What Was Your First Bottle Of Ink

[Ambrose Bierce]

Just out of curiosity, what was everyone's first bottle and why did you pick that one. Samples do not count, it has to be a full fledged bottle of ink. Personally I got a 4.5oz bottle of Noodler's X-Feather. I choose it because I wanted a big bottle so I could get a pen with it, I thought black was the only "appropriate" fountain pen ink color (boy was I wrong), and the website I bought it from was running a special on X-Feather so it was cheaper than other black Noodler's bottles. All-in-all I am happy with a my purchase, even if it was not founded in much knowledge and I lost the preppy . So how do all of your first ink purchases stack up next to mine?

[afern401]

My first bottle was J. Herbin Perle Noire. I chose Herbin on the suggestion of the proprietor and picked black because I wanted to start out with something pretty straight forward and because the selection was fairly limited.

[takkun]

After a few packs of Lamy cartridges, I settled on Pelikan 4001 blue-black. I liked the richness and opacity, and the slight color change as it dried.

 

Definitely missing it, now that it's discontinued.

[redisburning]

waterman florida blue.

[Pentulant]

Noodler's Purple Martin...because who doesn't love purple.

[Brian K]

Skrip blue-black, 40 years or so ago because it was the only bottled ink available to me.

[jmccarty3]

Very difficult to remember back that far, but it probably was Skrip blue.

[Lou Erickson]

The 4.5oz bottle of Baystate Blue! With the free Preppy and brush pen. And a Pilot Metropolitan.

[arrScott]

Private Reserve Sherwood Green. I already has some cartridges of black, blue, and Black Cherry in hand, and of the (few) bottles at the store, Sherwood Green looked the most interesting. Thing is, I quickly discovered Goulet Pens, and their ink samples, and to this day, nearly two years later, I've never actually inked up a pen from that first bottle of Sherwood Green. One of these days ...

[ScienceChick]

My first bottle was a gift of Levenger Pinkly; the first bottle I bought was Pelikan 4001 Turquoise. Still love that ink.

[WaskiSquirrel]

Parker Quink Permanent Black

 

I hated the Quink Washable Blue that came with the pen and, once I got a converter, the next thing was a bottle of ink.

[fromthecrowd]

My first bottle was purple Russian ink Raduga. The only brand and color we were allowed to use at primary school. It was an awful ink. Speaking of my own first free choice it was Waterman Black. I thought that black gives most contrast and is easier to read. But later it turned out that certain shades of blue are more legible.

[BBU]

Mine was X-Feather too, but in the regular-sized bottle. I wanted a permanent, multi-purpose black, but thanks to poor timing, the regular black wasn't available. The ink is nice, but it can smudge even when dry, so I'm still hoping to find another permanent black that I deem perfect. Perhaps I may even abstain from buying any other colour before I do that even though I do have interest in other colours. I guess I just find it hard to move on to the next thing when the last one didn't make me perfectly content.

[Riayain]

Lamy Safari blue. Bought it along with my Lamy Safari, which was my first fountain pen. Expected to use it. As it turns out, I didn't like the color. Too boring. Second bottle was Iroshizuku Yama-Budo. Nice purple, but too bright for my tastes. That's when I realized that I liked dark inks that bordered on black...

[chewytulip]

My first was Noodler's North African Violet. I thought it would be my "signature" color. I thought I would only buy one pen. One ink. Ha.

[JimCouch]

Pendemonium's exclusive Legal Lapis or Noodler's Aircorp Blue/Black, can't remeber which. I may have purchased both at the same time.

[maksim]

Haha, yes, Raduga purple was my first too... But not by choice, parents bought when I was in grade school.

 

Recently, when I bought my own, Waterman Florida Blue

[NotRosie]

My first was Lamy Black. I knew Lamy had a good reputation in the fountain pen world, which is what drew me to it in the first place. Thing is, I didn't do much research and I thought "black ink is black ink, they're all the same!" but I ended up being rather disappointed with the saturation of the ink, and so I bought a bottle of Noodler's Black shortly after. I gave away the Lamy bottle to a friend.

[ink-syringe]

Waterman Florida Blue or something Pilot.

[zaddick]

Lamy blue because it was on sale when I bought my first real pen and I needed some ink. Eventually I dumped it out but I kept the bottle. If now houses some J. Herbin ink.