So, this is how they look:

Yaaaaay, Levenger ink scans!!! I was hoping someone would do some someday. Thank you.

Dave

My pleasure! I've never understood why they aren't on the Levenger site. One note: the Cobalt Blue is a lovely color, but it seems to take about a week to dry. It's the longest drying ink I have and I'm up to over 140 bottles.

what paper?

Cobalt is one of my all-time faves as long as I don't use it on a very slick paper or a cheap envelope. I'm so mad at them for near doubling their price though so I don't buy any of their inks anymore.

Cardinal Red is, IMO, one of the truest, brightest reds out there.

You cocoa looks better than mine (from many years ago) which had grayish cast to it. Wonder if they've changed the formula.

Thanks for posting this.

The sample here is on Carta's bound notebook paper. I've also tried it on cheap copier paper and cheap number 10 envelopes. No doubt, I've tried it on other papers, but to be honest the bottle got shelved pretty quickly as 'too smeary' after a very short rotation. That was quite some time ago. I'm having trouble remembering what exactly I used it on, besides the reference pages in my ink samplers. Also, many of my nibs are stubs and the broader italics, so perhaps a finer nib would yield better results?

It's obviously working for KCat, so perhaps she would be kind enough to share the winning combination formula? It would be worth it, as the Cobalt is a very pretty blue.

Thanks for the compliment on my bottle of Levenger Cocoa. It's probably from last year's vintage, but I do buy ink lots on eBay or on the Marketplace from time to time, so it could be older.

I love the Cardinal Red as well, and the Gemstone Green is a perennial favorite. I sold a duplicate bottle of Amethyst to another FPN'er and they seem to like it as much as I always have. One of these days I'll get around to a full review and test things a bit more systematically.

Thank you so much for posting this. I really love the Levenger inks (and not only because of their truly beautiful bottles), but it's so hard to find colour samples. Mostly, I only see Cobalt Blue, but nothing about the other colours. And the website of Levenger doesn't provide any messy scan. So one has to guess what the colour could look like on paper ...

Have you also some samples of the slightly wild-colours? As you've 140 bottles of ink, maybe there is one or two of the slightly wild collection among your ink cabinet ...

I know the Cobalt Blue has issues of slow drying and smearing, but I haven't noticed something serious concerning this. My Cobalt Blue behaves very well, it doesn't dry significantly faster or slower than other inks, although surely it isn't a quick drying ink. And I don't get smearing problems, at least not more than I'm having with Private Reserve. But maybe it's because I use F nibs rather than B nibs which don't put that much ink onto the paper.

That's my experience with Cobalt too. However, this problem can largely be fixed by dilution, either with water or by following Lloyd's suggestion (I think it was his, at any rate) of mixing it c. 50:50 with Nakaya Blue. This results in a marvelous colour that dries much faster and doesn't stay sticky; I dare say there are other inks that could be mixed with it to similar effect. (But even then, you can't leave it unattended in a pen for terribly long, because as it dries out in a pen the stickiness etc. returns.) Undiluted, this stuff is a menace, turning into syrup when left in a pen for more than a few days. I once let a couple of drops drip from a pen in which it had been sitting for a few days onto a piece of paper; it still wasn't even close to dry 24 hours later and, for all I know, would still be wet now (a year later) if I hadn't thrown it away....

Simon

I would have been using an XF nib (Hero - very fine) on fairly inexpensive papers like Mead (read: absorbant). I did have trouble with it smearing on cheap office-type envelopes because they have a lot of sizing. Honestly haven't used it in a long time which means I haven't used it on Rhodia or other slick papers. Also means it may be a more problematic mix now than it was then (several years ago) but I doubt it since I'd heard the grumbles then. I think I just hadn't discovered the better papers then.

I also had it in a Lamy Safari for a while which was a bit dry writing.

Why so little use of an ink I love? I only have a small amount and I'm not going to buy more. Silly, eh?

Your memory is correct; it was me. I use 10 parts Levenger Cobalt to 10 parts Pilot Blue to 1 part Noodlers Black. This mix has good water-resistance in the Pilot/Noodlers portion of the ink and a deep richness due to the Cobalt.

[Your memory is correct; it was me. I use 10 parts Levenger Cobalt to 10 parts Pilot Blue to 1 part Noodlers Black. This mix has good water-resistance in the Pilot/Noodlers portion of the ink and a deep richness due to the Cobalt.
[/quote]

Is Pilot blue the same as Namiki blue?

Yes.

Maybe someday (not a promise!) I'll try mixing with Levenger Cobalt. I do miss that color.

Now we need someone to do the same with the "Slightly Wilder" ink collection from Levenger!

....take a look here:

current line of Levenger inks


Michael

Sorry folks, I'm way over my attachment limit. You can still see the scans of all Levenger's Classic inks here:

Levenger Classic Inks