman Black
7. Sailor Jentle Black
8. Noodler's Zhivago
9. Diamine Jet Black
10. Diamine Quartz Black
11. Sheaffer Skrip Black
12. Lamy Black
13. Pelikan Brillaint Black
14. PR UltraBlack (Fast Dry)
15. Aurora Black
16. Noodler's Old Manhattan Black
17. Noodler's American Eel Black
18. Noodler's Bulletproof Black
19. Noodler's Polar Black
20. Noodler's Heart of Darkness
21. Noodler's X-Feather

Grey Inks:

1. J. Jerbin Gris Nuage
2. PR Grey Flannel

I don't have Quink in the list - Quink was my primary ink for years, so I already know its properties quite well. That and I couldn't find a bottle of the stuff at my normal vendors.

A note on the content of the scan: There are more than a few references to something called the "Hypno-Toad." This is a joke from the Fox animated series "Futurama." The hypno-toad is a large toad that hypnotizes people to give it what it wants, and one episode (which I was watching during testing) has the hypno-toad influencing the judges of a pet show - resulting in the judges making the Hypno-toad the winner, exclaiming "All glory to the Hypno-Toad!"

All scans were done with the auto-balancing and exposure settings of the scanner turned off (for consistency reasons - with it all turned off, the 'baseline' is the same.)

I won't make any opinions/observations, other than to say that the Old Manhattan wasn't shaken first, so it's not as dark in this scan as if you were to shake the bottle. Nearly all of my "darkest" are Noodler's.
1.) Noodler's Old Manhattan
2.) Noodler's Heart of Darkness
3.) Noodler's X-Feather
4.) Noodler's Polar Black
5.) Noodler's Bulletproof Black / PR UltraBlack / PR Velvet Black

First, the Fountain Pen Scans:
Note the difference in the Noodler's Bulletproof black between the unshaken and shaken samples.

And now the dip pen Scans: I chose a dip pen as it shows pretty much all of the shades of an ink as it goes from an exceedingly 'wet' line to a very dry line as the ink writes out.


Links to the 150 DPI scans:

Fountain 1
Fountain 2
Dip 1
Dip 2
Dip 3

Thanks much for posting this. I was tempted to get some Noodler's X-Feather to use on the crappy paper at the office, but it seems the anti-feathering component also makes it a kind of "reluctant" black. What is the perspective from where you're sitting?

Lorem ipsum dolar foobar! All glory to Pariah Zero!

Doug

While it is an ink that is less... attracted to the paper, (and the scans show it - the same nib looks much finer in X-Feather than the adjacent Heart of Darkness) X-Feather flows readily in the Javelin. The dry time is longer than other inks, but not excessively so - I don't have to wait minutes for the stuff to dry -- but I use fine points, not the BB points some adore.

Overall, I don't have any issues with X-Feather; it works well. (At least in a fountain pen - the stuff had trouble sticking to the glass dip pen - though X-Feather isn't unique in this.)

While I don't believe that swabs are at all representative of color for black inks, I followed a recommendation to try an X-Feather swab, just to see what happens.

While the ink swabbed onto the paper fine, the ink did behave differently - instead of wicking to the edges, the ink dried quickly on the edges without feathering, while the 'center' of the swath was still wet. I'd suspect that it's the ink 'liking' itself more than the paper. Either way, the color was consistent from edge to edge, so there's not much to complain about.

Is it just me, or does the Heart of Darkness seem to lay down wider than the Old Manhattan Black?

Thanks for putting this together! What a great comparison! After looking at this I do believe my next black will be Old Manhattan.

A cursory look has the Old Manhattan Black having an average line width of 3-4 pixels, with one that's black, the other two grey. The width of the Heart of Darkness looks to be essentially identical, averaging 3-4 pixels, with one that's black, and the other two pixels being grey. (Would be known as anti-aliasing if this were a rendered graphic; I don't know the correct term for a scanned graphic.)

Since the scan is a 150 DPI scan, a single pixel is ~0.17 mm. - which is a discernible amount to most.. So to get an idea how the line width of one compares, I'd have to re-scan the sheet using a higher resolution. (Doable, but that requires work and it is the weekend, after all...)

