I love my Moleskine, and I'd love if people would share their ink experiences with me.

Works good for me:

Noodler's black in every pen I own - including my fat as hell favorite Red Medium Nibbed Safari. No bleeding, only the occasional feather.
Waterman Blue-Black - Ditto - but I prefer it in my thinner nibs because it looks darker.
Noodler's Red Black - it's in the Fine Safari and works great.
Diamine Imperial Purple - but I've only tried it with the EF Safari.

Works ok

Noodler's LeColour Royale - Bleeds with every pen except for my Safari EF, and the Hero 51 copy. I love the color too much to give up on it.

Does not Work

Waterman Purple - Even bleeds with my thinnest nib, the Hero 51 copy.
Noodler's Polar Blue

Inks that worked, I just didn't like them

Diamine Registar's Blue
Diamine Brilliant Red
Lamy Blue
Private Reserve Tanzanite

Interesting idea. People have complained here a lot about the consistency in paper quality on the Moleskines. I personally haven't seen a problem ... but I've just realized, that might be because I'm using an appropriate ink!

I nearly always use Watermans. I've had Havana brown, blue-black, and Florida-blue (from a bottle) and blue-black cartridges all going quite regularly for about umpteen Moleskine journals, umpteen nib sizes and pen wetnesses. I also have some Parker black Quink and it seems fine, too, though I've only ever used it in a rather broad but kinda dry (does that make sense?) Sheaffer TIP-dip with that weird Sheaffer two-layer nib, IIRC. No problems with them. Haven't used others. Now I'm curious to see what the purple by W will be like ...

It depends upon the nib, too. Some inks will work well with some Fine or Extra Fine nibs but won't work with a Medium nib.

I've used Noodlers Blue-Black, Tahitian Pearl (in a dry Early Touchdown), Noodlers Blue, Waterman Florida Blue, Waterman Havana Brown, a mix of Noodlers Blue and La Couleur Royale. However, all have been with fine or better nibs.

Private Reserve inks don't seem to work well for me.

I only have two PR inks and no matter what nib I use, they are horrible in my Moleskines, except for the weekly planner which is really robust.

In my well-behaved books, many more inks will do. In the unruly books (in my case the ruled ones, ha) the most reliable are:

Noodler's bulletproof black
Diamine Prussia blue
Diamine Sapphire blue
Lamy blue
Lamy blue black (but it's pale and I fret about the iron-gallness of it)

I recently found a turquoise that worked (yay) after baffing out badly on Lamy and Pelikan Turquoise - Noodler's Navajo turquoise works great, with just a drop of water added to about a mL of ink. Diluting it slightly made it behave much better. I found that out accidentally by trying to get the last bit of ink out of a PTP vial

Inks that feather and bleed a bit, but I like the color enough to accept it:

Noodler's Aircorp Blue black
J. Herbin Violette Pensee
Parker Quink Blue Black - I love the color of this
Legal Lapis - this one is borderline and depends a lot on the nib for me
Caran d'Ache Storm

Absolutely no go:
PR Blue Suede
PR Chocolat
Noodler's Polar Blue
Dosteovesky
Mata Hari's cordial (wah! because the color is great)

I've had the following inks work well (mostly in Lamy LH nib, some testing in M nib):

• Lamy Blue - no bleeding/feathering, just find the colour a bit run-of-the-mill
• Caran d'Ache Blue (not a Colours of the Earth series) - no bleeding/feathering, shades nicely but washed out
• Pelikan Royal Blue - no bleeding/feathering but even more boring than Lamy Blue
• Montblanc Racing Green - very mild feathering, no bleeding, love the colour
• Montblanc Bordeaux - very mild feathering, no bleeding; trying to get used to the colour, it's a bit washed out but shades beautifully
• Montblanc Violet - PERFECT!!! I've had zero problems with this, looks great on the paper, no bleeding/feathering, lubricates well, like writing on glass

The following are "medium":

• J. Herbin Ambre de Birmanie - interesting colour, shades well, some feathering/minor bleeding. Really looks interesting in 1.5i nib but bleeds in that one.
• Pelikan Brilliant Brown - no bleeding or feathering but the colour doesn't stay true on Moleskine. I don't think it's just the cream-colour of the paper, it almost looks like a chemical reaction that happens as the ink dries and turns it kind of brown-with-olive. Doesn't happen on white non-Moleskine paper.

