Hello FPN,
I bought a bottle of Diamine Quartz Black ink since I had heard good things about the brand. So far I have not been impressed. The color is beautiful, but I loaded my Binderized Pelikan M200 with it and the pen started skipping and I had to write a few loops to get it started after capping. It also didn't seem to lubricate very well - I felt like I was pushing the pen rather than having it glide across the paper. Note that I cleaned the pen thoroughly before filling it.

This pen is practically brand new and has worked perfectly with Noodler's Manhattan Black (which I thought was much more likely to be problematic than any Diamine). Has anyone else had any problems with Diamine Quartz Black, or any other Diamine color? Your advice is much appreciated.

I haven't tried Diamine Quartz Black, but have not had trouble with the few other Diamine inks I have used.

Manhattan Black is probably superior in many respects in terms of permanency and blackness. Why not just stick with it?

I dearly love my Manhattan Black, but I've ordered a Parker 51 from the PENguin and am a little leery of using Noodler's ink in a vintage pen. Hence the switch - I was testing it out.