Truth be told, I was really pleased with my bottle of Heart of Darkness - mainly because it had a few unexpected things:
1.) When I pulled up the tab on the box, a neat pop-out instruction sheet of sorts was pulled into view, like a pop-up book.
2.) The instructions were for the clear, steel-nibbed, eyedropper-filled fountain pen that came with the bottle.

It's my first eyedropper pen, and it's a decent writer; it's an impressive pen for a freebie.

The little imp on my shoulder wants me to give it to somebody who I know will be stup... er, curious enough to unscrew it to see how it's refilled - most likely unscrewing the pen while holding it horizontally, unleashing a torrent of Noodler's cellulose-permanent dye onto the cotton-covered lap of the victim.

Sadly, the little cherubim on my other shoulder is more or less convinced the same thing will happen eventually, because, let's face it - people like to unscrew pens for no reason, and decades of "safe" ballpoint use has dulled our collective awareness...

It can't be a good thing when they're both predicting the same outcome. So it comes down to a question of intent and targeting.

In the end, I hate to waste good ink, so I'll take a chance with the cherubim.

Great review. So if you had to pick one, great deep black and minimal feathering, which one would you choose? Nathan.

I can totally identify with the pen unscrewing. I have to admit that I unscrew the fake blind cap on my Phileas almost constantly when it is being carried but not used at the moment. I have thus far resisted the urge to unscrew my free eyedropper loaded with Legal Lapis.

I'm still very torn about OMB versus HoD. I think it's pretty apparent I'm looking for any reason I can to choose HoD, so that's what I may just do. I think I might be okay with having just the second darkest black.

Thanks for this. It will be so valuable to the membership as a comparison and sampler. It is timely for me - I am considering a new Black, and this will give me food for thought.

Chris.

p.s. Moved to Comparisons, Scans and Tests

I like the name of the HoD...
I have found Aurora black to be the best black i have used, dark, flows well, does not feather on cheap paper...but the name is a bit boring.

Well, the paper used in this test was a pretty high-grade paper. However, it's pretty far from the only paper I use.

My paper for testing feathering is an ultra-cheap engineering pad - the paper is both very thin and low-quality. While as smooth as copy paper, the paper has visible bits of pulp in the sheet - looking like sheets of grass embedded in the page. Since it is so thin, it can't feather 'deep', meaning it has to spread out horizontally (and visibly). I've thought of trying toilet paper, but I don't want to clog up my pen with lint.

For a deep black with minimal feathering, X-Feather is a great ink. If the ink swab I've tried is any indication, it's an ink that not only doesn't feather, but in fact is more of an anti-feathering ink. The ink draws away from the edges of a line towards the center -- which is the opposite of what a feathering ink does. A feathering ink flows from the center of the line towards the edges as the pulp soaks up the ink. X-Feather is a very dark black ink, which is something I've come to expect from all of Noodler's blacks.

Though all told, the only Noodler's ink I've seen with feathering issues with is Polar Black - which is an excellent ink when writing inside an industrial deep freeze, but tends to feather on low-grade paper as the temperature becomes warmer. But Polar Black has only minor feathering on a lined notepad from Staples, and what modern ink feathers on high grade paper these days?


I think Aurora is a pretty neat name for anything. Aircraft, Cars, Pens, Computers, paint...

But I'm not overly impressed with the ink itself. It's a good all-around ink, to be sure, but the same can be said of many of the other inks I've used; Aurora doesn't "stand out", and is merely a good choice among many. I don't have any problem with Aurora ink, however - it is one of the better inks.

Thank you very much for your efforts - this is much better than most colour schedules I've seen on the web! I'm a nearly insane admirer of black ink, I'm always searching for the blackest black and your scan is very helpful and greatly done.

The pen that comes with HoD in the 4.5 oz bottle was the seller for me. That it turns out to be one of the better blacks is a bonus.

I also have polar black and of the two HoD writes smoother, and blacker. I never thought I'd care enough but it is visible in side by side uses. HoD appears more "neutral" to me.