So far I only have one ink that really doesn't work at all on Moleskine.... Private Reserve Orange Crush (especially in M-nib, it's a bit better in LH-nib). Bleeds like crazy, feathers badly. Disappointing since I really, really love the colour.

I bought a small Rhodia pad for scribbling/testing/comparisons and the results were interesting. My best-performing ink in the Moleskine, MB Violet, actually feathers a bit in the Rhodia. Meanwhile the PR Orange Crush is absolutely beautiful, even in a wet 1.5i nib (dries slowly, but the shading is great and no bleeding/feathering). The MB Bordeaux in 1.5i nib is much richer than on Moleskine.

Various Noodler's, Lamy, and J. Herbin inks have worked fine for me in Moleskine over several years, and with various pens.

With my XF-XXF pens, pretty much every ink I've tried works on Moleskines. Mostly, I use:

Noodlers: Legal Lapis, Tahitian Pearl, Walnut, Luxury Green, Swishmix Burgundy, Lexington Gray, Semiole Sepia
Montblanc: English Racing Green, Blue-Black (cartridges only)
Herbin: Poussier de Lune

Occasionally I also use random cartridges, such as Lamy, Pelikan and Sailor, again all with no problems.

QM2

I've beaten the drum on occasion for Moleskine to just "go away" but with the recent acquisition of a Sailor demo with that stiff as a nail fine nib and the Sailor cartridge I'm trying in it, I might have found a combination that works. So far so good.

Almost all of my pens are Fine nibbed so even though Fines differ from manufacturer to manufacturer at least they're kinda-sorta close.

Works Well
PR Tanzanite
Noodler's Tianenmen, Ellis Island (FPH)
Montblanc Blue, BR Green

Sorta Works
FPN Tulipe Noire
PR Sherwood Green, DC Supershow Blue, Black Cherry, Copper Burst, Orange Crush
Noodler's Blue, Saguaro Wine, Cayenne
Sailor blue, blue/black
Montblanc Black

Questionable
FPN Galileo

I use fine and extra fine nibs for writing in my moleskines. Both Mont Blanc and Lamy inks seem to work well. I haven't tried my new PR Burgundy Mist in them yet.

I use Moleskin large Reporter's Notebooks with a number of Lamy pens (F and M) and a Waterman Phileas (M). The inks I have used that work for me are:

Lamy Black
Lamy Violet
Lamy Blue
Lamy Blue-Black
PR Naples Blue
PR Midnight Blues
Waterman Florida Blue

I don't use much Lamy Blue or Blue-Black anymore; the Blue is dull, and the Blue-Black is too faint. However, the ink played nice with my Moleskin.

Cheers,
A.J.

I have found that Mont Blanc blue and racing green are fine, as is blue Parker's Quink. Visconte black is good too - if you like black ink.
Just got hold of some Diamine MediterraneanBlue and it bleeds and feathers like you wouldn't believe.

Among many others, Noodler's "Lapindigo", a mix of equal parts Legal Lapis and Iraqi Indigo (now called The Violet Vote). This one comes to mind because I just posted a picture of it in another thread. Either of the constituent inks works fine, too. No bleedthrough (on this particular Moleskine, anyway; the paper quality can vary), even when applied with a very wet-writing pen (OMAS Arte Italiana, Paragon size, medium nib, from John Mottishaw).

This is excellent. It's making my PTP sample choices much easier....

I use Lamy Black, and it works well. There's a touch of bleedthrough, but IMO it's quite acceptable. I generally use a Parker 51 with a fine to medium nib.

Not many problems here. I do write on the front and back of each page and have noticed that the backs are more likely to feather a little than the fronts. I'm not sure I can even call it feathering... more like spider veins. Interestingly enough, I did notice a bit more today, but I was writing with a Pilot Varsity that I'd bought at an art shop because I'd left my other pens at home.

I trade off the pens I'm writing with a lot, so each page will have three or four different colors/inks on it. Right now I'm loving the new J. Herbin Larmes de Cassis in a Preppy ED (pink, naturally). Beautiful color and it seems to behave just fine in the Moleskine I use for a journal (large, lined).

I wasn't gonna say anything but I noticed the difference in behavior on Moleskine pages between back and front, too. Both sides are nevertheless fine for my (admittedly conservative) usual ink choices.

