I recently acquired a Pilot Vanishing Point pen with a broad nib. I tried the pen with a converter using both Parker Quink blue and Pelican 4001 blue inks. The pen decidedly wrote better using the Quink ink! It wrote more smoothly with more glide over the paper. Also, the lines appeared to be wetter and a little wider. Does anyone know why the pen should react so differently with these two inks? Is it a peculiarity of the pen or is the Parker ink just a better ink? Any information would be appreciated. Thanks, Ron C.

From the same pen, Parker Quink Blue flows more freely than Pelikan Blue. However, the latter is far from being the stingiest on the market.

Ink can differ quite a bit from one company to another. Even in different pens the same ink can look different. I don't think its a case of one ink being better than another, but the specific combination of ink and pen. In another pen the Parker Quink may end up looking worse than the Pelikan. Just part of the whole fountain pen adventure.