For whatever reason, I had either forgotten or didn't know that HoD came with a pen. I was suprised when I opened the box and had the little leaflet glued to the lid - then I noticed this thing rattling around in the box after I grabbed the bottle.

Naturally, I inked the new pen right away. The sad part was that I ended up with a run of ink from the top to the bottom - ruining the label.

If I didn't like the ink so much already, I'd get Noodler's just for the labels.

I think you have just created the definitive comparison of black inks. This will be a reference document for many of us.

I used to use black ink exclusively. I loved the sharp contrast between jet black ink and bright white paper. Unfortunately, I work in a world of black typeface on white paper, so I now use blue ink so my annotations will stand out from the page.

Thank you. I hope to improve it as well; still having the sheets, one thing I've decided is to provide a higher resolution copy - in many instances the lines are only 2-3 pixels wide, which doesn't necessarily show the color of the ink as accurately as I'd like (namely because it is anti-aliased in software and looks pixelated & more grey)


So you work in newspapers?

I use colored ink for annotations as well, for pretty much the same reason - however the bulk of my scribblings are in black, hence my (obvious) love for black ink.

Ha Ha Ha... No, I don't work in newspapers. I work for the Federal Government. The bureaucracy thrives on paperwork, most of it printed on black-and-white laser printers or copied on black-and-white xerox machines.

Great Review!! Thanks for putting it together! If I ever use black ink, I want it to be as dark as possible! I had some PR Grey Flannel and sold it because it seemed so washed out. Now I have Levenger Smokey and actually like it. However it may be because I am using it a pen with a flexy nib and am laying down a big line of gray. Grey really seems to be quite weak when used with a fine nib.

You've mentioned that Private Reserve Velvet Black is as dark als Ultra Black. Did you test it with your Sheaffer Javelin only, or also with your other pens? Because from my experience, Velvet Black does flow poorly and is a bit pale, while Ultra Black is has a great flow and seems also darker to me, but has a brownish undertone.

Very nice png scans. They all look pretty much the same.
(Black is black?)

I've tested many of the inks in other pens - the Javelin was a pen I didn't feel bad about the wear & tear of inking, flushing, inking, flushing, etc.


I'm somewhat dissapointed with the scans myself; I've been meaning to make some higher resolution scans of it, as that would better show the difference in the darkness of the inks. Part of the problem, however, is that different blacks have different properties when viewed from oblique angles - some are black, some have a bluish tint, others a reddish tint. Others are slightly green... and so on. Some are a bit glossy, others are very flat.

Unfortunately, scanners aren't really able to capture the way light captures the ink in that way. Some of the inks are liked because of the very subtle tints that aren't that visible in a scan. (Noodler's Zhivago comes to mind...)

Did you have the feeling that the inks look very much the same in other inks? I'm just curious because in your scans/observations the PR Velvet Black is marked to be quite similar to Ultra Black in colour and darkness, but from all what I have observed, the Ultra Black is quite a dark and saturated ink whilst the Velvet Black is quite pale and the flow seems to be poor to me. Perhaps I just get a wrong bottle?

I did the exact same thing! Bummer, because it's a cool label. I really love HoD as an ink, though. It's in my XF Lamy 2000 right now, and I'm always just looking for excuses to jot something down with it :-)

Awesome, Pariah Zero! Many thanks for this wonderful comparison!

One Noodler's black that isn't there is Swishmix Nile Ebony, which I've recently rediscovered. As far as blackness goes, it's right up there with Old Manhattan and Heart of Darkness -- it may even be blacker than either of those, if that's possible. And although it's a quicker-drying ink, the feathering is minimal, if any (comparable, I would say, to HoD). If I recall correctly, Nile Ebony is a mix of equal parts Swisher Midnight Black and Noodler's Bulletproof Black. (Swisher Midnight Black may be the absolute blackest of the black, but it's only recommended for certain kinds of paper. And it's not bulletproof, as I recall.)

Thanks for such an extensive comparison! I see you did this awhile ago, but if you still have the pages, can I be greedy and ask for a spill / soak test?