Wow...I'm not crazy. It's fine till you get the book where the paper is "backward" and the good side is on the side you don't generally write on.

Just got Visconti Blue into one of my AL-Stars. Gorgeous rich blue, goes on nice and wet, minimal feathering... only problem is, on Moleskine it smudges, even after drying for an hour. Doesn't happen on regular white notebook paper. Smears on Rhodia, too.

Waterman Florida Blue
Sheaffer Skrip Blue (the new version)
Dupont Blue
Montblanc Blue

The key is NOT to use a wet writer. Less ink on the page always gives better results with a Moleskine, no matter what the ink.

Hello from Manila!

For my pocket ruled Moleskine, I use a vintage Parker 75 with an XF nib and Parker Quink blue-black. No feathering. IMHO it's the nib (pref F or XF) rather than the ink. There was feathering on the paper when I used other FPs with medium nibs, even with the same ink.

Just as CharlieB said, "less ink on the page always gives better results"... as Moleskine paper is rather thin.

I have a super-wet broad-to-medium Sheaffer that's been "smoothed" and I've been using Parker Quink black with it in a Moleskine with it for months now. No feathering, no problems.

What do you mean smoothed?

Mercy: the pen was bought from a fellow FPN-er, who deliberately wrote some figure-eights with it on some ultra-fine-grit stuff called Micro-Mesh to improve the smoothness. It's a rather broad nib in the first place, and this further grinding (it wasn't done on a grinder so I'd rather call it "smoothing") probably further increased the amount of ink that it delivers, since the surface which connects to the paper has widened and flattened considerably.

Nevertheless, as pointed out, that wetness has caused me no problems on Moleskine papers (yet).

Clear as mud?

I have found that Bay State Blue in my Parker "51" Demi fine point works the best. No smearing, no bleed through, and it's bright!
PMS

Update on the Diamine Imperial Purple. I currently have it in a Fine Safari, and it's writing very wet and very broad.

But still no bleeding or feathering in my Moleskine! Yipee! I'm off to PTP to buy a bottle.

Totally agree with this. As an example: Montblanc Violet works very well in a Moleskine in a Lamy AL-Star, LH or M nib. Put it in a 1.1mm italic nib..... different story. Gorgeous colour & lines, but bleeds through like mad.

If a "F" nib is writing "very broad", isn't that feathering? That's what happens to me, too. F and EF nibs sometimes look more like fat M's, but as long as it doesn't actually bleed through the page or spread out through the little capillaries in the page (i.e. as long as a line stays a line) it doesn't bother me too much.

I thought that feathering was those little spider vein off-shoots..... Am I wrong?

If a pen writes wetter with a particular kind of ink, I was under the impression that the ink is "wetter" than dryer.

Here's what works for me:

Sensa Meridian F nib with my own mix (Noodler's Luxury Blue + PR Tanzanite).
Esterbrook 9450 nib with PR Tanzanite, Lux Blue and Aircorps Blue-Black.
Conklin Duragraph M nib with Noodler's Ellis Island (although on the back side of the page I noticed some odd, almost water-proof like behavior from one area of the paper. The ink actually beaded a little. I don't know if I spilled something on it or what, but the ink did eventually dry. It does look odd though.)
Sheaffer Fineline 341 nib with Lux Blue.

What does NOT work:
Esterbrook 9450 nib with Baystate blue. Feathers like nothing I've ever seen.

Everything else seems ok. I haven't tried the Baystate in another pen with the Moleskine. I just use the little black Moleskines with the sewn binding, not the books. 'Cause I'm cheap.

I think perhaps we may both be right. The "spider vein off-shoots" are clearly the classical symptom of feathering, but I think that the ink "spreading out" to make a line broader than the actual nib size is also a type of feathering. I could be wrong, though. I often am. That's why I hang out here. This site has a ton of knowledgeable and friendly people!

I believe that the bad ink behavior you've experienced with Waterman's Purple and Noodlers Le Couleur Royale is due to the Moleskine. I write almost exclusively with those two colors, and have used everything from a Pilot Prera Fine to a Montblanc Medium with no problems at all!!! Yes, in my moleskines!!

I've used the following in Moleskines which work well:

In Waterman Phileas, fine nib: Waterman Havana Brown, cartridge.

In Parker 51's (several with F and XF nibs): Aurora Black, MB Blue-Black, Diamine WES Imperial Blue.